Tony Khan was on Jericho's podcast and there were two things I took away from it that I really haven't heard or thought of when they've discussed the company and then a heavier emphasis on something we have heard of a lot.
The heavier emphasis note was the wins and losses aspect. He clearly didn't get into specifics but using the sports background he has and what he's seen in wrestling, there's a big discord between sports and wrestling in terms of wins and losses and the overall impact of them. Jericho talked about how a team can win and feel great or lose and feel like crap. Also talked about how he could have a bad show and feel like shit because of it but that's not really prevalent to the same degree in wrestling. Khan said he recognizes that and that's why they want to put an emphasis on those things mattering.
One of the more interesting notes was the use of analytics. I know they have people in the mix and that's a big part of Khan's background with the Jaguars but it's interesting to think about how that background can be conveyed to attempt to streamline a better television product. The use of analytics is seen as a still fairly polarizing proposition but I think there's high value to it as long as you know which stuff is actually worthwhile to track and can be extrapolated in a way to is useful when it comes to predicting future outcomes. There are nuances that help lead to decision making within the NFL and its hard to argue how the NFL can provide a monoculture aspect to viewing that's really lost to casual television today. The fact they've been successful really gives them informed data on viewership. Obviously the sport itself is the driving force but it's not like they just trot a football out there and film it. There's bells and whistles involved along the way that really enhance the viewing experience. The statistical input that can be implemented in a wrestling aspect in terms of enhancing the production value is something I'm very curious to see.
The other note was that a vision they have for their women's division to resemble the impact of the cruiserweight division from WCW. To elaborate, Khan talked about how he feels there's going to be very exciting, diverse, different and that the pace and work rate is going to be eye-opening in the sense it could resemble the impact the cruisers had on Nitro. Khan put over the fact that Brandi and Kenny have imaginative ideas that could really work for that division.
I do enjoy the positive reactions toward the idea of a wrestling company keeping track of wins and losses and making them apply to the product. I've said for quite a while around here that was always laughed at that a rankings system would be solid in the WWE based on actual wins and losses. But everyone thought that it just boxed them in creatively. I think the reason is that everyone that was against it thought that it meant people could only feud with each other if the rankings made sense. So they might have thought #1 and #9 can't feud, when in reality, not every feud needed to be based on the rankings-only when it mattered. They'd need to be smart about it. Don't book the #9 out of 10 guy to feud with the World champion, let him climb the ranks, make it mean something.
Maybe the WWE is too big of a promotion to do something like that and AEW might be at the right level with their roster to build off a ranking system or at the least where wins/losses matter and a guy who's on a 12-match losing streak doesn't get a World title main event the next month because he got over on Twitter.
In recent memory WWE, MLW and TNA have all attempted rankings.... I think TNA lasted the longest but overall it has yet to be successful.
I think it really just needs commitment and the willingness to stay the course against naysayers if they do have a solid system in mind to keep track of wins, losses, rankings, etc
Even boxing knows that rankings only get in the way of good matches and interesting stories.
That's why the 2nd ranked guy is always begging for a championship match he can't get while the champ is fighting the 92nd ranked guy from Guatemala because he talked shit about his mama on Facebook.
I'm on board with wins and losses really mattering.
I don't give two shits about rankings
Yeah they've attempted various forms of rankings. WWE's weird power rankings or more recently that top 10 on Smackdown voted by the actual talent.....which ultimately was scrapped and/or used as a vehicle to set up Orton v. Tye Dillinger.
But I truly believe if they stayed the course it could be cool. I've always said that if they just did something like PWI magazine, where you could go on WWE.com and see the top 10 tag-teams of the month, top 10 wrestlers for each brand, etc. Again, it wouldn't be something that the company would use as the basis for every single angle but it would be cool.
lol. And again, like I've said, you don't need to use it for everything. You could use it to further a storyline or a character. Maybe you use it to set up a heel turn where a guy is constantly winning, in the top 3, but gets overlooked because he's not witty on Twitter. Idk.
Just freestyling the pro's.