10 Ways WWE Can Successfully Balance the Wrestling and Entertainment

The WWE bills itself as "sports entertainment."

Really, this is just a fancy way of saying that wrestling is supposed to be entertaining, but it's certainly worth noting that the WWE's choice of words has led to an interesting debate among wrestling fans.

The question everyone asks: How can you successfully balance that wrestling (or sport) part with the entertainment part?

Truth is, there would be no WWE or TNA if they didn't feature both wrestling and entertainment. Quite simply, neither company would exist if they didn't have both of those aspects.

At times, though, the WWE has trouble finding a way to focus on the sport aspect while still remembering the entertainment aspect, often putting too much emphasis on the latter.

So, how can the WWE control that?

Well, here are 10 ways the WWE can successfully balance the wrestling and the entertainment.

10. Hire/Push More Guys Who Can Do Both

Some WWE stars are entertaining but can't wrestle, while some can wrestle but still aren't entertaining.

For example, a guy like Tyson Kidd can wrestle his tail off, but he has little to no connection with the crowd. On the other end of the spectrum, Mark Henry is very limited with what he can do in the ring, but he's entertaining because of the way he projects himself.

It's very hard to find a wrestler who is great at both parts—the wrestling and the entertaining—but the more guys the WWE has like that, the easier it will be for the company to balance the sports with the entertainment.

I mean, could you imagine if the WWE was full of CM Punks? Not the same gimmick, of course, but someone with so much in-ring talent and the ability to entertain.

If the WWE had more wrestlers who were the complete package (or pushed the wrestlers who are), then that would be a very easy way for the company to entertain us while still focusing on the wrestling.

9. Bring in Celebrities Who Have a Connection with the WWE (Only on Occasion)

The WWE will likely bring in celebrities in some sort of role for as long as the company is in existence.

That makes a lot of sense for the WWE business-wise, but it only really works if the celebrity who is brought in has some sort of connection to the WWE or the wrestling world.

As you saw, someone like Dennis Miller or Al Sharpton did not connect with the WWE fans at all. They were not entertaining.

Guys like Shaquille O'Neal and Hugh Jackman, however, are legitimate wrestling fans, and that showed with how well they got over with the WWE fans. 

They were the anti-Sharptons, if you will, or in other words, actually entertaining.

Shaq and Jackman were able to keep the focus where it belongs (on the superstars in the ring), and they also managed to further storylines (Shaq's angle with the Big Show and Jackman's angle with Zack Ryder and Dolph Ziggler) among WWE stars.

These are perfect examples of how you can manage to roll celebrities, wrestling and entertainment all into one and somehow make it successful.

It's still important to only bring these celebrities in on occasion, however, so seeing them in a WWE ring actually seems special.

8. Have More Tournaments

What is the basis of both professional golf and professional tennis?

OK, if you don't get it now, then what is one of the most popular sporting events in America?

The NCAA basketball tournament.

Tournaments are great for professional sports because of the "sudden death" stipulation that comes along with them: you lose, you're out and your dreams get flushed down the toilet.

In the WWE, however, it's not very often that we see any sort of tournament.

The King of the Ring was once a staple of the WWE, but we've seen it infrequently as of late (2006, 2008 and 2010), and Beat the Clock sprints or straight-up No. 1 contender tournaments almost never happen anymore.

That's a mistake on the WWE's part.

Tournaments are a great way to build up rivalries between two stars and have multiple wrestlers all trying to achieve the same goal.

They can help both create better storylines and give professional wrestling a more "sport" feel to it.

7. Keep Announcers and Interviewers out of Storylines

Except for the rare occasion (like this, for example), sports announcers, interviewers and analysts do not get themselves involved in personal spats with sports stars.

Yet in the WWE, it's become incredibly common.

Rather than announcers sitting back and calling the action objectively, like they're supposed to, they're constantly in the midst of feuds or some sort of beef with the WWE superstars.

Just in the last year or so, we've seen Booker T vs. Cody Rhodes, Jerry Lawler vs. The Miz and Michael Cole in the ring on a number of different occasions.

Although this works at times, I'd really prefer to see the announcers completely remove themselves from WWE storylines.

Like sportscasters do, they should report the news and call the action. Not become a part of it.

6. Blur the Line Between What Is Fake and What Is Real

The No. 1 reason why CM Punk was so successful during the summer was that he blurred the line between what is fake (or scripted) and what is real.

Everything Punk did in the ring and everything he said out of it seemed 100 percent legitimate despite the fact that it wasn't.

And guess what? It was ridiculously entertaining.

