10. Have A Strong Women’s Division
A stereotypical view of women in wrestling is that they make for good managers and/or for a fun diversion in between epic matches, giving fans a chance to catch their breath. While this is isn’t always the case, a history of bad novelty/gimmick matches (Bra and Panties Matches and Pillow Fights two classic examples) and sub-standard wrestling leaves this aspect of wrestling severely under served.
This malaise is particularly prominent in the WWE at the moment. While the Divas championship is on one of the company’s strongest performers in AJ Lee, the focus seems to be on the Total Divas, with their reality television show on E! which happens around wrestling, rather than the other way round. The title hasn’t been defended in a long time (not including the up and coming match at Wrestlemania 30) and the division has gone stagnant.
Both the WWE and the TNA, with their Knockouts division, have had strong spells in the past. Both companies have had good women’s wrestlers that have been popular with the male audience for both their wrestling ability and eye candy. If Jarrett can canvas the wrestling promotions around the world for great wrestling talent, he could create fill a gap in the market and draw a large share of the women viewers of wrestling (as well as quite a few adult men) to his new company.
9. Don’t Go Too PG
In my youth and teenage years, the WWE was going through its Attitude Era, the pinnacle of the “Monday Night Wars.”*Thanks to controversial segments, aggressive wrestling, and pushing the boundaries, the WWE beat out WCW as the top promotion in 2001.*Fast forward to today and the story is different. A 15 rating here in the UK has turned into a PG certificate: swearing is a no-no, blood is something rarely seen – even during pay per view events – and head shots with weapons violate the company’s wellness programme.*Many wrestling fans in the internet wrestling community call this era the “PG Era” of the WWE.*
There have been mixed feelings about the PG Era, which has been around well over 5 years. There are positives and negatives on both sides. PG programming equals more parents allowing their children to watch professional wrestling. It isn’t aimed just at children: it*broadened the demographics, giving the company a 7-to-34 age range.*More acceptable programming equals more viewers.*That doesn’t mean that there’s no downside, though.*It has been shown to alienate some older fans who reminisce on the Attitude Era feel that they are missing what made them wrestling fans in the first place, such as*risque story lines, graphic matches and more of a care free style.
Jeff Jarrett will be mindful of gaining the right target audience. He will want to pull in the adult fans with more engaging story lines and full-on matches, yet also keep as wide an audience as possible to make the promotion profitable. While TNA tried to offer an alternative, it has ultimately gone closer to a WWE style model. If he can marry the two, he might just hit upon a winner and be able to challenge the WWE.
8. Go Extreme
ECW was a small company who made a lasting impact on wrestling across the world. As well as showcasing some of the various international wrestling styles, it had one niche which it was synonymous with the promotion and one which it utilized as its strength: extreme wrestling. All matches had an anything goes style and anything and everything could be a weapon for a wrestler to use. Referees were only there to count the pins and submissions. All wrestling companies adopted the extreme, hardcore style and it has been a wrestling staple ever since.
Many weapons and matches utilized by the Paul Heyman led promotion have become fan favourites. Wrestlers crashing through tables is something all fans want to see, and they love to see them being hit with kendo sticks, road signs, fire extinguishers and the like. Matches such as the Tables, Ladders and Chairs ladder match and the Elimination Chamber wouldn’t have come about without ECW pushing the limits and this has led to many iconic hardcore wrestling moments, many involving Mick Foley (an ECW star before joining the WWE).
Excluding backyard wrestling, no professional company has filled the extreme gap left by Heyman and ECW.*The demand for hardcore wrestling is still there: the WWE has an Extreme Rules PPV and has special hardcore matches such as Hell In a Cell in other shows, but it can’t push the envelope enough to appease older fans.*Jarrett could steal a march on all promotions by adopting a more hardcore style and providing fans with must see moments. If he can take classic match styles and give them a new twist, fans old and new could thrive on the diet his promotion could offer.
7. Be Innovative
If the new Jeff Jarrett led company wants to make an impact in wrestling, it has to be innovative. ECW was the original innovator, as discussed in the previous point, with the extreme style and how far you can take it. This forced WCW and the WWE to follow their lead and adopt this extreme style. Other companies have introduced innovative matches or have a championship or weight category that makes them stand out. One of TNA’s biggest strengths early on was the high flying, energetic*X-Division,*and the introduction of the Ultimate X match as part of this, which had fans on the edge of their seats.
