How can WWE stop the bleeding? By taking these 10 steps

With WWE's programming as soulless (if not quite as actively terrible) as it's ever been, Raw (and by extension, SmackDown) is facing a mad dash to the exits among its audience. This is particularly true of viewers under 50. Raw's ratings and demographics have tumbled down a cliff over the past year, and especially after WrestleMania 35, when hundreds of thousands of viewers have tuned out in the last few weeks alone.

This avalanche couldn't have come at a worse time for the company, as SmackDown will move to Fox in a few months, and All Elite Wrestling is set to announce a television deal with TNT next week.

With Fox executives expecting ratings and the threat of powerful competition looming, WWE's long-standing problems have now coalesced into a perfect storm that threatens to splinter the ship's timbers on the tumultuous sea, darkened beneath the thunderheads.

Vince McMahon has pushed the panic button, not for the first time in the past few months. Yet, the announcement of his "wild card" rule is an ad-hoc move steeped in obvious desperation, and this week's ratings were barely a bump up from last week's, so it's by no means evident that this "wild card" rule did anything.

Yesterday, we went over how WWE put itself in this position since 2001. Now let's take a look at the ways that the company might get out of it. It's going to take structural changes, rather than merely cosmetic ones. Nonsensical, ad-hoc attempts like the "wild card" rule won't do a thing. The company must instead do a top to bottom restructuring of the way it makes and presents its content. Anything else is doomed to fail.

Unfortunately, moving Raw back to two hours and ditching PG don't seem feasible, but there are other moves WWE can take to improve its programming. Here they are.

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#1 Use the recent NXT call-ups well

The fix begins with using the present roster better, in particular, the recent NXT call ups. To give WWE credit, the most notable members of the recent class of NXT alumni - Aleister Black, Ricochet, Lacey Evans, and Lars Sullivan - have generally been used well. This is important, because the present roster has been so damaged by years of horrendous booking that fans have already written many of them off. If fans don't care about the talent (and WWE has given them every reason not to care), fans don't watch the show. It's that simple. The new class of NXT talent is still fresh and hasn't yet been ruined by WWE's tropes and formulas. The company must take advantage.

Ultimately, Lars Sullivan's ceiling is probably low, even without the recent controversies surrounding him. If his push continues, the likeliest outcome is an eventual loss to Roman Reigns and then a move down the card into comedy roles, much like all monsters before him. It's another annoying formula, but Lars was never that good to begin with.

Lacey Evans' push is premature, and for her own sake, she should not beat Becky Lynch next week, but she has potential. With some more experience, she could be a good part of the women's division.

Ricochet can be a mid-card standout for years to come, thrilling audiences in Intercontinental and US title matches to either open the show or add some energy into it after time has passed.

Aleister Black has the highest ceiling. With the right booking, he could and should be a main event mainstay. He's best positioned to take Undertaker's torch as the dark, mysterious anti-hero, and has many potential spectacle-laden rivalries awaiting him.

For its own sake, WWE needs to take heed with the present NXT call ups, and as we'll see later, the ones that will come up after them.

#2 Ditch the long opening promos

Twice a week, every week, it's the same thing. Every Raw and every SmackDown starts with a promo that lasts 15-20 minutes. The wrestlers say their canned lines and we're left with nothing at the end. 99.9% of the time, these promos add no value. Whatever points they needed to get across could have been announced well ahead of time.

In the age of the internet and social media, these promos simply aren't needed to convey important information. They are instead a relic from the Attitude Era, where internet access was far more limited and no one even conceived of Twitter or Facebook.

It also doesn't help that unlike the Attitude Era, there's almost never any pop in these promos. The days of 2000s, where The Rock and Triple H were lobbing insults at each other and amping the crowd up, are long gone. We'll get more into that aspect later.

These promos are almost uniformly tedious and boring, and make it easy to tune out. They're an attempt to fill out TV time rather than deliver real substance.

Starting some weeks with opening promos is fine, but not every week. These need to go. Shows should more often than not start with some kind of action - an important match, a backstage segment or brawl, etc.

#3 Stop booking random tag team matches

The long opening promo isn't the only annoying formula in WWE. How often have we seen the above scenario over so many years? Opponents are "forced" to team up, or the participants in a big match form teams against each other as a "preview." Usually there are a few standard outcomes, such as an "inadvertent" attack from one babyface on another, or the heels win to build "heat." It's old and stale.

For a company that hates tag team wrestling, it sure does love booking tag team matches. It's a standard, predictable, and boring way to build rivalries. It lacks something to truly sink your teeth into.

The company needs to stop being lazy with these tag team matches and instead be more creative when it comes to telling stories. If that means some people aren't on TV in a certain week, so be it. Over-exposure is another big problem today. Not everyone needs to be seen every week.

