WWE: 9 Plots, Storylines and Angles WWE Could Follow Now That Kayfabe Is Dead

It is fair to say that the WWE Universe is struggling to book in a non-kayfabe business and world. This has generated a void where WWE Creative is grappling with how to build and link storylines in an educated audience era.

How should WWE and Triple H book the run up to WrestleMania 32 and beyond? Here, Bleacher Report takes a look and offers a few storylines that could work.

Kayfabe, for those who do not know, was the term coined by professional wrestlers whereby they maintained the "reality" of the situation in sports entertainment. In short, they pretended professional wrestling was real.

The advent of the Internet Wrestling Community over the last 10 years has seen professional wrestling discussed across forums, podcasts and articles, whereas in days gone by only a small segment of the audience had access to such backstage details and news.

Fans of professional wrestling or sports entertainment, as Vince McMahon likes to put it, are now smarter and more knowledgeable than ever before. They are also quicker to voice their dislike of the booking process and product more than ever before.

With that in mind, the shift caused by having an audience that refuses to recognize the booking process and suspend reality has given WWE a number of problems of late. 

The most obvious is the hardcore fans' blatant refusal to get behind Roman Reigns after he won the Royal Rumble in January. By winning this coveted spot, Reigns was automatically placed in the main event at WrestleMania 31 against Brock Lesnar.

Reigns seemed destined to beat the soon-to-be out-of-contract Lesnar (at the time) and become the new face of WWE. Fans reacted badly and openly booed the booking decision, forcing WWE to book Reigns against Daniel Bryan the last pay-per-view before WrestleMania to further get him over.

Reigns won an excellent contest, but the fans weren't satisfied. This forced WWE to take Bryan out of the world title picture completely by "giving him" the intercontinental belt at WrestleMania and then having Reigns lose to Seth Rollins in what looked like a screw job to get the fans back onside.

Bryan seems happy with the intercontinental strap. This is a belt seen by most wrestlers as the real wrestling title to hold. In the '80s and '90s, when today's wrestlers were growing up, the intercontinental belt was held by the likes of Tito Santana, The Macho Man Randy Savage, Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat and Bret "The Hitman" Hart, to name but a few.

These changes were all brought about by pressure exerted by fans at ringside and across the various forums available today. It shows the WWE is listening, but it also shows that the company is unsure of what direction to take in a world where kayfabe is well and truly dead.

WWE is now under massive pressure to book its product in a better and more positive way. If this is done, fans will tune into the network to see the pay-per-views. If not, they won't. At the moment, WWE has five hours of programming a week and an average of 20 hours of programming to build up toward a PPV. For larger and longer storylines, this can run up to 80 hours for one angle. 

Given the time frame available, WWE has made a mess of building toward its pay-per-views. The booking in the weeks toward WrestleMania 31 was abysmal. Some storylines were shut down without reason (think Goldust vs. Stardust), while others were cobbled together at the last moment (think the seven-man ladder match for the intercontinental title).

The centre piece of the WWE's Network is its PPVs. It needs to sell those to get everything else over. Bar Fastlane in February and WrestleMania in March, dreadful buildups aside, those two PPVs were easily the best the company had to offer within the last 12 months of mediocrity.

It is therefore little wonder that fans have not been as eager to take up the subscription to WWE Network as the company would have hoped.

In a statement on its official website, WWE said the following: "Viewer data continues to indicate that, on average, close to 90 percent of subscribers access WWE Network at least once per week, 99 percent access WWE Network at least once per month."

What you can take from those statistics is that fans are buying the network for the PPVs. Those figures will drop, however, if WWE Creative does not start improving matters. 

Triple H, speaking on Stone Cold Steve Austin's podcast in February, said booking was the hardest thing to do in today's wrestling world and that people refuse to accept storylines for what they are, or were. He also spoke of the different segments of the audience, partly made up of fans who like wrestling for what it is and the hardcore fans who know everything there is to know about the business.

