Questions on playing the long game.
By Scott Keith on April 6, 2014
With rumors that WWE will be setting up up to two matches for Wrestlemania 31 tonight or Monday (Sting vs. Taker, Punk vs. Austin), I thought I would get your opinion
1) Is there a correct way to do a year-long build to a match?
2) How long is too long to build up a single match?
3) When do you think feuds culminating in Mania matches should begin, ideally?
1. Sure, and they used to do it all the time before the "Reality Era". Set up two guys as allies, push them as partners on top of the promotion, then one guy turns on the other because he's jealous and BAM, there's your money feud.
2. Anything more than a year, I'd say. You don't want to risk your audience cycling out while you're in the midst of telling the story.
3. For a tippy top level one, the day after WM is fine. For anything below that, you wouldn't even need to start until Survivor Series or Royal Rumble. Unless it's something where the audience is going to be emotionally invested in it, there's only so much you can do (or more accurately, the writing team can do) with more than 8 weeks of build. And there's only so many times guys can compete against each other in gimmick matches or four-ways ordered by the authority figures before you burn out the feud.
Comments are disable in preview.