5 ways in which WWE can improve Monday Night Raw and SmackDown

#5 Make the shows less formulaic

Paul Heyman's giving a promo on Raw

WWE television tends to follow the same formula, every detail from the storyline structure, the match type and the promos are more or less set in stone each week. This can give the audience a clear sense of the direction of feuds and storylines, but at times these can feel quite generic and predictable. Raw and SmackDown are presented much more like TV dramas then wrestling shows at times in terms of the themes and patterns that they construct.

Back at the height of the Monday night wars, Raw achieved some of its highest ratings ever as they went head-to-head with the WCW in the period of 1998-2001. Raw and SmackDown back then were much more chaotic and less driven by a script that the Superstars had to follow line by line. This saw the likes of The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Triple H rise to prominence as they were afforded more reign over the destiny of their characters.

In today's product, only Paul Heyman is really given the freedom over his promos and they stand out because of this. The days of the Attitude era are long gone, but the methods which made the era successful can be replicated today if the product was to be made less formulaic and more spontaneous.

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