More often than not, these audiences are split 50/50 either in venue terms or in show terms. Depending upon the audience, Roman Reigns or John Cena, for that matter, is either booed out of the building for having the company behind them or is cheered out of the building for the same reason.

Getting the two audiences on the one page is going to be the most difficult challenge WWE and Triple H have ever faced. It will be Paul Levesque making the calls now that Vince McMahon is 69 years old and taking a step back from the "gorilla position."

Here, Bleacher Report offers 10 storylines or angles the WWE could use to bring the two disparate audiences closer...

WWE is venturing out on a number of different television-related projects now that WWE Network is finally up and running and all the glitches seem ironed out.

The subscription-based video streaming service currently offers a back catalog of PPVs going all the way back to WrestleMania 1 alongside each monthly WWE pay-per-view.

It also offers such wonderful programming such as WWE Legends' House and plans to offer further reality based programming such as WWE Swerved (think Jackass), Jerry Springer presents WWE Too Hot For TV, WWE Unfiltered (an interview show hosted by Renee Young) and a yearly WWE Diva Search, of course.

It would be fair to say that the programming will not exactly be highbrow entertainment. HBO and AMC will not be quaking in their studios.

WWE has also slipped in Live with Chris Jericho, which will be a monthly interview by the wrestler-cum-actor-cum-rock star-cum-podcaster.

Over the past number of months, we have seen, or heard if you download the podcasts, interviews with Vince McMahon, Triple H and, most recently, John Cena. The first two interviews were carried out by Stone Cold Steve Austin to much acclaim. The most recent interview with Cena was done by Jericho with a little less fanfare.

It would now appear as if WWE has decided to go with Jericho over Stone Cold as the in-house interviewer for all things squared circle related. 

If truth be told, however, WWE has missed a step in appointing Jericho.

Vince McMahon and Triple H would have been far better off by approaching Colt Cabana as a talent interviewer. Cabana has interviewed more than 200 wrestlers of all shapes and sizes and from all parts of the wrestling universe over the last couple of years in his must-hear podcast.

There is no better interviewer on the planet when it comes to wrestling. Every single one of Cabana's interviews is entertaining and informative, regardless of the perceived level of talent he talks to.

By bringing Cabana in, WWE could have begun to mend the fences it crushed when it fired CM Punk. Those fences were then set on fire when WWE's ringside doctor decided to sue Punk and Cabana for Punk's comments on Cabana's popular podcast, as per Bethany Krajelis of The Cook County Record.

Cabana, real name Scott Colton, was released by WWE in 2009 after the corporation decided it had nothing for him. However, WWE missed an opportunity by releasing the multi-faceted and superbly talented 34-year-old. Despite standing at 6'1" and coming in at around 240 pounds, Cabana has a phenomenal ability to wrestle in any style and get any opponent over.

As good as he is in the ring, comedy is where he really shines. Cabana is even better in the interview ring.

But let's put all that to one side for the moment.

The idea behind using the interviews to further plots, storylines, angles and put wrestlers over should be where WWE is going with these monthly shows.

The company would be best-served by using a current wrestler and one who is known for not being afraid to ask awkward questions. The WWE would then be free to create storylines, involving or not involving the interviewer, depending upon the angle.

Think something along the lines of Jericho asking a tough question to a wrestler who refuses to answer and decides to either attack the interviewer or cut a promo on him, thus setting up a future angle.

Think of a wrestler shooting on another wrestler to set up a future angle or to add heat to a current angle.

The options are almost limitless. It is just a pity WWE did not approach Cabana about this position and put to bed a defamation lawsuit that will not augur well for any party, least of all a billion-dollar company going up against an Indy wrestler and a podcast.

One-half of the audience would buy into the interviews without hesitation, and the other half would go along for the ride. Colt would have a great job, WWE would have a great interviewer, and everyone would be happy. It would be a win-win situation all around, and that doesn't always happen in the wrestling world regardless of the premeditated results.

If WWE wants people to tune into Tough Enough, it needs to start linking the show closer to NXT and NXT closer to WWE.