The WWE has to get back to that type of mentality, when everything that every WWE star does (not just CM Punk) comes across as 100 percent genuine.

It makes for better storylines and, as evidenced by Money in the Bank, even better matches as well.

A number of the WWE's current stars can't make us do what Punk is good at: getting us to suspend our disbelief.

But if more WWE stars can blur that line between what is fake and what is real both in and out of the ring, then we will be more entertained—I can promise you that.

5. Better Matches on a More Consistent Basis

You know what entertains a wrestling fan? A good wrestling match.

This isn't rocket science here. If someone is a wrestling fan, then he will be entertained by a quality match—it's really that simple.

Therefore, an easy solution to keeping the second "W" and the "E" in WWE both alive is for the company to put on high-quality matches on a more consistent basis.

Now, I'm not asking for 20-minute matches on every Raw, because that would quickly water down the concept of what a great match is.

But putting on matches of great quality week in and week out is sure to be more entertaining than a 30-second squash match.

Not much would even have to change as far as the overall format of Raw or Smackdown is concerned. Just the lengths of some of the matches.

4. Limit the Number of Backstage Segments

Backstage segments are one of my least favorite things about the WWE.

They can be funny and entertaining at times, sure. But they are often completely pointless and take up too much precious TV time.

What I think WWE officials fail to realize is that backstage segments aren't needed as often as they're currently used.

I'm fine with seeing them every once in a while if one doesn't make sense as an in-ring segment, but if your backstage segment isn't important enough that it can be done in the ring, then it should probably be scrapped altogether.

The WWE's backstage segments are typically "filler," which is a nice way of saying that the creative team has no idea to book the show form start to finish without wasting any TV time.

It's really not that hard, though: Instead of booking a two-minute backstage segment that leads absolutely nowhere (cough cough, Aksana and Teddy Long), add two minutes to a match between two mid-carders who need the exposure.

Then, let those guys entertain with some sort of crazy antics in the ring.

3. Keep Raw and Smackdown the Way They Are

We (and by that, I mean wrestling fans on the Internet) may be the most vocal wrestling fans, but we are far from the majority.

I will admit that I am one of those fans who would rather see both Monday Night Raw and Friday Night Smackdown focus more on wrestling than entertainment, or in other words, I'd rather watch Smackdown.

But a good portion of the WWE's viewing audience tunes into Raw and not Smackdown because those people actually prefer the entertainment over the wrestling.

That's why I no longer have any problem with Raw and Smackdown staying the way they currently are—that is, Raw as the "entertainment show" and Smackdown as the "wrestling show."

The WWE has to cater to a number of different demographics, and the easiest way to do that is by having one show that appeals more to the younger fans and their parents (Raw) and one show that appeals more to the older males (Smackdown).

From a business perspective, it makes sense, though (like I mentioned in the last slide), getting rid of some pointless "entertainment" aspects of Raw won't hurt.

2. Make All of the Championships Seem Important

The essence of professional sports is one team or person gunning for one thing: a championship.

Without the Vince Lombardi trophy, the NFL would mean nothing. Without the World Series, there would be no reason for MLB players to play 162 games a year.

The same goes for professional wrestling.

If there was no WWE Championship or Intercontinental title, then a vast majority of fans would have little to no reason to tune into Raw and Smackdown every week. Without titles, it's just two guys fighting in a ring with nothing more than pride on the line.

While the NFL, NBA and all other major sports put a huge emphasis on winning championships—even criticizing guys or keeping them out of the Hall of Fame if they don't win one—the prestige of championship belts in the WWE has dropped dramatically over the last several years.

That needs to change.

If the WWE wants its fans to truly invest themselves in its product, then it has to take a page out of the UFC playbook and make sure that all of the company's championships are important.

1. Make Winning in General Matter

In professional sports, literally every game counts.

A win or loss in one specific game may be the difference between making it to the playoffs and sitting at home and watching the playoffs on TV.

Winning and losing matters in the WWE, but not nearly as much as it should.

For example, Dolph Ziggler just lost the United States Championship at WWE TLC in December. Yet here we are less than one month later, and Ziggler now has a match for the WWE title at the Royal Rumble.

That's like losing the NFC Championship and then getting a free pass to the Super Bowl. There is just no fluidity in the way the WWE books guys to win and lose.

As evidenced by Ziggler, you can lose to a mid-carder one week, suffer virtually no consequences because of it and then actually beat a main-eventer a couple of weeks later.

That almost never happens in the world of sports. A loss in a big game sends you home, not to the championship match.

Imagine how much more entertaining it would be to see just about every match matter in terms of a superstar's title aspirations.

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