WWE has recently announced that a brand split is on the cards and SmackDown will be going live on July 19. With just over a month left for this landmark decision to come into force, it appears as if the WWE bigwigs might not have decided on who should run this show. The management might be just checking the pulse of the audience by inviting the former SmackDown GMs to appear on RAW and make a couple of decisions for the night.
All of this bodes well only if they could come up with an efficient leader for SmackDown as this decision is obviously not a frivolous one to make. There are many potential candidates competing for this coveted position and the decision has to be made only after a lot of thought.
We could expect other guys like Vickie Guerrero, John Laurinitis etc., to appear on the upcoming episodes of RAW, but no matter how many of them show up there should be one and only leader who should lead the show from the front. With WWE appearing a little confused over this, let us have a look at 3 ways in which this decision of selecting the SmackDown GM could be made to create some hype around this-
#1 Draft
Well, we've seen superstars being drafted to RAW and SmackDown over the years and the whole process has been very successful. Just like that, WWE could go for a draft in selecting the GM. How do we go about this? Let me elaborate.
The company could put separate management teams for both RAW and SmackDown and then have a SPOC represent each of the teams. Such would not only give fresh thoughts for both the teams but also allow the staff to focus on one event and dedicate their efforts towards it. This would give flexibility to the company to conveniently separate the competitors for the top level leadership and have one guy represent the entire brand.
Say, for instance, Shane and Steph could be drafted to RAW and Teddy and Kane could be drafted to SmackDown. Not just appointing the GM but also distributing the management staff across brands could make things even more competitive.
Just say for instance that Shane and Steph could counter-attack each other's decisions and bring the best to the audience. The same way, Teddy could have someone opposing his decisions and thereby bringing the best of the decisions to the table.
Fatal-4-way selection
Say we have 4 potential competitors for this role two weeks own the line, then the decision could be made by giving a chance for each of the candidates to prove their mettle. All 4 could be asked to select one superstar from the roster to represent them for that night and all the representatives of the respective leaders will take part in a Fatal-4-way match and the leader represented by the winner could go on and become the GM.
This would be a sound fitting as the selection freedom is given to the candidates itself beforehand and that won't cause any hassles.
Also, in this process the company could come up with a blockbuster main event Fatal-4-way as all the superstars that will be selected could only belong to the top brass of the roster. A good two weeks of build-up to this match would be even more amazing. We've already seen Team Johnny vs. Team Teddy, Team Cena vs. Team Authority etc., kind of bouts for the leadership struggle and we know how well these get sold with the WWE universe.
Let me travel a couple of miles extra and imagine something like Team Teddy vs. Team Kane vs. Team Vickie vs. Team Shane/Steph vs. Team Johnny and you could add what all you want.
Empower the WWE universe
The above two mentioned ways of selection have nothing to do with the WWE universe. They should accept whatever may be the outcome of above two ideas. With Shane boasting about the new era and giving the best to the WWE universe, why not go ahead and empower the WWE universe?
This could be done in two ways. First, name all the N contestants taking part in the leadership race and schedule a poll on the WWE Network or on the WWE App. Let the universe decide who is best for them and vote for him. In the meanwhile, the company could make a few videos and post them on the network about the accomplishments and shortfalls of each of the contestants in the race. A great way to get some business on something that is pre-decided!
The other approach to do this would be to have a test of leadership. Now that we have this entire struggle to filter out the best leader among the lot, why not test that trait itself directly?
Let all 4 of them schedule matches for the upcoming PPV or say an episode of RAW and based on the reviews from the web about the quality of matches, the one that receives the best review would win the match of the race award and the leader who scheduled it would be the GM of SmackDown.
