10 Quick Fixes For WWE When Crowds Return
2. A Big Return/Signing
Yes, that's a picture of CM Punk.
No, this is not an entry campaigning for his return.
Not entirely, anyway. But if not 'The Straight Edge Superstar', somebody. WWE knows that so few from its current crop are bonafide crossover stars and/or performers that are as connected to the fanbase as the wrestlers of old. If this wasn't the case, Raw wouldn't turn into a retirement home once a quarter when USA want numbers.
Not that the wrestlers are really to blame. They are, more than ever (and to quote Reg Rogers' hack Director in Friends) talking props. Some hurried and haggard writer tries to imagine what Vince McMahon might like and thrusts it upon a wrestler, and that's if McMahon himself hasn't torn it up ten minutes before airtime.
The weekly rank-and-file, with very few exceptions, are just that, and if McMahon still understands anything about the fundamentals of his own product it's in the value of over-delivering. Nobody expects CM Punk, so holy f*cking sh*t what if you delivered him? Nobody yet knows where Daniel Bryan will land, so why not make sure it's back in front of your crowds? Nick Khan dropped Becky Lynch's name recently - that can't have been an accident?
Fleeting glances at live crowds have shown us that 2021 is a time for heroes. In the absence of bringing many to the table of late, WWE should have a root down the sofa for the ones of old.