Jonathan Coachman just threw his full support behind Jim Ross—and he says WWE’s top stars cannot disappear for weeks and then expect fans to rush out and buy SummerSlam tickets.
Ross recently argued that WWE does not have a talent problem. It has a superstar problem. Coachman responded on Twitter and made it clear that he believes Ross nailed the real issue: WWE’s biggest names are not showing up often enough.
Coachman said time off and a healthier work-life balance might keep wrestlers happy backstage, but that does not help when WWE is trying to sell 60,000 tickets a night for SummerSlam.
“What does JR say here? Concise. For fans to be rabid for a talent or wrestler, you have to be there every single week. Management is over with the boys for the work-life balance and being allowed to take time off. All well and good, but if you are a top guy and you want to sell tickets, you have to be on the show every week—especially in the final countdown to a show where you are trying to sell 60,000 tickets a night. JR is spot on.”
That is a direct shot at WWE’s current system. Roman Reigns, CM Punk, Cody Rhodes and other top stars may feel like major attractions, but Coachman believes they cannot carry the company from home while WWE is trying to pack a stadium for two straight nights.
Ross made the same point while discussing SummerSlam’s softer-than-expected ticket sales on Grilling JR. He said WWE has a loaded roster, but nobody has become the one name fans cannot stop talking about.
“WWE doesn’t have any one wrestler that’s just white hot. You’ve got to have somebody hot. Somebody people are talking about, and they don’t have that right now.”
Ross was not trashing the roster. He said WWE has plenty of great wrestlers, but creative has not turned any of them into the kind of attraction that once made fans spend money just to be in the building.
“They’ve got a lot of great talents. I’m not saying that, but it’s always been a matter of how they’re utilized. They’ve got to do a better job of utilizing their talent and seeing where that takes them. You’ve got to get somebody hot. Wrestling has always been, at least in my opinion, an attraction-driven business.”
Roman Reigns, CM Punk and Cody Rhodes were brought up as the obvious top names, but Ross still did not believe any of them had reached the level of Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin or John Cena.
“If you can get them all hot, it’s a good thing. It’s just the more the merrier, as the old cliché goes. But I don’t feel, just in my opinion, that they have anybody hot or close to being hot on that national or international level.”
Ross also blamed WWE’s lack of consistency. He said a wrestler cannot build serious momentum if WWE pushes them hard one week and then keeps them off television the next.
“Somebody has got to catch on fire. Somebody’s got to get people talking. If they can pull that off—and they can—it’s a matter of continuity. You can’t be hot this week on television and disappear next week. There’s got to be some consistency.”
Coachman clearly agrees, and his message is brutal but simple: top stars have to show up. WWE cannot ask fans to care more than the wrestlers appear to, especially when the company is trying to move tens of thousands of stadium tickets.
WWE may have one of the deepest rosters in the world, but Coachman and Ross believe that means nothing without one star dominating television every week and giving fans a reason to spend money.
Do you agree with Jonathan Coachman that WWE’s top stars need to appear every week, or does keeping them off television make them feel bigger? Please share your thoughts and feedback in the comments section.
