When you know that you're going to write something that is going to be very controversial and extremely unpopular, you restart it over and over. In fact, I've been working on this piece for three months. I started it at least 12 times, leaving them all to be unfinished drafts.

Which is why I will preface it by saying this: look at the big picture, then decide.

It is time to completely rethink professional wrestling.

Thumbing through the comments on last night's Smackdown Live, there was one thing in particular that stood out. A lot of loved it. Just absolutely loved it.

I think Smackdown Live's plot-oriented writing helps out the performers tremendously. As I've argued many, many times, pro wrestling is best when the programming is written according to the strengths of the performers.

Smackdown Live is a very good wrestling show. For what its worth, Raw is a fairly decent wrestling show, despite all of its flaws.

And therein lies the problem. Raw and Smackdown are both good wrestling shows. However, they leave a lot to be desired in terms of being television shows.

Of course after reading that previous sentence, you are going to be vehemently disagree. But before you rush down to the comment section to berate this point of view, hear me -- or, read me -- out.

For the most part, the expansive smark wrestling community (I'm not saying Internet because really, the only place robust pro wrestling discussion period, kayfabe or shoot, takes place on the Internet), has got a lot of what they wanted this year. Higher profile roles of superstars that were perceived to be underutilized. A main-roster show that has been largely written to cater towards savvier fans committed to the art form. A serious commitment to women's wrestling. Choice and accessibility. The list goes on.

And for all of that -- the buzz, the discussion, the mainstream coverage -- it really has done very little for pro wrestling in general.

Outside of WWE, all other weekly professional wrestling programming with either a national contract or a regional, syndicated contract -- and I'm talking about Lucha Underground (my personal favorite), Ring of Honor, and TNA Impact Wrestling -- barely draw half a million viewers total. And a lot of those viewers probably already watch WWE, meaning that these viewers are fans that are seriously into the art form of pro wrestling.

Moreover, live attendance is largely lethargic. WWE puts on 100 more shows per year than their peak years of 1999-2001, but struggles to beat the yearly attendance numbers from those years. WWE compensates putting on more events with lower per-show attendance figures with higher ticket prices. TNA house show attendance is a mere pittance. Lucha Underground's business model makes integrating revenue-generating house shows a fairly difficult, damn near impossible, aspect.

Vince McMahon, Robert Rodriguez, Cory Silkin, and Anthem Sports and Entertainment all know that this is unsustainable. They know that eventually, they're going to have to do more to expand their viewership (and consumer) base or be forced to exit the market.

In the best mainstream article I've ever read on pro wrestling, an unnamed former WWE senior executive told VICE Sports probably the most important thing executives and fans of the industry need to know:

"Differing points of view oftentimes help drive the best results," [Paul "Triple H"] Levesque told me, referencing Vince. "While there are times people across the organization have different opinions on a topic, what we do well is collectively execute once a decision is made." He added, "Vince has been, and continues to be, very supportive of NXT. The fact the he continues to promote performers from NXT to Raw and SmackDown is a clear sign of his support." But Levesque's vision of what a performer should be doesn't always correlate with what the corporation needs to keep ratings up and money coming in. "He's an old-school guy—a true wrestler," the same senior-level executive told me. "But look at the ratings. Where are the stars? Smart marks love these characters, but that's not the audience that drives a giant business."

As smarks that have seen pro wrestling's much more profitable ways, we've all put our two cents in on what would rectify this issue. WWE needs to "focus on creating stars", TNA needs to "improve its writing", Lucha Underground and Ring of Honor "need to be on a bigger network". A lot of these ideas are valid. Some are impossible. Other ideas that have been tossed around just simply made no sense at all.

However, I'm beginning to think that this vocal push to make for a better wrestling show has caused ourselves -- and believe it or not, the executives who are indeed probably listening -- to forget what made pro wrestling work in its most successful days and what really needs to be done to create grow a (new) audience.

And the only real way to develop an audience is to create programming (and a product) that doesn't require a major threshold, if you will, for consumers to buy in. In other words, a show that consumers could buy into as if it was any other show -- something that was done in droves back in the late 1990s, but tepid today.

The industry has developed a niche, insular culture. And sooner or later, that culture is going to stop paying for itself. WWE's mediocre profit numbers show it. Ring of Honor bombing on a national TV deal showed it. TNA being on its third network in three years shows it. Which is the exact issue that former WWE senior executive was talking about.

So what is it do I mean about rethinking professional wrestling?

Who should rethink it? The diehard smarks? The executives? Production? Matches? What?

To me, everyone. Including myself.

The one thing I've been working on doing is trying to stop comparing contemporary lethargy to yesterday's boom period. It's not a legitimate, nor necessarily fair comparison. The late 1990s wrestling boom was exactly what it was, a boom -- an abnormal growth of an industry's entire fortunes that has not (and probably will not be) replicated.

