WWE PPV Plans, Big Show Update, MMA Possibilities

News

Due to recent disappointing PPV buyrates and PPV competition from UFC, Vince McMahon has decided to change WWE’s approach to their brand-specific, ‘B-level’ events. As with Smackdown’s No Way Out, which featured John Cena, Shawn Michaels, Johnny Nitro, Maria, Candice Michelle and Jeff Hardy from Raw, plus Bobby Lashley, Kelly Kelly, Layla and Brooke from ECW, all future B-shows will feature wrestlers from all three brands. The brand extension itself will not be dropped but the top talent will continue to appear more frequently on the other brand’s TV shows too.

Stephanie McMahon sent out a memo stating that Vince wants more emphasis on interbrand matches for PPV shows to exploit the potential for fresh match-ups. He wants angles to build such matches on more than one TV show, with all of them having a greater mix in building interbrand matches. Plans are already in place to have Batista, The Undertaker, Rob Van Dam and Bobbly Lashley appear at Raw’s Backlash PPV on 29th April.

The move to increase star power for the $39.95 PPV price tag does mean that lower level workers will find it harder to get onto the cards and earn a PPV pay-off. This means there will likely be more Gauntlet Matches, Tag Team Turmoil, Diva Invitationals and the like in order to get the undercard guys a spot. Buyrates are expected to increase at least temporarily, as the old method was no longer holding up since people were largely just ordering the Big Four PPV events. Even last year’s Unforgiven, loaded with a Hell in the Cell and a TLC match, did disappointing business, as did No Mercy, December to Dismember, and even Armageddon, which did a respectable number but not near the levels the company was expecting for the Batista/Cena ‘dream team’ main event. The only brand specific shows to have done relatively strong business in 2006 were ECW One Night Stand, which has not held up at all since the TV show began, and Vengeance, which was built around the return of DX but they have not been able to sustain the buyrates in subsequent Raw PPVs.

Some PPV dates have been added for 2008:
– New Year’s Revolution on 6th January…
– Royal Rumble on 27th January…
– No Way Out on 17th February…
– WrestleMania XXIV on 30th March…

Vince and Shane McMahon recently discussed the possibility of starting a WWE MMA project. Shane is all for it but Vince is colder on the idea. Vince is concerned that the MMA market in the USA is already oversaturated. Shane feels that, apart from UFC, nobody is doing it successfully on an national basis.

WWE offered The Big Show $250,000 for a one-year deal through February 2008 for intellectual property rights but it was turned down. The deal would not have required working any dates but would have kept him aligned with the company so they’d have first dibs on him if and when he decided to return. Such deals are expected to become more common with talent that no longer wrestles full-time, so WWE can produce new merchandise for them and keep them from working with TNA or MMA groups.

Credit: Wrestling Observer newsletter (click here for subscription information)