| From WorldWrestlingInsanity.com Mike Rickard
VINCE EQUALS RATINGS: As smart as smarks make themselves out to be, they’re often the last ones to catch on to what the marks have known all along. In this case it couldn’t be more obvious than the host of people proclaiming “Vince equals ratings” and acting as if the fact that they’re saying it suddenly validates what casual fans have known for years.
The Mr. McMahon character has been a consistent ratings draw ever since Vinnie Mac stepped out of the announcer’s booth and into the ring. People are fascinated by his character’s larger than life antics and can’t get enough of him getting his comeuppance. And despite some writers’ disdain for McMahon and what he’s done to wrestling (or what they think he’s done to wrestling depending on your point of view), the fact is that time has shown that people enjoy seeing Mr. McMahon and his family.
That being said, last week’s episode of Monday Night RAW sucked ass. The wrestling was bad and the skits were even worse. If last week’s show was Vince McMahon’s idea of getting his flagship show back on track, it’s going to be a long fall when Monday Night Football returns to the airwaves. There is no doubt that the return of Triple H will help the ratings somewhat but if the WWE wants to do more than tread water, they need to learn to rely on more than a handful of old standby’s
It’s pretty obvious that the WWE fans dig the Mr. McMahon character. It’s also clear that they enjoy seeing Triple H. However the last three or four years of ratings have shown that even Vince and his son-in-law aren’t enough to stop the slow (but steady) loss of WWE viewers and certainly not enough to bring in new ones.
Vince and Triple H are pretty good band-aids for the WWE’s ratings problem. Unfortunately a band-aid isn’t the best solution for a patient with internal injuries.
TOO MANY MAIN EVENTERS?: You can never have too many friends, too much sex, or too much money. As history has shown the wrestling industry, you can never have too many top stars either. The WWE found this out the hard way during the mid 1990’s when they lost most of their main event roster to World Championship Wrestling. The WWE learned this lesson again (have you noticed they’re not very good with history?) when the injury bug knocked out many of their upper echelon stars leading to all sorts of chaos, the least of which was the Great Khali entering the “What the F___?” category of world champions.
To their credit, the WWE has made some attempts to create new stars (as evident by the pushes for Mr. Kennedy and Bobby Lashley) but more often than not, they’re far more content to rest on their laurels than to get behind anyone for any sustained period of time. Who can forget last spring when the WWE put John Cena and Shawn Michaels in multiple matches on RAW? RAW ran for three hours and rather than giving its undercard a chance to get some exposure, they ran the main event guys ad naseum.
Just as people say Vince equals ratings, it’s no earth-shattering revelation when I say the WWE’s problem isn’t the talent they have as much as how they’ve been using it. The recent spell of injuries on RAW and SmackDown! People like Carlito, Super Crazy, Matt Hardy, and Eugene could firmly entrenched in the upper card or even the main event had they been given the proper support by the WWE’s booking team. Every one of those wrestlers know their way around the ring and they have a history of being big time with the fans. Despite all this, the WWE’s creative team has never given them sustained pushes, causing serious damage to their credibility in the eyes of the fans. No matter how over you are with the fans, there comes a point where fans stop investing their energy into a wrestler that’s been portrayed as a loser. could have been shrugged off had the WWE invested any kind of serious effort into its undercard.
KURT ANGLE, KING OF THE UNIVERSE: After his win at last night’s Hard Justice PPV, Kurt Angle has every title that TNA has to offer. On paper, it looks pretty impressive but let’s see how he fares against the Queen of England:
KURT ANGLE vs. QUEEN
ELIZABETH
All joking aside, what the hell is TNA doing giving Angle every belt? It’s been bad enough with their tag team belts sitting in limbo after Samoa Joe won them from the Dudley Boyz at their last PPV. Now, the fans have to deal with Angle holding every belt. Up until recently, TNA has done a good job at making titles something more than props. Definitely not the case right now.
WHY JEROME IS STILL THE
KING:
Last week’s match between
Jerry “The King” Lawler and King Booker had
some people wondering why Lawler is still holding his own against the company’s
top stars.
Lawler may be getting long in
the tooth but the bottom line is that he knows how to work and he’s still over
big time with fans.
Factor in his elite
mic skills and doctorate level in ring psychology and you have the perfect
example of a pinch hitter in wrestling.
THIS WEEK’S MAGNIFICENT BASTARD AWARD: A lot of good candidates this week but it would be a miscarriage of justice to award the coveted prize to anyone but Senshi this week. Last night’s Hard Justice PPV opened with a three way tag match between the Motor City Machine Guns (Chris Sabin & Alex Shelley), Triple X (Christopher Daniels and Senshi), and the team of Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt. Not only was it an amazing match but it had you wondering why TNA doesn’t develop an X Division Tag Team Championship (or just do the obvious and put these guys in the tag division with the so-called big boys). Sure, there were the usual assortment of insane spots that had zero psychology but it was a damned entertaining match nonetheless. The highlight had to be Senshi delivering a wicked looking Warrior’s Way in a manner that has to be seen to be believed. I wouldn’t be doing it (Hard) justice if I described it so check it out for yoursel f. A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS: Here are some pictures from last week’s edition of Monday Night RAW at the HSBC Arena in
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