In my recap of that evening, I ended with the following:
But I think I'm set for the next 20 years. In the very least, it would take another big event like the Royal Rumble or Wrestlemania to get me back there. I don't really have any interest in just seeing Raw or SmackDown or some house show.
Yeah, about that. So last month, Monday Night Raw was filmed at Verizon. I went. There's going to be a non-televised house show there in December. I'm probably going to that, too. When it comes to flip-flopping, John Kerry has nothing on me.
But I don't feel bad about this, because the fact is, both of the WWE shows I've been to have been, dollar-for-dollar, the most entertaining sporting events I've been to in recent memory. The tickets cost less than decent seats for a Nationals game, much less than what I paid to go to my last Redskins game (and that's not even factoring in the emotional cost of the death march from the Metro station to FedEx Field), and even the Kastles couldn't wait to jack up ticket prices last season following their championship.
So, say what you will about the WWE, but they know how to put on a great live show. Even if you're not a wrestling fan, it's worth going to just for the experience.
I'm not nearly as enthusiastic about watching wrestling on TV. But I do it. Raw, anyway. SmackDown strikes me as dull and underwhelming, and I generally avoid it. With Raw, I know that on Monday nights I should probably be watching football or doing any one of roughly a thousand more productive things. Unfortunately, the show is oddly addictive, and every Monday at nine, I find myself flipping over to USA.
But Raw is far from perfect. Far, far, far from perfect. So when I got this email from the WWE, I saw an opportunity.
From: World Wrestling Entertainment
Date: Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 5:05 PM
Subject: Stand Up For WWE
For many generations, families around the world have enjoyed WWE. Unfortunately, as a result of recent political events, some of the media have unfairly and inaccurately criticized the company. Therefore, we are calling on the WWE Universe to speak out and "Stand Up for WWE."
Please click here to see a special video from WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon.
If you don't feel like seeing a special video from WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon, the basic gist is: Vote Linda McMahon for Senate. Don't vote for the Democrat. The WWE's awesome. Anything bad you may have heard about the WWE are Democratic lies. (Dead wrestlers? What dead wrestlers?) Yay, social media. Yay, WWE. Vote McMahon.
Obviously, as a Democrat, I want Richard Blumenthal to win next month in Connecticut. BUT...I'm willing to set my ethics and political beliefs aside and put the full power and might of this blog (stop laughing) behind helping Linda McMahon win.
I just want one thing in return. And that is, for wrestling to stop sucking ass. The WWE has a ton of potential, but it's not being realized because this is a company that takes the path of least resistance at every possible turn. To that end, if Vince and Linda McMahon want my help in winning what's sure to be a tough election, I'd like to make the following suggestions to fix the WWE.
1) Stop with the constant hard sell of pay-per-views
Nine times out of ten, anything cool or worthwhile that happens in the WWE takes place on one of their pay-per-view events. When I was a kid, there were just a handful of these a year: WrestleMania, the Royal Rumble, Survivor Series, and maybe one or two others. This meant that the WWE (then the WWF) had to work to maintain viewers' interest the rest of the time. I'm not saying they necessarily succeeded--after all, I stopped watching for 20 years--but they had to try. These days, there's a PPV event every month, which means that the free programming essentially serves mainly as a way to entice people to buy them.
It wouldn't kill the WWE to throw the Raw/SmackDown audiences a bone every now and then. Why can't people see a title exchange hands without forking over $50 for the privilege? This wouldn't just be a benefit to viewers, either. It seems like the WWE's ratings would improve if people thought they might miss something by not watching.
(On a related note, there's absolutely no reason for non-title matches. If the WWE Champion has a match on Raw, it should always be a title match. There wouldn't be any down side to this. The whole thing is scripted! It's not like there could possibly be a shocking upset, Zack Ryder somehow ends up with the belt, and viewers tune out in droves.)
2) Either make the Divas earn their paychecks or get rid of them
There's an iPhone app called RunPee that lets you know the ideal places to take a bathroom break during movies, so you don't miss anything important. You don't need that with the WWE. You can just go whenever there's a Divas match.
I'm convinced that women wrestlers exist in the WWE for just two reasons: 1) To sell merchandise, and 2) Because without them, four hours a week of nothing but dudes in briefs groping one another, would be even more absurdly homoerotic than it already is. To justify their existence and give them just enough exposure to keep the merch moving, there's one Divas match each week. They usually last for two minutes and are always worthless.
Either commit to the idea of women wrestling or don't, but half-assing it doesn't seem like it's doing anyone any good.
