10 Ways WWE Can Break Out Of Their Summer Slump
Raw & SmackDown are coasting on inertia, but it doesn't have to be this way.
WWE's summer slump has become an annual tradition, and we're very much in the midst of it at the moment. WrestleMania season is the highlight of the company's year, but the aftermath is very, very different, with WWE's creative team seemingly entering stasis for the summer, producing some of the most skippable shows on the calendar.
Both SmackDown and Raw have posted record low ratings for 2017 in recent weeks, which shouldn't come as a surprise. WWE are mailing it in, and with the bulk of their biggest stars stuck in bland, go-nowhere feuds that exist only to fill airtime, there's very little reason to care at the moment. The worst part is that business doesn't tend to pick up until SummerSlam, meaning that we're likely doomed to at least two more months of crippling boredom.
The most disappointing thing about the annual lull is that it's entirely preventable, and with a handful of adjustments, WWE could dispel much of the widespread apathy that has consumed their fanbase. Some are riskier than others, but each would bring some much-needed energy to a sleeping product, and prevent their viewership from hitting another embarrassing low over the coming months...
10. Call Asuka Up
It wasn’t so long ago that women’s wrestling felt like one of the most important parts of WWE’s product, but the Revolution has stalled again. Raw’s division has broken down through the atrocious Alexa Bliss/Bayley feud, and SmackDown’s women have spent the past few months thrown together in directionless multi-person feuds that showcase nobody, and prevent anyone from getting over.
Change is desperately needed, and fast. The women’s airtime hasn’t really decreased, but they’re being featured in increasingly meaningless ways, and both scenes need a shot in the arm. Calling-up NXT Women’s Champion Asuka would do just that, and her presence should immediately make whichever brand she landed on feel infinitely more exciting.
She still has NXT business to attend to, but if Kevin Owens was able to appear on the main roster while also holding developmental gold, so can Asuka. As one of the most consistently pushed wrestlers in the company today, she’d be an immediate title contender on either Raw or SmackDown, and her fearsome personality would restore some much needed danger and energy to an ailing scene, dragging women’s wrestling out of its current funk in the process.