Okay, so this one is pretty big, in that it would change the booking philosophy of one of WWE's major shows, but something is clearly not working. Paul Heyman should take over creative for SmackDown. For starters, he's already under contract to WWE. Saying TNA or GFW should hire Heyman would be a great idea if he was available to them, but he's not. WWE has him, and just don't use him enough. Heyman is the best promo man in all of wrestling right now, but due to his client's extreme part-time schedule, he doesn't have to show up very often. SmackDown is soon moving to Thursday. Ratings have been slowly sliding lately, and one of the big reasons is that it's just a blander version of Raw. The show has no identity any more. What could get people watching again (especially the young male demographic that all advertisers crave) is giving the show a bit of an edge with Heyman at the helm. I'm not talking about PG-14 television, and riskier material. Heyman is surely creative enough to work within the boundaries defined. WWE could have NXT guys who are ready for the main roster stay on SmackDown as their home, and let Heyman work with them on their characters. All WWE needs to do is watch their own network to have seen his magic in the past. Heyman got an incredible amount of talent over that WWE wouldn't have even bothered with if he didn't have them first: Public Enemy, Tazz, Raven, Sandman, Sabu, The Impact Players. The list goes on and on. Unless WWE actually puts Heyman in a creative position within the company, then he is dreadfully underused. If only the McMahon family could put their egos aside and trust someone else to spearhead creative again. If they could, it would be in their best interest and be best for business.
As Rust Cohle from True Detective said "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you're good at."
Sadly, I can't solve a murder like Rust...or change a tire, or even tie a tie. But I do know all the lyrics to Hulk Hogan's "Real American" theme song and can easily name every Natural Born Thriller from the dying days of WCW. I was once ranked 21st in the United States in Tetris...on the Playstation 3 version...for about a week.
Follow along @AndrewSoucek and check out my podcast at wrestlingwithfriends.com
