wrestling / News
The Blue Meanie On NXT Moving To Tuesday Nights, Cameron Grimes’ Character, WWE’s Creative Direction
In a recent interview on The Wrestling Inc. Daily, The Blue Meanie discussed NXT moving to Tuesday nights, the Wednesday Night Wars, and much more. Here are some of the highlights:
The Blue Meanie on Cameron Grimes’ gimmick in NXT: “He’s so entertaining just doing the stock market gimmick. He’s entertaining. He’s a hell of an athlete. He was trained by some good people and coached along by Shane Helms. I know they had a relationship. He’s super entertaining. To me, NXT’s the superior brand right now.”
On NXT moving to Tuesday nights: “Well, here’s the thing, Wednesday night was originally NXT’s night anyway. I don’t know why people got mad at NXT for going to two hours. I’ve always been accustomed, since I got the WWE Network, to watch NXT on Wednesday nights. I don’t know how they were painted as the bad guy here. It was their night, but then again, moving to Tuesdays is a win for the fans because you’re not really forcing anybody to choose, so to speak. When the fans are forced to choose, somebody’s got to lose, and the whole thing with the ratings is laughable now that we live in the age of streaming, and DVR and all that good stuff.
“Ratings really don’t mean anything. I could watch AEW live and then the next night watch NXT commercial-free on The Network. So that was a win for me because there’s no commercials. Moving to Tuesdays, there’s really no losers, and it’s really not a defeat and it’s not really a win because in today’s TV world, ratings are meaningless. I can watch it live now, or I can tape it and watch it later. There’s different ways you can watch wrestling now or digest it. It isn’t what it was back in the day. Wrestling today is not appointment television like it used to be.”
On the Wednesday Night Wars and WWE’s creative direction: “Now would be the perfect time to take your time, especially with no crowd there. ‘Okay guys, everything we had planned, we’re just going to stretch it out like taffy.’ Right now, this would be the perfect era to let things breathe, stretch things out. I don’t know why — I was in the Attitude Era, and a lot of things were hot shotted back then. How long did Rock – Austin last? They went over the course of a couple WrestleManias. Austin vs. McMahon, that lasted over a course of a couple of WrestleManias. They hot shotted a couple of things here and there.
“I re-watched WrestleMania 15. In one segment, Vince McMahon’s the heel against Steve Austin, and next segment, he’s a babyface against The Undertaker when Undertaker’s burning the doll and stuff like that. It’s like, ‘ohh, they were really all over the place,’ but whatever, it was magical, and it had fans. And that’s why I kind of hate when they say right now, we’re in the middle of ‘The Wednesday Night Wars.’ It’s not really a war when you’re fighting over decimal points, really. Back in the Monday Night Wars, it was full eights vs. nines. Now it’s like, .05. It’s like calculus.”