Developmental Territories: Make them WWE brands?

[Andrew is Good]

I was watching some DSW that I downloaded, and it's actually pretty good television. One thing I noticed is they have a lot of great tag teams there. The Majors Brothers, The Gymini, High Impact, Henry Godwinn & Ray Gordy, Urban Assult (probably their best team with Eric Perez and Sonny Siaki, even though they remind me a lot of LAX) and others. Their Heavyweight Champion is decent, Bradley Jay, and the talent pool is ok as well, with Derriek Neikirk, Ryan O'Reily and others. They're talented, but I feel they are a couple of Ortonreich type wrestlers, where they don't stand out that much, even though they are pretty talented. And Mike Knox, man. He did a standing moonsault in one of his matches, and he's just overall the best wrestler down there, but he's also in ECW so he doesn't do too much. But after watching his recent match there, I now know why Paul Heyman wanted to have him as one of his two calls up from the developmental territories.

David Heath is down there as well, who most of you know as Gangrel. Always fun to watch him, but I don't think he has the Vampire gimmick anymore actually. He's just a vetern looking to beat respect into his fans. He gained a bit of weight, but he's still great to watch in the ring.

I also watched a bit of OVW from earlier in the year, and I got to see the awesome Brent Albright/CM Punk feud, and the fact that Albright didn't become a big star was a tragety. I wish they didn't call him up so Heyman could have got his hands on him for ECW.

So I got to thinking. WWE has a lot of names and territories under their umbrella. Raw, Smackdown, ECW, OVW and DSW, and I was thinking that they could make their developmental territories smaller brands and show their wrestling shows on WWE.com. They can show it on their local Tv stations first in Louisville and Atlanta, then a day or so later, put the show on WWE.com. What does everyone think of that idea, and just about the territories in general. I know in DSW they run a really good Tv show, with a few exceptions (Brooke Adams, who is Daniel Rodimer's valet has the charisma of a brick, and Ms. Roboto from ECW is down there stinking up interviews as well).

[Spankymac is sick of the swiss]

Glad to see another DSW fan. Yeah, DSW's roster is pretty good, although we have to deal with the Rodimer's and Khali's and such from time to time, it's worth it, because we have the Freakin' Deacon, who is easily the most entertaining guy down here, even though he's not the best wrestler.

["Hollywood" Cactus Matt]

Andrew, once again I have to agree with you. I've actually been thinking along the same lines for a while; the only problem, I'm afraid, is that once either of the new "brands" were to show any signs of popularity, Vince would go all "new ECW" on us and wreck it.

[Andrew is Good]

Someone else I want to put over, well, a tag team, who were the OVW and DSW tag team champions at the same time once.

The Untouchables, Duece Shade and Dice Domino. They have the 50s Greaser gimmick, and they are just awesome to watch. They got great chemsitry, a great valet, they have everything you want in a tag team. They need to be called up, hopefully to Smackdown and pushed, because they are definitely something.

Here's their OVW profile as a team:

www.ovwrestling.com/Superstars/theuntouchables.htm

[Spankymac is sick of the swiss]

I'll get a bit more in depth on the DSW roster, too, especially since Afa Jr. debuted here two weeks ago as part of Urban Assault, which is now a full fledged four man stable consisting of Siaki, Perez, G-Rill, and Afa.

[Chris Decker-The Wild Rover]

you get this on the fight network AIG?

[Andrew is Good]

chuckymac314 said:

I'll get a bit more in depth on the DSW roster, too, especially since Afa Jr. debuted here two weeks ago as part of Urban Assault, which is now a full fledged four man stable consisting of Siaki, Perez, G-Rill, and Afa.

They are pretty good, but my fear is they will be tagged as LAX rip offs if they get called up as a group. They have the urban thug gangsta type gimmick that LAX has which has been done a lot, but they have a little different edge to it, but my fear is a lot of people will claim that they are ripping off TNA if they get called up as a group.

[Andrew is Good]

lifeoftheparty said:

you get this on the fight network AIG?

No, I don't have digital cable anymore. I get it through bit torrent sites.

