Who Knows Best?
Posted by TWV Guest Columnists
on 10/01/2006
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Guest Column By Anthony McGuane
Does Vince really know what you want more than you do?
One of Mr.McMahon's many comments from the past: "I know what they want better than they do." In 2002, Mr. McMahon made this statement, but does it have more meaning than originally intended? Does he really know what we want better than we do?
Some could argue yes; I mean, he has been going for a long time now since the WWWF days when territories were what wrestling was about. Mr. McMahon has made a lot of good decisions, but with a positive there are negatives (just look at the Katy Vick storyline).
First I'm going to look at his decisions as to who should be champion. The fans have turned against superstars in the past once they have become champion. Most recently John Cena suffered from this and Rey Mysterio to a lesser extent.
I could list the Benoit's, Mysterio's, Cena's, and even Eddie Guerrero. People who fans wanted Vince to give a chance. But once he did ratings slumped. Back in 2004, Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero were given their titles and nobody deserved it more. But why did ratings drop considerably once they became champions?
Anyone with any knowledge of wrestling knows that a heel champion is not always a bad thing. I mean Triple H was the champion throughout 2003 and people complained, but they watched to see who would take the title away. Triple H had good storylines with Steiner, Booker T, Kevin Nash, and Goldberg during that time.
That was a sign that Vince knows what we want better than we do. I have lost count of the amount of times I have read people say that they strangely miss Triple H being World Champion. It was the same with JBL; he held the title for a while and people watched to see who would beat him. They complained about it at the time, but now fans look back and see that it was done for a reason.
Now to look at Vince and TNA. People are getting annoyed at the WWE chairman as he isn't responding to any TNA taunts including Rhino with the ECW title a few months back. Does Vince even know TNA is doing all of this? Hell yeah, he does!
Why do you think that any time TNA think about creating controversy, Vince sends his team of lawyers to stop it? Vince knows that not everybody has heard of TNA and wants to keep it that way. He doesn't need any desperate public response like he had to against WCW a few years back.
Vince knows that if he doesn't respond, it will deem TNA's taunts to be a waste of time. Just another lawsuit to deal with. JR said on his website that TNA are trying to "out WWE" the WWE with the lie detector test a few weeks back. This proves that inside the WWE, they do watch and actually surprisingly used the four sided, six sided, or eight sided ring to comment on it.
A lot of people would say that Vince set up ECW to basically say that his one hour show will beat TNA even though ECW is not a main priority like RAW or SmackDown! Dixie Carter needs to keep both eyes focused on TNA and not keep referring to WWE. Bischoff tried it and failed. I agree with what Chris Jericho said about TNA in a recent interview. He said that they could learn from Bischoff's mistake of worrying about the ratings.
Jericho said that TNA needs to work on TNA, not on how they can make another cheap shot at Vince. Batista also said in an interview in March that he hopes TNA will grow and become competition. So WWE superstars do watch, but if you watch WWE programming you wouldn't even know that TNA existed.
Last year, TNA were handing out leaflets at a SmackDown! taping. It has also been said that signs have been taken away on doors of arenas of WWE shows. I know that a lot of people are sick of the whole TNA thing because of the whole Kurt Angle situation this week, which has been the biggest news in wrestling for months!
Looking back at the WWE. The creative team has come up with characters like Vito, the Miz, et cetera who any real wrestling fan will hate. I have to turn the channel over when Vito comes on during SmackDown! I just turn it over in pure embarrassment that I would even consider watching it. There was the same situation with Rico a couple of years ago when the creative team thought wrestling fans would like to see him hump other wrestler's legs.
It makes you wonder if Vince does know what we want better than we do. Anyone who watches wrestling doesn't want to see Vito (except Michael Cole who I will never look at in the same light again; he loves Vito and finds the Miz funny!?) I don't claim to know everything so I ask you people, is it true that Vince is hiring Hollywood script writers as his creative team like reported in another column?
Who is getting extremely bored with Edge Vs. Cena? This Monday will be the 8th time they have fought for the WWE title this year. I'm not just counting PPV's, I'm counting SNME, RAW, et cetera as well. But I'm just not interested in Steel Cages any more especially with this drawn out story which I want to end on Monday!
Now back to what Vince is doing right. I like Mr. Kennedy. His character has grown over the year he has been here. His first PPV was No Mercy last year and this year he is fighting The Undertaker. Bobby Lashley is also a solid character, but won't win the title at No Mercy.
I'm not spoiling before you guys complain on how I ruined it. But it is simple knowledge that he won't. Lashley is still working on his microphone skills and barely utters a word on screen. How can we have a silent champion? The WWE had the same problem with Brock Lesnar in 2002; that's why he was associated with Heyman so the talking was done for him.
Shelton Benjamin suffered from the same thing, but is not comfortable on the Mic. Maybe not The Rock or Chris Jericho yet, but good enough to hold a WWE microphone at least. Hiring back Jeff Hardy was a brilliant move as Vince gave him a second chance which is respectable.
That is one thing people can't complain about. Hardy was fired for failing a drug test in 2003, Test was let go and had critical comments about WWE, Rhino has tried to destroy the WWE name since being fired last year; but Vince has given them all a second chance whether they took it or not.
Overall, Vince is a firm but fair boss. Whether he knows what we want better than we do is still up in the air. What are your thoughts about the chairman knowing what you would like to see more than you?
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stamford0146@blueyonder.co.uk.
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