It is now clear that the route into WWE is through NXT. If WWE is Vince McMahon's unofficial favorite child, then NXT is, without doubt, Triple H's unofficial favorite child.

Stone Cold Steve Austin confirmed on his latest podcast, Episode 209, that he would not be returning as the head coach and mentor for Tough Enough 2015, as it did not fit with his calendar. According to RingsideNews.com, Chris Jericho, who replaced Austin in the monthly interview segment, may also replace the Texas Rattlesnake in Tough Enough.

WWE needs a legendary name to sell the Tough Enough product, and Jericho may be the right man in the right place at the right time.

Just as with the interview show, WWE needs to build Tough Enough into its programming and create angles.

Whether the angle is for a current storyline or a slow burner down the line is purely up to WWE, but both are workable. 

For it to work, WWE needs to sign some real wrestlers to the show and not just good-looking muscle heads and bikini models. 

For the story to work now, WWE would need to work the angle around the coaches and add some tension, giving rise to a showdown at a relevant PPV, near the end of Tough Enough's run to give it another boost.

For a long angle, WWE needs to bring in some NXT guys, have some rub the eventual Tough Enough winner the wrong way and create an atmosphere and angle for the winner when he or she eventually wins the show.

The final angle again centers on the coaches, but this time it would see one coach severely injure the other coach's favorite participant.

This would lead into a tag team feud and eventually into a PPV where they all face one another with someone getting screwed to push the storyline on again. This storyline could also easily work in an inter-gender battle with a few tweaks. Think something along the lines of Ric Flair and Charlotte vs. a Tough Enough candidate and Jericho.

Again, it's simple stuff that creates a tenable link between programming.

This plot doesn't necessarily have to be for the No. 1 contender for the world heavyweight title, but it loses effect if it is for either the U.S. belt or the intercontinental belt.

This plot would see the No. 1 spot become vacant, but instead of giving the slot to whomever the Authority wanted, the current general manager opens it up to every singles competitor without a title on the current roster.

After a bit of weeding and fine-tuning, that number gets narrowed down to 32, whereby all 32 names are dropped into a hat and randomly drawn into 16 tag teams and then pitted against each other in a knockout competition. This selection process could obviously be rigged against the men who should be the automatic challengers, thus heightening the tension.

The eventual winners, having basically crawled over hot coals and triumphed in the face of adversity, then face each other for the right to challenge the champion.

This plot could generate any number of alliances, breakups, cliques, screw jobs and friendships while offering a fantastic gateway to the WWE Universe to NXT wrestlers.

It would also give the WWE the chance to try out pairings for tag team chemistry on TV and go with or cancel them without it looking like a random decision.

For most of the year, wrestlers over 40, never mind 50, do not make many appearances at PPVs. Then when WrestleMania comes around, the WWE panics, thinks it won't sell out an 80,000-plus arena and brings back the old guns to pack the house.

This comes at the expense of guys who have worked tirelessly throughout the year for that one spot on professional wrestling's biggest show of the year.

Few would argue that WrestleMania 31 was not a success. Overall, the show was good. It was definitely elevated by the seven-man ladder match and the superb main event between Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns—and, lest we forget, Seth Rollins, who provided the icing on the cake.

However, when all is said and done, the four-hour spectacular only featured seven matches, and one of those, the Diva tag team match, only lasted for just over six minutes.

In between, we had a 12-minute music extravaganza with the mindset that if the Super Bowl does it, then so should wrestling, and a promo session with the Rock, Stephanie McMahon, Triple H (again) and Ronda Rousey that lasted almost 30 minutes but felt like two hours.

Of the 17 men to make the final card, seven were in one match and four were part-timers or Legends. Those four make up over 30 percent of the card. Triple H's promo segment and match combined to give the current Executive Vice President for Talent, Live Events and Creative almost one hour of the four-hour show.

For the man in charge of talent and creativity, he didn't seem to consider his employees much.

