[quote name='BustaUppa']Yeeeah, exactly. Stockholders/revenue streams are the priority now. That directly influences the unfortunate PPV/TV schedule, and I think it also manages to infect less obvious things like the overall structure/format of the shows and even the booking. Everything becomes safe.
The whole stock market thing makes it exponentially worse, because even if they felt like being bold and doing something that might cost them some revenue in the short term (like, say, doing some TV tapings from a small venue - and thus, selling less tickets/merch per show), they've still got the shareholders to please. So the idea ends up jobbing to the status quo.

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I will point out a positive development in recent years though. Say what you will about HHH or whoever, but today's top faces will job WAY more than the top stars of old. Bret Hart is one of my top 3 favorites of all time, but I can only think of two times he ever actually lost clean (both were to family members). I'm not sure how much of that was Bret and how much was just the WWF being overprotective in how they booked the top stars, but it's worth noting.
Meanwhile, John Cena is certainly the most "protected" star of the current era, but off the top of my head I can recall several clean losses that he's had (Big Show, HHH, Batista, even JBL technically). This is a good thing overall, but unfortunately a lot of this good is undone by all the overexposure. The "big" matchups get exhausted too quickly, so any time we get some good booking it is lost in the shuffle and quickly forgotten (amidst the push for another too-soon PPV).[/QUOTE]
The current Smackdown roster is FILLED with fresh faces. The only real veterans on the brand are Edge, Rey Mysterio, Jericho, and The Undertaker and this change move has really invigorated my interest in the brand. Where day in and day out, I know I won't be missing much with Randy Orton on top on Raw, Smackdown is brimming with talent and I think by the end of the year, C.M. Punk is going to be the top face on the brand. I'm actually excited to see how this turns out and my interest hasn't been this high in the show since Angle and Lesnar were at each other's throats.