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

#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.