WWE viewership is down, and CEO Vince McMahon is mad as hell and taking back the creative reins!

Or something like that.

It’s true that viewership of WWE’s two weekly shows—Raw and SmackDown!—has been down in recent weeks, but some of that was to be expected with the start of the new NFL season. Even at its most popular, there’s just no realistic way for Raw to ever compete with ESPN’s airing of Monday Night Football. But it’s not just the NFL that the WWE has been losing to lately.

Last Monday, Raw came in at #3 in overall viewership behind SportsCenter and Monday Night Football (which clocked in at a mindboggling 14.4 million viewers). However, in the key 18-49 demographic (AKA folks who spend the most cash...or, more accurately, have a shitload of debt) Raw came in at #5 behind Monday Night Football, SportsCenter, Black Ink Crew, and Love & Hip-Hop.

I don’t even know what those last two shows are, but they sound like something I’d watch and then immediately want to punch someone in the dick over because I could never get those hours of my life back.

Yep, I was right.

Anyway, word is that Vince McMahon is pissed off by the ratings slump, and he’s personally taken back creative control of the brands. Here are five suggestions for Vince to consider if he’s serious about bringing viewers back.

Split The Roster!

Let’s be honest here, folks: SmackDown! is just a watered-down Thursday continuation/recap of what happened three nights earlier on Raw. Occasionally, the matchups are mirror images of what aired just 72 hours earlier. Why? Because a few years ago someone thought it would be a good idea to combine the Raw and SmackDown! brands. Bad idea, someone! Back in the day, WWE Superstars/Divas were dedicated to specific shows. This was awesome because it created two rosters of talent that only met in the ring during Pay-per-view events. This created anticipation for a pairing rather than seeing the talents spar two, three, or four times before the real (to be read: important) match finally took place. Splitting up the shows into two devoted rosters again would create a division amongst the talent and an excitement amongst the viewers.

Commit To The Middle Tier!

Hey, Vince, what in the fuck are you guys doing with Jack Swagger, Damien Sandow and Heath Slater?!? In recent months, the company has seen a huge influx of new talent coming in from NXT. This is fantastic and helps build out the bottom tier of potential new Superstars/Divas. On the other end of that spectrum you have the company’s top tier talent—John Cena, Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, etc.—who bring in the bulk of the revenue, which helps pay the salaries of everyone below them. But unfortunately, there is an entire middle tier of truly talented folks who have gotten lost in the mix. These guys have paid their dues and deserve the company’s attention and push, especially since they’re almost always more talented than the tier below them and more entertaining than the tier above them.

Create A Divas Tag-Team Championship!

Alright, I admit it: I’m not a big fan of the Divas. Some of them, yes, but overall I’m just not that excited by them, and this is mostly due to the fact that they’re primarily portrayed as gaggles of bitchy cliques on the shows. If the company is serious about pushing these admittedly talented women they should break up the numerous buddy groups—Team BAD, Team PCB (which I guess did just technically break up because of Paige’s recent turn heel), and Team Bella—and pit them against each other the way they do male talent. Or, and this is where my real suggestion comes in, create a Divas tag-team championship and have them go at each other in pairs. As it is now, all of these groups of women are chasing after one belt which is both unrealistic and boring.

Bring Back Promos!

Not everyone is good on the mic, but those who are should be allowed to go absolutely bat-shit crazy to create promos like they used to do back in the day. The New Day—Big E, Xavier Woods, and Kofi Kingston—are all phenomenal on the mic (as the unedited 17-minute promo below proves), but few other wrestlers are given that amount of carte blanche to create entertaining bits. Trust that your talent can and will deliver amazing unscripted moments if given the chance, or at least shoot enough footage to guarantee it. The days of epic promos à la Macho Man, Dusty Rhodes, and Stone Cold are long gone, but you can give fans a bit of nostalgia (and bring them back to their television sets in the process) by giving them a shot.

Ditch The Part-Timers!

The company has put a ton of their (I’m assuming extremely expensive) eggs in the baskets of guys who wrestle just slightly more than I do in a calendar year. Guess who I don’t care to see wrestle? Brock Lesnar. The Undertaker. Sting. Or any other guy you bring back once or twice a year purely for name recognition. That’s like letting Barry Bonds play one inning of every World Series from now until forever. We’ve moved on! Concentrate on talent who is there each and every week, not the guys who show up once a year, wrestle in a (usually) boring match, and then immediately head home to cash their gigantic fucking check.