3) Schtick has a shelf life
If you don't watch Raw (and if you don't and are somehow still reading, thank you for indulging me on this), for months, while Vince McMahon has been unable to appear on the show during his wife's campaign, there has been an "anonymous general manager" calling the shots via email. It's good schtick. I like it. Or at least I did for the first few weeks. Now it's just annoying. Ditto the Nexus angle.
Storylines are allowed to grow stale way too much. I'm not saying it's easy to write for the WWE, but it can't possibly be brain surgery, either.
4) The world can't revolve around John Cena, no matter how much the WWE wants it to
One gets the sense that if the WWE thought it could fire every other wrestler except for Cena, it would. I get that he's the face of the company, just like Hulk Hogan was when I was a kid, and Stone Cold and The Rock were during the period I wasn't watching, but enough already. It doesn't even feel like Randy Orton's the WWE champ, as much as it does that he's just keeping the belt warm for Cena. In the very least, during the opening for each WWE program, that last shot of Cena happily holding up the belt as a voice dramatically shouts, "The champ is here!" should be replaced with whoever actually happens to be the champ at the time.
To the WWE's credit, they've found an interesting angle with Cena being forced to join the Nexus, but they're not doing anything with it. Put him in a Nexus shirt, already, and have him turn heel.
5) Fire lots of people
There are your top-tier wrestlers (Cena, Orton, Edge, Undertaker, etc.) and your mid-tier wrestlers who have the potential to become top-tier ones (Miz, John Morrison, Jack Swagger, etc.). Then you have guys who will never, ever become top-tier or even mid-tier wrestlers, and are just taking up space. John Henry. R-Truth. Evan Bourne. Santino Marella. These people should be either mercilessly purged or given a gimmick that will make them more interesting. Seeing as how there are only so many interesting matches and feuds that can take place given the limited rosters, it seems like there should be a fair amount of regular turnover in order to keep things fresh. I guess that's why they have the annual draft between the two shows, but I'm not sure how exchanging crappy wrestlers from Raw to SmackDown and vice versa once a year, helps either brand.
Okay, look, to be totally honest, I'm not sure anyone in Connecticut actually reads this blog. So even if the McMahons acted on every single one of my ideas and I did indeed put the full power and might of this blog...which, you know, is considerable...behind Linda McMahon, I guess I can't actually guarantee her a victory. Or even a single extra vote. But it would make the WWE better. And since Linda McMahon isn't going to win anyway, she should probably focus on that.
2 comments:
Great post! I remember that last wrestling post, as it was the first time I commented on the site.
I agree with all of your demands (although I feel like they're going to give Bourne a push eventually). Your first point, about the PPVs, reminded me of comics. Nothing of any real importance takes place in monthly comics now, as the issues that aren't involved in some line-wide crossover are the epilogue or prologue to another crossover.
I felt there was more of a difference between Smackdown and Raw about 4 or 5 years ago. Smackdown pretty much took the place of Superstars/Challenge, and it was essentially "Wrestling for Poor Folks". Since it came on basic television, there were no stakes and there were more jobber matches. A title might "accidentally" change hands on the show but it was usually a tag belt, on the Friday before a PPV.
Raw had actual stakes (they didn't mind giving you a show, since you'd subscribed to cable and all), plus it served as the aftershow to the PPV from the night before, so you always got half-assed rematches and other fall-out from the previous night. Then the Draft came along, and it was WWE's attempt to make you think that Smackdown really mattered, even though you always felt the guys being transferred to that show were being punished for drug charges or something. It will be interesting to see Smackdown try to find its way now that both shows are on cable.
I hope Linda wins just so that Vince is pulled from the Mr McMahon role for good. I've been eager to see how HHH handles it when he eventually has to fill that role for the company.
Linda McMahon could totally win with the full power and might of your blog. Though I would much rather see her win via ladder match against Blumenthal.
(Sidenote: in my last years of college, I started dating this guy who turned out to be a wrestling fan. Therefore, by osmosis or whatever it's called when the girl tries in vain to get the guy to fall in love with her, I became a half-hearted wrestling fan. My favorite wrestler was Chris Jericho and I made a heart symbol with my fingers everytime he came in the ring. It was dubbed the Jericho Heart and I managed to get most of my friends throwing up the Jericho Heart during PPV matches at the bar. And he would always (uhhh, usually?) win his matches when we had the Heart up. Now that you know the power of the JH, I hope you throw one up next time you see him.)
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