#4 Stop constantly booking champions to lose on TV

One of WWE's most noxious booking tropes is the 50/50 formula, especially when champions are involved. Every champion, it seems, gets pinned routinely on TV. This is another lazy way that WWE builds rivalries. "If this happens on Sunday, we have a new champion!" - so regurgitates Michael Cole, avatar of Vince McMahon. Of course, his prognostication almost never comes true, as the champions almost always win the match that counts under this formula, but their losses on TV just normalize them anyway.

Samoa Joe, for example, has been eating pins since WrestleMania, The IIconics have too. Although they never should have been champions to begin with, jobbing them out this way only devalues the titles that much more. Zack Ryder and Curt Hawkins have been treated like jokes as well, routinely eating pins. These are just the recent examples.

Why should viewers care about who the champion is when that champion is just going to lose? What differentiates one reign from another when champions are booked this way?

It's all just part of a formula of sameness, of disregard for character, that signals that nothing we see on TV matters, and that no wrestler is distinct; rather, he or she is just one cog in a formula that can be used and discarded at will.

#5 Stop advertising things that don't happen

Remember this? It seems like ancient history now, but it was exciting, wasn't it? Samoa Joe had just decimated Rey Mysterio at WrestleMania, and with the momentum of that victory, he looked like a formidable champion. Enter Braun Strowman to tease a wild, brawling clash of the titans.

And it hasn't been followed up since.

Perhaps WWE is saving this for SummerSlam, but that in itself is a problem. It can't simply do filler feuds and then wait for a big pay-per-view anymore. Too many people are tuning out.

And who can blame them when plans change every second, as seen above? How can a fan possibly get invested in a story arc or angle if it's just nixed or ends suddenly?

WWE has had a serious problem with continuity over the last number of years. It just adds to the confusion and feels even more like nothing matters.

If the company is going to tease an angle, it should stick with it. No one was asking for another match between Joe and Mysterio, for example. It's a big step down from what we saw after WrestleMania.

#6 Shorter matches, more backstage segments

Nothing like this ever happens anymore, which is a detriment to the show, because the backstage and out of the arena segments the company used to run were among the most entertaining. It worked not just in the main event, but up and down the card. Who could forget the Hardcore title 24/7 rule?

No wonder everyone was so over back then!

Right now, the programming usually consists of overlong matches that run into one or several commercial breaks, disrupting the flow of the action. In the past, the matches used to be shorter, building to the confrontation that would come on pay-per-view, where there would be longer matches. Meanwhile, feuds would build with innovative, unpredictable segments instead of formulaic tropes in matches.

Safe to say, The Rock and Stone Cold weren't forced to team up every week.

These kinds of segments need to be brought back, if made within PG guidelines. TV matches should be made shorter in most cases.

Stories would thus unfold with some meat on the bones, rather than feeling like a formulaic running through the motions. When the long matches come on the PPVs, there will be heat behind them.

There's no excuse not to do this. If the long opening promos are a relict of the Attitude Era, this aspect of it is sadly missed today.

#7 End scripted promos

Supposedly, Sami Zayn has been permitted to write his own material with these promos, which is the reason why they've been so good. Contrast them with the normal robotic promo and it's night and day.

There's no getting around it - if there's one thing above all else that makes the programming feel so sterile and soulless these days, it's the scripted promo. Few people can do these well. Instead, most wrestlers are simply fed a script written by other people that don't understand their character, and which more often than not doesn't sound like something a real person would say.

These need to be jettisoned and it needs to happen right now.

Wrestlers instead should be permitted to write their own material in line with their own characters, and once approved, should run with it.

The best promos in history weren't scripted. Austin 3:16 and CM Punk's pipe bomb didn't come from the writers. To get that pop and realism back, the scripts need to go. It's not an option. Otherwise, WWE will continue to not connect with its audience.

#8 Reform the calendar

WWE's calendar itself is a problem, especially after the end of WrestleMania. Those post-Mania slump months feel like pure filler until SummerSlam, and after the end of the summer, there's more filler until January.

One of the big benefits of NXT is that there are only five major events every year, making it easier to build to each TakeOver and make every match feel like it matters. Though the main roster doesn't have that benefit with its longer run time, it can at least make each pay-per-view have some stakes. The minor pay per views are either entirely meaningless or just surrounded by cheap gimmicks to cover over their weaknesses, like Hell in a Cell.

Each big event needs to feel meaningful, and if not all of them can be major ones, the minor ones should at least be important in setting up those major events. For example, King of the Ring should be brought back in place of Extreme Rules. It can help to set up the road to SummerSlam and make the televised content during the months of June and July feel less like filler. King of the Ring matches, for example, are those matches on TV that would be appropriate in longer formats, since there are actual stakes involved.

