[Ketchup face]

Would a league format (ala the Premiership football league or Rugby League Super League) work in WWE/wrestling?

Think 8 wrestlers per league, each fight each other once in a month and then a play off and Grand Final between the top 2 or 4 at the PPV. Bottom wrestler is relegated with the top from the league below getting promoted.

Could have leagues as follows;

Main Event 8
Upper Mid Card 8
Lower Mid Card 8
Next 8

Obviously you would need jobbers in each league but if you scheduled it well the play off system could be great and would add some meaning to all filler matches on Raw and Smackdown. Maybe leave the Main Eventers out of it and just use it for Mid car wrestlers though.

It would give those without a feud something to do.

 

[amhlilhaus]

no, they would have to totally retrain the entire audience. it would take too long, it would cost them too much money.

I don't even think they could do a round robin champion carnival right

 

[cynical_ad]

It's something that I'm sure has crossed most peoples minds, and when I used to play Smackdown 1 way back in the day I set up my own little league and thought it would be pretty cool in real life. I just couldn't personally see it in WWE for various reasons, especially if every match were to be booked as a 'league' match.

 

[FlyingBear]

I watched TNA once and remember seeing something similar. It was awful because people were always interfering in each other's matches.

 

[dxbender]

Definitely shouldn't happen in WWE, though there's ideas like this that I'm surprised other wrestling companies don't try. Instead of all these companies just trying to be like WWE except caring more about wrestling over entertainment, they should try to do things that make them stand out so much more from a typical wrestling company.

 

[RiC David]

Aside from any other issues, the commentators would have to treat the matches like sporting events where there's actual interest in who wins and who shows themselves to be better at the competition of wrestling. Right now they barely even treat the matches as sources of entertainment, let alone competition, because they don't even focus on the matches and instead talk about seemingly everything other than what's happening in the ring.

[name=dxbender]Definitely shouldn't happen in WWE, though there's ideas like this that I'm surprised other wrestling companies don't try. Instead of all these companies just trying to be like WWE except caring more about wrestling over entertainment, they should try to do things that make them stand out so much more from a typical wrestling company.

It's a shame that we've been so conditioned to separate wrestling from entertainment - a good wrestling match, made better by good announcing, is entertaining. I know what you're getting at, you mean promos, storylines etc. but when we/they talk about entertainment vs. wrestling it reinforces the idea that you have the wrestling...because ugh you kind of have to, then you have the entertaining stuff! The thing is, it's not just "hardcore" fans like us who find wrestling to be the main source of entertainment - just listen to what the crowds respond to; the audience isn't in fits of laughter when Cena tells childish jokes and does photoshop skits, they're going wild when great wrestlers like Bryan, The Shield, Cesaro etc. perform in the ring.