Legends have their place. They have paid their dues and have proved their worth in clutch situations before. The temptation to go to them for a huge event is massive, but it does derail younger talent.

If Legends and part-timers are to be used, they should be worked into a storyline against a younger man, thus giving him the rub, very much like the way The Undertaker was used against Bray Wyatt. When Legends face each other, creativity is usually stifled, and the following week when the creative team turns to the people they bumped or took time off, they are less and less likely to respond.

Legends should be carefully woven into the fabric of the active WWE Universe through the use of managers, advocates, coaches and advisers in storylines.

Today's wrestling fans are more interested in the story within a story than their forebears. Documentaries like Wrestling with Shadows, Beyond the Mat and the recent Wrestling Road Diaries all give fans access behind the ring-based storylines to the real stories within.

Wrestling fans eat this stuff up for breakfast, and it seems madness that WWE has not listed a similar type of program for its network. This type of program could be done in a variety of ways from a road diary to a day-in-the-life piece about anyone and everyone associated with putting a show together to training methods and systems.

This would give WWE a chance to expand upon storylines while creating others and giving fans an insight into what WWE wants them to know or think they know.

This angle doesn't necessarily have to be about Damien Sandow. However, given his current feud with The Miz is about to end, he may be the best-placed wrestler to take up the idea.

Whether fans know it or not, Sandow is now in a precarious position within WWE.

He worked wonders with a gimmick that was meant to last for one segment. Somehow, he managed to run with it for months before turning it into a feud that has lasted across three pay-per-views.

Sandow is way over with the crowd. Fans respect the fact he turned a joke segment into a work, and his conviction and status as a true student of the game cannot be understated.

When the current feud with The Miz comes to an end, Sandow will be adrift in the midcard Serengeti of the WWE.

It is probably the most difficult area to be in in the WWE. Wrestlers in this category are outstanding athletes and could command titles all over the world, but in the WWE they often slip into the shadows and are quickly forgotten.

Sandow is now on the precipice. He needs a new gimmick.

One gimmick that he, or any other top-class midcarder could use, is that of the coach or student of the game—a wrestler who comes to the ring or sits in the crowd and scouts his future opponent. He would gather all the information needed, keep a file on all his opponents and be able to predict aspects of the matches before using his opponents' own finishing move on them to win.

This gimmick may suit Sandow, as he has spent the best part of the last year mimicking The Miz. It would be one step further to have him scout and mimic other opponents. He is also one of the wrestlers WWE and 2K Sports turn to when developing video games. Sandow carries out many of the moves in the game under motion capture. This aspect could tie the game into the WWE Universe even more so.

This could be a gimmick that would work well and eventually lead Sandow to a title tilt against John Cena or Daniel Bryan. It would also leave the gimmick free for comedy angles, but we've seen enough of his comic excellence. It's time for a serious Sandow to take center stage.

At this very moment in time, there are approximately 70 Superstars, both male and female, wrestler and non-wrestler, on WWE's roster, and that does not include NXT.

Raw and SmackDown average just seven to eight fights per every five hours broadcast. That is not a lot of time for 70-plus people to get a slot on the show.

WWE needs to investigate any way it can to get as many of its paid staff members into the show. 

One idea is to create cliques, groups and families going up against each other. Think along the lines of Game of Thrones and you won't go far wrong.

The WWE roster has many second- and third-generation Superstars on the roster, and it seems logical that historical feuds involving family members carry over into the modern age. It would also give WWE a chance to create a feudal history that could run for years or even decades when the next generation arrives.

Imagine how easy it would be to get a wrestler into the audience minds if there was a feud waiting for him before he even arrives? 

Ric Flair's daughter Charlotte could easily enter a feud with Natalya Neidhart, given their fathers' histories. From there, their allies would become involved, and all of a sudden, you have a feud involving six to eight Superstars that could go anywhere if the chemistry is right.

WWE's decision to push Roman Reigns as the top face of the company has been met with something of a backlash. 