[Spankymac is sick of the swiss]

andrewisgood said:

chuckymac314 said:

I'll get a bit more in depth on the DSW roster, too, especially since Afa Jr. debuted here two weeks ago as part of Urban Assault, which is now a full fledged four man stable consisting of Siaki, Perez, G-Rill, and Afa.

They are pretty good, but my fear is they will be tagged as LAX rip offs if they get called up as a group. They have the urban thug gangsta type gimmick that LAX has which has been done a lot, but they have a little different edge to it, but my fear is a lot of people will claim that they are ripping off TNA if they get called up as a group.

This is true, but I think Siaki and Perez have actually been "LAX ripoffs" for longer than there's been an LAX.

[mo]

A Greasers gimmick? I'm sold

[Spankymac is sick of the swiss]

motakerfan said:

A Greasers gimmick? I'm sold

And their valet Cherry(aka Kara Slice) isn't hard to look at, either.

[floundertime]

Trust me, I would be all for watching the territories on the net. But lets think of it from a wwe point of view, which isn't always the popular point of view. They send these guys down there to train and get ready for the big time. They let the territories develop characters for them that we will never see in the wwe. So if they did show the territories on the net, it would make the new guys they call up from the territories harder to repackage. It's a small thing to us, but a big thing to them. The image they put out there is everything

Now saying that, I'm sure the wwe could also make some money by putting them online and inserting some commercials in them as kind of a throw in to there sponsors.

[thesunbeast]

I've given similar views much thought as well. Not necessarily under WWE, but I've always wondered what it would be like if ROH, UPW, and the developmental territories under WWE all went national. We would have WWE, TNA, and say ROH, on national TV. Then we'd have UPW, DSW, and OVW either some how on national TV or on the internet. The Internet thing Isn't a bad idea at all.

[Cousin Judge]

I can't get over how much Joey Mercury looks like Samoa Joe in your signature picture

[Cactus Jack]

No, because it's best to keep them seperate so call-ups don't get recognised by the general populous.

[leemir]

But WWE probably don't want guy who they feel aren't ready yet to be seen or what if they're trying out a new gimmick everybody will see it when it's still in the works & there will be no point in vignettes for new Wrestlers coming cause they'd already have been seeing by everybody.

[Bub (BLM)]

chuckymac314 said:

I'll get a bit more in depth on the DSW roster, too, especially since Afa Jr. debuted here two weeks ago as part of Urban Assault, which is now a full fledged four man stable consisting of Siaki, Perez, G-Rill, and Afa.

Hold on, WWE has Sonny Siaki? Why aren't they bringing him to SmackDown already?

[Spankymac is sick of the swiss]

theshow said:

chuckymac314 said:

I'll get a bit more in depth on the DSW roster, too, especially since Afa Jr. debuted here two weeks ago as part of Urban Assault, which is now a full fledged four man stable consisting of Siaki, Perez, G-Rill, and Afa.

Hold on, WWE has Sonny Siaki? Why aren't they bringing him to SmackDown already?

I'm not sure. He's certainly improved enough to get the call up. He's really improved since his TNA days, and his ring poise has really returned since he participated in Candido's last match. I wouldn't be against having him called up. If you guys want it, I could restart my profiling of DSW guys in another thread.

[Andrew is Good]

chuckymac314 said:

theshow said:

Hold on, WWE has Sonny Siaki? Why aren't they bringing him to SmackDown already?

I'm not sure. He's certainly improved enough to get the call up. He's really improved since his TNA days, and his ring poise has really returned since he participated in Candido's last match. I wouldn't be against having him called up. If you guys want it, I could restart my profiling of DSW guys in another thread.

I think you should do that.

Also, I think the exposure they would get wouldn't be that much. I mean, from what I heard, Heat doesn't get as many viewers as it used to when it's on television, so the audience still wouldn't be very large. Plus it would be a good way to be exposed to gimmicks and different wrestlers.

What is important though is they have to show it after they air on their actual television stations because putting the same show on the net could take away from ratings. Do it like they do with ECW Hardcore Hangover.

[Spankymac is sick of the swiss]

Hmm, okay, I'll have to start doing them, then, but who to start with?