The WWE, for all the criticism you can level at it, has always been the leader in innovation: from introducing the Superbowl of wrestling in Wrestlemania, to unique match types like the Elimination Chamber and TLC matches, to annual matches like the Royal Rumble that the fans are desperate to see. The level of innovation from the company has tailed off recently with the lack of competition. Many companies start off trying to push the boundaries, but end up towing the line and become WWE-lite. TNA are a prime example of this: they started off with a six sided ring but returned to a standard ring. If Jarrett’s new promotion can combine new match styles with unique pay per view events, alongside a gimmick they can build upon (an octagon style ring would be interesting), they will take wrestling by storm and push the WWE to a new level as well.
6. Don’t Be Afraid To Fail
This is linked in to the previous point about innovation. In the early stages of the company going live, many fans will want to see something different to what they currently have on offer. Critics and fans will give Jarrett’s company more leeway if they are trying something new – even if everything doesn’t succeed at first. Many people would prefer them to make errors and not always succeed if they are trying something new, rather than failing by copying other companies.
Once the company is off the ground and has gained a loyal following, then they have more opportunities to aim big with hitting story lines and aggressive matches that accompany them. Not everything will be successful but fans will go with them if the content is still good to watch. A good example would be the Invasion story line done by the WWE in 2001. While the Alliance team wasn’t as strong as fans would have liked, with too many WWE wrestlers in there, and the story wasn’t pushed as much as it could have been, fans went with it because of some good matches and the introduction of some great wrestlers.
It is the principle of “go hard or go home”: if his new company can commit to what they are trying to achieve and try to do something different, fans will accept some successful failures along the way. If boundaries are continually pushed, some things will obviously not work but fans will keep watching to see what they try to do next.
5. Good TV Product With A Strong Commentary Team
The TV shows are what sell the product to fans around the country (and the world if they are successful).*They are the platform that ultimately makes or breaks a company.*If the shows are good, it will keep fans watching and it will increase pay-per-view buying rates and sell tickets to non-televised shows. Toby Keith, Jeff Jarrett’s backer, has strong connections with CMT and other networks, such as Spike, are also interested. This gives his new company a huge advantage over smaller companies by being able to promote the show across the country. They have to build on this and make watching the company and their shows enjoyable every week.
Apart from good matches and interesting story lines, the other key to a successful TV show is a strong commentary team. They are the link between the fans, the creative team and the wrestlers: they help put across what the company are trying to do to the fans. They help sell the action and help make iconic moments, for example fans remember Jim Ross’ commentary as much as Mick Foley’s fall off the top of the Cell against The Undertaker in 1996. JR and Jerry “The King” Lawler in the late 1990's were one of the strongest commentary teams in wrestling and they helped the “Attitude Era” WWE succeed over WCW. The combination of straight man with colour commentary and how they interact help sell the show.
Once the TV contract is in place, Jarrett’s team will have to develop their show and put in place all of the elements they want for their show to stand out. Putting together a commentary team to supplement the show will be an interesting balancing act: too large a team or having poor members of the commentary team (Tazz immediately springs to mind) will turn off fans and make them want to watch with the sound off. If Double J can get his TV product to work in harmony, his company will stand a good chance of being successful.
4. Have A Strong “Evil Boss”
For all the talk of innovation, there are some gimmicks and story line ideas that stay ever-present. The idea of an “evil boss” is something that everyone can relate to: someone who is a figurehead for all the bad things that happen, someone who treats his employees like garbage and is way overdue for a verbal (and in this case physical) beat down. The evil boss gimmick also gives the faces and heels someone to bounce off, interact with and to help develop their characters.
Vince McMahon, with the “Mr McMahon” character, is the original and best example of this gimmick. His battles with Stone Cold Steve Austin during the “Attitude Era” are wrestling legend. While he has alternated between face and feel, his work as a heel boss is unbeatable. For a 68 year old who is the CEO of the biggest wrestling company in the world, he was able to mix it up with the best stars by holding his own in wrestling matches and taking chair shots to the head.
While McMahon is the best example of this role, other companies have tried to replicate this gimmick, with varying degrees of success. Eric Bischoff had some success in WWE and WCW in a similar role, but Dixie Carter in TNA is an example of how not to do the gimmick. She comes across as a pantomime villain who lacks credibility and comes across as very annoying. She can’t wrestle and her microphone work, combined with her high pitched vocal tone, make fans want to switch off or mute their televisions.
Jeff Jarrett himself is more than capable of performing this role well. He has unquestionable wrestling ability and his heel work while champion in TNA shows he is a good candidate to fill the role. Whether he will use exploding guitar shots to wrestlers remains to be seen, but he is talented, witty and skilled enough to draw heat from the fans and keep them coming back for more.