There is no doubting that he is a phenomenal athlete and has everything needed to make it big in sports entertainment. He forged something of an excellent career in collegiate football but went undrafted in the 2008 NFL draft before being picked up by the Minnesota Vikings. 

It would be fair to say that his NFL career did not go as well as hoped, and in 2010, he signed a developmental contract with WWE. This is probably where his perceived role and standing in WWE, as far as the fans are concerned, comes from.

To many, Reigns has not paid his dues in the ring, and to hardcore fans, he has not paid his dues in indy wrestling. In some ways this is a strange stance and situation, but if anything can be said of professional wrestling it is that perception is reality.

When a wrestler takes to the ring, he is three people in reality. He is the wrestler he thinks he is, the wrestler the fans think he is and the wrestler he really is. All three are true and false at the same time and in any given situation.

WWE's problem, at the moment, is that Reigns is the wrestler the fans think he is. WWE needs to shift that perspective.

On the lead-up to WrestleMania 31, many felt Reigns was destined to win the world heavyweight title. This would have been a remarkable achievement for a guy who only made his main roster debut with WWE in November 2012 at Survivor Series.

The way fans booed Reigns, a five-year rookie at age 29, and cheered Daniel Bryan, a 15-year veteran at age 33, tells you everything you need to know.

WWE needs to book Reigns cleverly in 2015, if he is to become the face of the company. After wisely pulling the plug on his chances of winning the title at WrestleMania and handing them to Seth Rollins, WWE Creative is now trying to book Reigns in a way that makes him look strong and tough to the crowd.

Throughout the 2015 WWE European Tour, Reigns and The Big Show competed in a number of Street Fights in an effort at getting ready for their eventual clash at Extreme Falls. This is the second concerted step in the Reigns' makeover. The first came at WrestleMania where he laughed and smiled at Brock Lesnar while taking as stiff a beating in the squared circle as I've seen in WWE wrestling in many a year.

Reigns also needs to be screwed over, perhaps by The Authority. Then, he would have to fight through everyone before he gets his revenge against Triple H. Think of a plot along the lines of High Noon, where everyone deserts him, and Reigns is faced to do the deed alone.

The creation of a top-10 contenders list for the world title could help set up a number of feuds. It could really help Reigns if he was told he had to beat all 10 fighters in one year to get a crack at the title, only for him to be cheated at the last minute.

WWE needs to book Reigns smartly over the next couple of years, and it starts with having him go over the Big Show and away from a feud that isn't doing him any favors.

Of all the programs WWE currently runs or plans to run, SmackDown is the one that needs the most urgent help.

In 2016, WWE's Thursday night show moves to the USA Network with its Monday night older brother, Raw, as per Cynthia Littleton of Variety.

While Triple H may feel writing for a three-hour Raw show is difficult and may want it to go back to two hours, the USA Network might want SmackDown to progress to three hours also.

USA's acquisition of SmackDown and the NHL playoffs stems from the television network's desire for inheritance programming designed around sporting events. This could become even more important if those sporting events are live.

This live setting could be where SmackDown's future lies. Depending upon the negotiations between WWE and USA, we could see a return to two separate rosters or the continuance and linking of storylines through Raw and SmackDown.

In many ways, the idea of separate rosters appeals. This would give WWE a chance to stretch stories over a one-week period, except in certain situations. It would also give the WWE a chance to include its entire roster on television and give wrestlers a much-needed break, as they would not have to perform on TV twice per week.

This would also enable WWE the opportunity to have two separate touring companies and rosters. From there, one-hour programs could be filmed before the Raw and SmackDown events. This would give WWE four wrestling-based programs per week for the price of two, with fans only having to pay to see two. Add in NXT on a Wednesday night and all of a sudden WWE has live recorded wrestling on five nights per week.

Wrestling is the centerpiece of WWE Network's strategy. 2015 and 2016 are massively important years for the network as it struggles to take purchase in an aggressive market. 

One thing is for sure: WWE Network will not succeed without good booking of its wrestlers, and these are just a few suggestions.

Feel free to leave your own ideas in the comments section below.