The Wrestling Guy – WWE should take ideas from the territories

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John Morrison vs. Dolph Ziggler should be booked as one of the best feuds possible in order to elevate both men at little cost to the company in terms or promotion or airtime. To do that, the WWE should take pieces from other all-time great feuds and mix and match to create an epic war that will stand the test of time. Merely reading how these ideas mesh gives the fan an idea of how well they would work together if the WWE were simply willing.

The WWE often struggles with creativity, especially when it comes to getting wrestlers and angles over. This needn’t be the case. The WWE has an absurdly huge tape library from many of the best promotions in history. Every idea needn’t be an original and the wheel only needed to be invented once. Look at Hollywood with their constant re-makes and sequels of proven franchises. Wrestling can follow this and has an advantage- most current fans won’t realize what they’re seeing is re-hashed. The New World Order WCW Invasion was nothing more than a re-do of the UWFi vs. New Japan feud from years earlier, but only well after the fact was that little detail publicized.

And that was a fairly contemporary feud. If the WWE were to go back to territories, which were, of course, regional, their ideas would have only been seen by a small group of fans in specific places well over twenty years ago. The WWE recognizes the brilliance of territory era wrestling with their road agents as everyone from Arn Anderson to Barry Windham was trained and learned the ropes in a territory. On the creative end, Jim Ross, Michael Hayes and Dusty Rhodes were all of extreme importance in that era. So why limit the usefulness of that era to people? The ideas were and remain excellent vehicles for storytelling that new fans would love and deserve a chance to see played out.

The WWE should look to the ideas of great bookers like Bill Watts, Buck Robley, Bill Dundee, Dutch Mantell, George Scott, Ole Anderson, and, of course, the more-than-legendary Eddie Graham in order to get their wrestlers and angles as over as possible and make money. With nothing more than minor tweaks, these angles can help the WWE make more money. The re-hashed ideas of Hollywood writers aren’t increasing ratings or buys, so why not use the amazing ideas found within the business itself?

Glazer is a former senior editor at Pulse Wrestling and editor and reviewer at The Comics Nexus.