3. Don’t Focus On Older Legends
Jarrett will obviously need some star power to help get his company off the ground and to help develop it into a future powerhouse. He has the connections to get many stars he has worked with in the past on board. What he needs to do is avoid focusing on the older, more legendary wrestlers he hires and build the younger wrestlers towards carrying the company in the long term.
One name that keeps being linked to Jarrett is Kurt Angle. The duo are now back on good terms,*despite the heat they once had over Jeff’s affair with Kurt’s then wife Karen. With TNA still in cost cutting mode, Angle, who is their highest paid wrestler by far, is unlikely to be offered the same deal to stay with that company.*Even though he is sending subtle glances towards the WWE, most expect him to end up as the lead star for Jarrett’s group. Expect some more big names to be linked as the countdown to the new promotion’s launch gets closer to zero.
Jarrett can learn from the WWE and their particular preference for signing legends on short term contracts. The rehiring of past superstars such as Batista put many wrestlers’ noses out of joint, most noticeably CM Punk, and led to his controversial exit. Don’t be surprised if some of the stars from NXT, WWE’s developmental promotion, start to jump ship too. WCW were another company who had a large proportion of older stars towards the end and it didn’t pan out quite as they would have hoped. Jarrett should heed the issues these two companies have experienced as a result.
While it is important to have a good blend of superstars and wrestling styles, the younger stars are more likely to define the company and they should be the focus. Reports suggest that*Jeff Jarrett wants to find new faces to expose to the masses, which means he’s doing a lot of scouting on the independent scene. Jarrett also wrestled overseas, wrestling for Wrestle-1 in Japan and Asistencia Asesoría y Administración in Mexico, so suspect him to*look at international tapes from Mexico and Japan in order to scout stars. If he can bring a wide mix of young stars, he could avoid the pitfalls other companies have fallen into.
2. Strong Creative Writing And Story Lines
Good work by the creative team of a company and strong story lines are building blocks to a company’s success in modern day wrestling. If the work is done well backstage, it can lead to good wrestling and memorable spots and moments within these matches.The creative team also determine character development and can be pivotal in a wrestler gaining fan interest and success – compare*Stone Cold*Steve Austin, who started in the WWE as The Ringmaster and then developed into the character everyone knows him as.
The creative team have to have a long term plan, knowing what they plan to do for the bulk of their roster of wrestlers. This leads to coherent story telling and the TV shows and pay per views seem more organic and natural. Fans are more likely to stay with a company if the story telling is strong. Constant chopping and changing leaves many fans confused and they are more likely to lose interest. That said, they also need to be flexible to switch plans if a wrestler gets injured or if the popularity of a star goes through the roof. The WWE elevating Daniel Bryan potentially into the main event at Wrestlemania is an example of this.
The issue Jarrett will have to avoid is having creative and the writers rub wrestlers and fans the wrong way. While Vince Russo (pictured above) helped the WWE in the early stages during the “Attitude Era” and the “Monday Night Wars”, he is notorious for his defection to WCW and for being involved in the creative process during WCW’s decline. His questionable booking and on air decisions saw fans leave the company in droves. This is something Jarrett would not want for his company. You suspect he will be heavily involved and his experiences with WWE, WCW and TNA should ensure no silly mistakes are made.
1. Make It Must See Entertainment
If all of the previous points are followed, then success should be guaranteed and fans will be flocking to see Jeff Jarrett’s product week in and week out. He has the advantage of having plenty of time to put his wrestling company together and to choose their approach and the style they want to implement. Choosing to make an announcement after Wrestlemania certainly places the spotlight on him and his promotion and ensures it doesn’t get lost in the Wrestlemania build up. He will have to hope that the WWE event doesn’t have a huge fallout that takes some of the focus off him.
The emphasis has to be on great story telling, followed by even better wrestling matches.**If Jarrett can get the right blend of wrestlers and styles, some incredible spots will surely follow. This will result in many people talking about the company and he will end up with a TV show that can challenge Raw and become a weekly must see wrestling event.
The challenge will then be to fill arenas and make money. They should start small, like ECW did, and then try to build up to bigger arenas. TNA tried to do this too quickly, didn’t have a solid wrestling product and struggled to fill arenas. Once the TV show and the wrestling become must see events, then getting an audience shouldn’t be too difficult and Jarrett’s promotion will be a success critically and financially.
