WWE Rumors: Former Creative Personnel Shoots On Company's Current Slump

Former WWE creatives personnel Vince Russo blames the company’s misfortunes on the uninteresting angles playing out during the weekly shows.

Speaking with Dr. Chris Featherstone on Sportskeeda Wrestling’s “Legion of Raw” podcast, the controversial wrestling personality offered his take on what is going wrong within the company.

“Here's a perfect example, I tried to sit down and watch TV with my wife. If something doesn't happen in the first 10-15 minutes, she wants to go on to the next thing. That's television viewers, that's the short attention span,” Russo elaborated.

He also went on to use the Golberg – Bobby Lashley feud as an example for how the company is rehashing the same story without raising the stakes, leading to the same amount of viewers week-per-week.

WWE is currently slumping in terms of its grasp on the viewers and its key demographic of viewers from the 18-49 range.

This Monday’s episode of Raw brought in the sixth-lowest total viewership in the history of the show at 1.5 million viewers, with 510,000 of those being part of the key demographic, as reported by Ringside News quoting Wrestlenomics.

Russo also suggested that he would require the company to provide its networks scripts on what will be happening for the following episode as a guideline to help both sides create the best product possible.

“If I am a USA network [executive] and I'm watching these shows every week, and I'm paying the bill, [am I] not gonna demand that I get the script a week prior? They don't get a script, they've no idea what's on the show until they watch it as we (viewers) do, so who's really to blame [for the numbers]?” Russo said.

Providing a more appealing product has been one of WWE’s main thrusts the past couple of weeks after it was reported that WWE chairman and CEO Vince McMahon is pushing for an edgier product, in hopes of attracting more viewers.

However, being edgy can only bring so much to a company whose head-scratching booking decisions have pushed away fans in search of a new product.

Bianca Belair losing the Smackdown Women’s Championship to a returning Becky Lynch in 10 seconds at SummerSlam and the ropes suddenly giving out on Finn Balor during his match with Roman Reigns at Extreme Rules are some of the more questionable moves the company has made during their big events.

With Crown Jewel set to happen on Thursday, October 21 at 12 PM ET, the promotion will need a homerun performance out of its stars and superb finishes, with the hope that it swings interest back to watching its weekly episodes.