The company needs to stop coasting on its present calendar and institute reforms of its schedule to make things feel like they matter more. Every pay-per-view must be an event worthy of standing on its own.

#9 Push Dream as "the guy"

There are many people in NXT that could be mainstays of the future. Johnny Gargano, Pete Dunne, and Adam Cole could be upper midcard standouts for years to come, cranking out classic after classic. Matt Riddle can be a legitimate main event player. Io Shirai, the best female worker on the planet, has the potential to bring the women's revolution up to a whole new level.

Yet, there's one name that towers above them all.

Velveteen Dream has picked up the art of professional wrestling with astonishing speed. He broke out in his late 2017 feud with Aleister Black and hasn't looked back since. Black called Dream a "prodigy" on Edge and Christian's podcast and Dream has proven it each and every time. As we get into the middle of 2019, Velveteen Dream is now the most charismatic and entertaining superstar in the entire company, and he has an excellent in-ring resume to round out his character.

And he's only 23 years old.

Since 2014, WWE has had a problem - no one has stepped up to take over John Cena's spot as the true face of the company. The company tried it with Roman Reigns, but his lack of charisma and terrible presentation just haven't allowed him to click in the way that Cena or his predecessors did.

Now, more than ever, WWE needs something different, something completely new and unique. Velveteen Dream could be that guy.

It's not just me saying that, either. John Cena, and Stone Cold Steve Austin, who have both occupied that position, have heaped praise on Dream, in agreement that he could be the next big thing.

He's also the perfect man for the time. Each "guy" has thrived the most when he's met the tastes of the time.

Hulk Hogan was the perfect character for the optimistic, booming 1980s and the Reagan presidency.

In the 1990s with the tech boom, things became more automated and corporate. Dilbert and Office Space became cult classics, lampooning the lives of white collar workers. Stone Cold Steve Austin, the blue collar beer drinker who assaulted his boss, was the perfect antithesis to these trends.

In the 2000s, America ran away from the excesses of the Clinton years in an attempt to return to normalcy of sorts, even as it found it was unable to, with the controversies of the War in Iraq and the coming financial panic. John Cena was the right character for that time period - the family friendly character who epitomized a kind of ideal that was becoming more difficult to attain. This was evident in the growing dissent over his character as the years went by and more people found this out.

After the 2008 recession, populism on left and right arose as the country and world was confused over its identity and place, with internal dissent and squabbles about what that identity should be. Roman Reigns hasn't been able to channel this. He feels like a failed attempt to recreate John Cena, which is the wrong character for the time anyway.

In contrast, Velveteen Dream perfectly epitomizes this time of great social upheaval and confusion. He's excessive and flamboyant, seeking attention desperately, but he's also pampered and fashion-conscious, epitomizing the ideal of leisure and luxury. He's not a hyper masculine character like Austin, and he's not a soft, family friendly character like Cena. He's optimistic, but not excessively so like Hulk Hogan. He's ambiguous, much like the times. He's the Dream.

He, more than anyone else on the roster, has the character for the moment and the charisma to pull it off.

The jury is still out on Dream, but he has the best chance of taking the torch from Cena. He's also the complete opposite of sterile and corporate, and sterile and corporate are what the company needs to run away from as quickly as it can.

When Dream is ready for the main roster, it's worth a try. With his talents and the right cast of characters around him (like Aleister Black, Matt Riddle, Daniel Bryan, and more), he can become the next megastar.

But to ensure that he, and the rest of this list, have the best chance of succeeding, WWE needs to do one more thing.

#10 Remove Vince McMahon from power

As these past few months have shown, Vince is hopelessly out of touch. He needs to go. And he needs to go now.

In everything from his chaotic style to his excessive micromanagement, he is making the company suffer. He is the major obstacle to the improvements the company desperately needs.

These days, there seems to be one thing, and one thing only, in WWE that stays consistent - the closer Vince McMahon is to something, the worse it is. This week's Raw had Vince McMahon's fingerprints all over it, more so than usual. In contrast, NXT has thrived without his presence.

There comes a time when even the best have the world pass them by. It's hard to remain innovative when things have worked so well over many years, but continued innovation is crucial to ensure that you're keeping up with changes in the world. Instead, Vince McMahon has rested on his laurels for 20 years. Each episode of Raw and SmackDown has felt more or less the same for years, and how many times have we heard stories about Vince McMahon not "getting" somebody that was easy enough for the rest of the public to understand?

For the sake of his company, it's time for Vince McMahon to step aside. New leadership is needed to institute needed changes. Shuffling a few people around with a "wild card" rule isn't going to solve the problems plaguing the company. If that was really his best shot, he needs to step aside in favor of someone who can make a better one.