It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was singing the praises of Raw and complaining about the state of SmackDown!. The story lines on Monday night seemed for a time to far exceed those of Thursday, and the talent appeared to be better utilized so as to present a stronger show. But now both programs seem to have taken a huge dive, as the ratings have attested to. A confusing ‘whose the dad’ pregnancy followed by a miscarriage, and a Diva search that had no glimmer of hope from the beginning helps to illustrate the woes of the WWE. Ratings have gone down during the last half of the shows, indicating that even the main event isn’t enough to hold the attention of fans. I’d call them fickle fans, but I don’t think they are. I think they have been trying to hang in there for a long time, but with nothing new and different to look forward to their attention has finally wandered.
However, I’d like to turn away from blaming story lines for a moment (even though I believe they are extremely important). I think that the WWE has one answer in their back pocket that they just don’t go to often enough. Ohio Valley Wrestling has brought us so many super talents, and with over 50 men and women on their roster at the present time they could move the athletes around a bit more until they hit that home run. They did it with Nick Dinsmore, a.k.a. Eugene. I wish they would let him show off his legitimate abilities a bit more, as he was a true superstar in OVW, but his character took off like a rocket. Randy Orton, Batista, John Cena, Charlie Haas, Shelton Benjamin, Paul London, Victoria, Rob Conway, Orlando Jordan, the list goes on and on. Of course, it doesn’t work all the time. Mordecai, who worked as Seven in OVW, never got over in the WWE. In his defense, his new character wasn’t presented properly and the fans had no reason to care one way or the other. The same thing is happening with John Heidenreich. He doesn’t seem ready for prime time pressure and I would not be surprised to see him go back to Kentucky and continue to regroup. The beauty of this though, is that athletes can be brought up to face the big time and if it doesn’t work for any reason, be it too soon for them or just plain bad timing, they can go back down there to hone their skills until situations improve.
I would think that the company would want to do this more often, since the success rate has certainly outweighed the failures. I don’t profess to understand all of the workings behind the scenes, and it is an undertaking that I quite enjoy complaining about but would never want to be involved with. Still, with all of the preoccupations that come with trying to keep all things alive, someone should be just listening and watching. The fans who stood behind professional wrestling let them know time and again what will work and what won’t – it’s just that no one is available to hear them. There is a big difference between the boos that occur when a heel is doing his job and those boos that are saying “This sucks and we don’t want to watch it anymore!” When that continues time and again, the chances are that just a different story line will not save a particular character. It’s then time to go to the well and try something else with another superstar. What happens in baseball, football, basketball and the like? When an athlete is not performing adequately they are replaced – not always permanently, but certainly for a period of time. In this case and sadly for the wrestler involved, they may be doing a good job but are just not being accepted, and good business sense says change things up.
And what about these promos of late? I wonder just how many phone calls go to the WWE, since they say that the number given out is an actual corporate number, after the Simon Dean advertisement is shown? I’m really not sure just what it is supposed to mean exactly. It is presumed to be a bit of a spoof on Dean Malenko, real name Dean Simon. Still, I’m waiting for more. Then there are the Carlito Cool promos. I think it was so much more effective when they did those teasers and you did not know for sure who was going to appear. Remember those done in connection to Y2J? Man, that seems like a REALLY long time ago. Anyway, those were fun, trying to figure out just who that was and what was going to happen. The same with the Tazz promos, as well as the recent but short-lived Jeff Hardy spots. I know there are a lot more, they just escape me at the moment. But to have this Carlito guy walk around telling us how much we should look forward to his debut makes me want him to prove it, and I’m a hard one to convince.
So, to finish on a positive note here there were some fun things on the shows this past week. On SD, Gangrel and Visera made surprise appearances to join Jordan in an attack on Undertaker. This was OK in that it was unexpected. Rico is back, and I can only hope that I am not alone in being happy about that. He is a very entertaining character, and his absence has been noticeable.
Raw saw the return of Eugene, who, we learned, will face Eric Bischoff on Taboo Tuesday. Apparently the matches will be determined by the fans; certainly the opponent for Triple H is to be chosen in that manner. Whether this is actually true or not, the concept makes for something different. Intercontinental Champion Chris Jericho was challenged by Shawn Michaels, with Y2J winning due to a disqualification. The DQ decision was an obvious one, but I didn’t care, because it doesn’t get much better than a Y2J / HBK battle. They always give pay-per-view performances.
We also saw the ending of the Lita baby angle, and while there will most certainly be repercussions against Gene Snitsky, that main story line should now be laid to rest. (Sorry!) Unfortunately we had to listen to Kane screaming “NOOOO” during those segments, although I thought that at the beginning of the first ‘interview’ he did we finally saw a normal person. That probably won’t happen again, but I liked that. Also, Christy won the Diva contest, which I am hoping will mean it will all be forgotten shortly. See, with finality comes happiness, at least for me.
Being the ultimate optimist, I am looking forward to SmackDown!, hoping that it will be a fun show. Thanks for the feedback – keep it coming!
Be safe and God Bless,
Barb.
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