The industry's next boom period -- if there is one -- will come to fruition because promoters are finally producing professional wrestling shows that don't require someone to be into the entire art form and culture of professional wrestling to enjoy it. It was easy to get into Raw, Smackdown, Nitro or Thunder -- what was being seen was not overwhelmingly different than what they normally would enjoy watching on television during prime time.

That takes strong writing, strong character development, and most importantly, prioritizing development of an angle over athletic prowess in the ring. Effective, clear, and honest communication of a story (and a character's motivations) has been a lost art in pro wrestling in general. The promoters are guilty of it. The performers are guilty of it, especially performers that are more concerned about getting spots in rather than working a match to get the audience involved and advance an angle. No matter how you feel about the Attitude Era, performers during that time understood that the primary purpose of the match was to advance an angle, and every last thing they did in the ring was about advancing that angle. Steve Austin crowed about this many times on his podcast.

Promoters and creative teams should move away from purist face-heel alignments. Most of you disagree, but trying to write programming to elicit a desired, polarized crowd reaction hampers more than it helps. Imagine the character development Roman Reigns could have if McMahon and the creative staff focused more on shaping his persona instead of wasting time on patch work solution after path work failure to get Roman Reigns over as John Cena's successor.

If a performer's character is developed to his or her strengths, the performer can portray that character effectively, performer knows how to elicit some kind of emotion from the crowd, then whether or not he's booed as a face and cheered as a heel or vice versa is irrelevant. Let the crowd decide who's the hero(ine) or villain of the tale, tell the story, and build off of it. Selling merchandise is about fans supporting a performer (heel or face). Selling tickets is about fans being enthralled enough with the proceedings to be willing to pay money so they can see for themselves how the conflict gets resolved.

In addition, promoters need to focus on developing a product that's both a strong wrestling show and a strong television show.

Lucha Underground does this well, despite the fact that Lucha Underground appeal is limited due to its (cultural) subject matter. The show routinely balances good wrestling and good television, but its content is admittedly a hard sell to general audiences. As much as I love it, even I wonder how long their business and production model can really sustain itself.

TNA angles such as the Broken Matt Hardy saga brought TNA buzz, but nothing completely earth shattering or anything that could be built off of. It was compelling, but it was only compelling for its camp and absurdity and not because it was a particularly enthralling story. TNA has indeed enjoyed its best year creatively since 2012, but it is still mediocre to lukewarm as both a wrestling show and as a general television show.

Sasha Banks and Charlotte Flair's feud was great pro wrestling, but ultimately bad television, because whatever depth WWE wanted to have to the Banks-Flair story was poorly communicated with the audience, whom were distracted by the two women performing in gimmick match after gimmick match. Lucean, for example, wrote a wonderful comment on my Banks-Flair feud piece. The analysis made perfect sense, but that kind of depth was not communicated with the audience. After all, pro-wrestling is high concept, escapist television.

As for fans -- especially us smarks -- we have to recognize two (probably painful) realities. For one, the smark community cannot drive an audience. We believe we know better (after all, we consume wrestling more than others), but the truth is we know what appeals to us, not necessarily what will appeal to everybody else. Sure smarks make for boisterous crowds here and there and are loyal consumers, but a die hard, insider-savvy audience is going to pay for so much of a promotion's fortunes.

The other? We have to recognize what the stars themselves recognize: the wresting in the ring is the least important part of any professional wrestling show. Period. End of story. I like Cesaro. I like Sheamus. I like Sami Zayn. I like AJ Styles. I like Charlotte. I like Becky Lynch. Sasha Banks. Pentagon Jr. Prince Puma. Eddie Edwards. Lashley. But folks are not going to tune in droves just to see them put on technical showcases. If that was the case, ratings would go through the roof whenever Brock Lesnar shows up.

People will tune in to see what their characters do. Wrestling is far easier to sell when it is written as a television show first and a wrestling show second. This is not about the near 3 million fans that have already been won over; this is about appealing to the millions of consumers that this industry needs to keep driving.

The industry and the fans have become so insular about what appeals in this business that all of us have collective forgot what made boom periods happen: shows audiences can relate to. Shows audiences can tune into that's no different than anything else that's seen on television. It cracks me up that WWE wants to present itself as this global entertainment behemoth, when in reality, most of WWE's product is only going to appeal to a narrow audience.

I don't imagine any of you will agree with me and that's understandable. But I will say one thing. The way we -- fans, promoters, bookers, writers, whatever -- think about wrestling is not sustainable. We have to clamor for more than just a good wrestling show; we need pro wrestling to be great television period.