2. More Time For The Creative Team To Improve Their Efforts
Developing content for RAW, SmackDown, NXT, Main Event, PPVs and house shows every week can be a daunting task. Through the years, wrestling fans have complained about the WWE writing staff and its lack of interesting storylines or not pushing certain superstars. There have also been numerous reports on wrestling websites about last minute changes to scripts on the day of the shows which sometimes do not work out. For an example of fan frustration about WWE creative decisions, Cageside Seats writer with the username AGuyNamedJason said, in regards to Survivor Series of last year, "The Survivor Series stipulation was proven null and void in five weeks." WWE fans have long complained about the lack of consistency and such complaints persist today. Maybe a little time off is the answer. With an off-season from the night after Wrestlemania until the first RAW of September, the creative team has four months to formulate storylines for a 6-7 month period. Any changes to the scripts can be made well in advance and the creative team can properly build up superstars and have storylines coherent enough for fans to follow and be interested in.An example of the creative team using long-term buildup for a feud is The Rock vs. John Cena for Wrestlemania 28. This feud was set a year in advance at the night after Wrestlemania 27 with a handshake between the two agreeing to the match. They tagged together at Survivor Series 2011. Cena brought back his rapper gimmick for one night. Cena made it clear that he had to beat The Rock. The buildup was balanced enough not to have too many confrontations between the two, but enough to get the point across that this would be one of the biggest matches of all time. And when The Rock pinned Cena, this raised skepticism as to whether Cena would turn heel or not. The match proved to be a business success because according to WWE.com, "preliminary estimates showed that WrestleMania, featuring the historic 'Once in a Lifetime' Match between The Rock and John Cena, garnered 1.3 million pay-per-view buys." Now just imagine if the creative team took the time for every feud the way they did for The Rock vs. John Cena. An off-season would certainly facilitate that. Also, according to a survey taken that asked "Should WWE have an Off-season?", one respondent said "I think having the break can help both the roster and writers take sometime to relax, heal and develop bigger and better storylines." It can be argued that more improvement is needed to fix the creative problems in WWE programming. But hitting the proverbial pause button and taking a few months off would be a great start. This would also result in my last reason for why WWE should take an off-season.