A few random Thursday thoughts on WWE
-- This whole million-dollar giveaway thing has been the proverbial fart in church so far. If Vince really has extra money sitting around and wants to better his product, why not invest in health care, vacation time, or whatnot for his wrestlers? He could even make a Pay-Per-View out of it -- a Dental Insurance on a pole match, Cage match where the first guy who escapes gets a week off, a jobber battle royal where the winner gets his rental car comped. Seems silly for all this extra money -- earned off the backs of wrestlers breaking themselves physically and mentally -- to go to a couple of random fans, rather than to the people who need and deserve it most.
-- Don't know about you, but I can't WAIT for the "Undertaker returns" build-up a few months from now. I can only hope his return is as exciting as his return at SummerSlam 1994. Or Survivor Series 1996. Or Judgment Day 2000. Or Royal Rumble 2003. Or WrestleMania XX. I'm probably forgetting a few dozen.
-- Isn't it amazing how, with Michael Hayes' suspension set to end any day now, that "sources" are burying Brian Gewirtz online? I'm just saying ...
E-mail
Facebook
Digg
Delicious
Comments (11)
D Lo Brown is back!
Hopefully Taker doesn't come back as a biker again. That was just ridiculous.
As long as J.R. never calls him "Booger Red" again, everything is cool.
And amen to point #1.
Why all the hate for the giveaway? If Vince wants to give me money I want to let him. And the wrestlers knew what they were signing up for when they signed up with the E.
I second the "amen" to WWE signing D-Lo! I always felt bad for him. He really got buried after he botched the move where Droz got paralyzed. Which sucks, but it's not like he meant it. D-Lo is a great wrestler.
They're doing the sweepstakes to try and get more fans. More fans equals more money, which means they can still comp wrestlers rental cars, etc, if they so chose.
And frankly, it's getting very annoying to check for new columns/ stories, only to find more sweepstakes bashing. You've all ready gotten your point across. I get it.
It's a basic business promotion. A tried and true way to build interest.
The hits to the website are WAY up. That's more money they can earn from ad revenue. Hell, it could be another of Joey Styles' ideas.
And what's not to say the 'winner' won't be Ted Dibiase, Jr.? His dad's dvd is coming out soon, isn't it? What better way to promote it than to 'give away' a million dollars? Granted, it's a long shot, but food for thought.
Or would you rather they do another Diva search? And as much as I hate those, they ARE generally the highest rated segments of the broadcast.
You can hate it and KEEP complaining, but all that'll happen is the hits to the WWE website will keep going up and the hits to yours will go down.
HA! for years, I've felt that a wrestler is better off being on SD than on Raw, dating back to the SD 6, unless they're a legit SE main eventer already. How many times does raw rape SD to get new guys? And who does SD get in return? They got batista, which was the only good draft move from raw to SD, and that was in exchange for Cena, WWE's new poster boy. SD lost angle, he went to raw, they f'd up, and he went back to SD and won the title on his first night back. I've often wondered if wrestlers negotiating their next contract could ask to be on SD instead of raw, because there's just more room for growth. Mainly, there's no HHH. Yes, he was out of the title picture for a long time, but he was still the main focus of the show. I went to a ppv in charlotte, and the main event was HBK AND HHH VS THE FREAKIN SPIRIT SQUAD!!!. SD's version of HHH is undertaker, who is LEAPS AND BOUNDS less of an undercard-crusher. When has the undertaker ever had a lengthy, meaningful title run? never. The closest he came was last year, after being in the WWE for...17 years(?). then he got injured and lost it. If I was a wwe guy, I know I'd prefer to be on Smackdown.
You hit the nail on the head Manu. On Raw you may start to move up the ladder but you will ultimately get pedigreed back down. Well, at least until HHH suffers another steroid related injury.
LOL at the HHH bashing. I guess Jeff Hardy and William Regal getting bigger pushes than they ever had before in their careers don't count. Kennedy also would have got a huge push had Benoit not died/he himself had not got suspended. Orton was a mid-carder once, now he's a legit main eventer. Smackdown are just as guilty as Raw with the use of the same pool of guys constantly, if you want to look at it like that, but in reality it's always been that way. In 2000 it would be Rock/HHH/Foley.
It still baffles how people think it's just so easy for HHH to think 'I want to bury this guy!' and everyone else in the company just stands by and says 'Yeah ok then!'. You'd think HHH would be the one that has to tread a fine line with Vince, not the other way around.
If Taker really did ask for time off and was granted it, I hope he heals up and comes back at 110%. Frankly, I couldn't care less if it was his 100th return (granted, it seems like it lol), he's earned enough respect to do it.
The $1 million fiasco shows Vince is in a desperate attempt to get more eyeballs watching RAW. Doubt it will accomplish that. I do agree with you that there are better ways to use such money. Why not give it to the wrestlers (some of whom, barely make more than some of the viewers themselves)?
All I know about RAW right now is it's stale as hell. Cena talks like he's a cartoon character and HHH is just there. It's not like WWE offers something that is a 'draw" anymore (HBK, Hardy, Jericho, etc. in five minute TV matches) to the average viewer. And they wonder why they are losing some viewers.