The Goodness 04.18.07: Kill It or Fix It

I want to start off with an apology of sorts to TNA. Let me first say that I don’t hold any ill will towards the company, thought TNA President Dixie Carter telling fans that they’re wrong for not liking Vince Russo’s frenetic booking style is more than a little insulting. I just don’t like TNA at this point, that’s all. But last week, I lit into TNA pretty good after they drew 1,300 for a house show and, by all accounts, were pleased as punch. I said that 1,300 is a very weak turnout for a promotion trying to compete with the WWE. Well, two people who attended the show e-mailed me with nothing but good things to say about the show and said the building was just about sold out, i.e. it was a small building. So I guess that’s a good thing and TNA drew more than 4,000 for Lockdown on Sunday night for its largest crowd ever. Kudos to TNA. They certainly need to do more touring and moving pay-per-views out of the Impact Zone in Orlando is an excellent first start. Hey, I want an alternative to the WWE. Let’s hope they keep up the momentum and maybe, just maybe, stop using the Attitude era of the WWF as a template for their company. On with the show…

The Goodness 04.18.07: Kill It or Fix It

Lost in the euphoric state of wrestling fans (or at least this wrestling fan) during the lead-up to WrestleMania was the announcement by the WWE that all pay-per-views, all 16 or 18 they have now, will be co-branded. The news didn’t really hit me when it happened because I was far more concerned with, ya know, WrestleMania. It’s the best time of year to be a wrestling fan, how could I be bothered with stuff like buyrates at such when I’m taking a month-long journey back to my markish childhood? The effect didn’t hit me until Monday night and the announcers were going over the matches for Backlash. It was during this little report where they casually mentioned, like it was a mid-card match between Carlito and Chris Masters, that Batista was taking on the Undertaker in a Last Man Standing match for the World Heavyweight Title. I mean, what?

The move by the WWE to bring all the top stars on each pay-per-view on the surface is a brilliant, sound business move. If you have guys like Batista and the Undertaker that people are going to pay to see, why not put them on every pay-per-view, right? However, looking just beneath the surface you’ll quickly realize that it is a move that reeks of desperation. The WWE has seen their buyrates across the board drop considerably, with the exception of the Big Three (Survivor Series no longer applies), and they had to do something. They’ve seen MMA and UFC take over the pay-per-view market. They witnessed an ECW brand pay-per-view that got about the same number as buys that a TNA show would do and here’s guessing the ECW guys were making a little more money than the TNA guys. The point? The pay-per-views just aren’t as successful as they used to be and the WWE went for the quick fix. They might get a better buyrate in two weeks. It may continue for a couple of weeks but, in the big picture, they have effectively nailed the death blow to the brand extension.

When the brand extension was created in 2002, I was one of the happiest wrestling fans on Earth. Why? Because the entire point of the extension was to create two full rosters of wrestlers, separate pay-per-views and give more guys an opportunity to see what they can do. It was supposed to be an opportunity for guys at the time like Billy Kidman to get some exposure, so pay-per-view time and some meaningful feuds. And for a while, it was working. Both Batista and Randy Orton debuted on SmackDown in the summer of 2002 and, no, neither set the world on fire when they debuted. Heck, Batista was criticized and looked at as a bust when he became the Deacon or whatever as D-Von Dudley’s second. Imagine that today. The point is, the guys got some exposure, the young guys got some invaluable ring time and they started to figure out the craft of pro wrestling under the biggest spotlight of the world. Let’s not forget a much different John Cena also getting his start in 2002 with a five-minute match against Kurt Angle that had everyone and their brother singing the praises of John Cena.

We fast-forward five years later and we see little of what the brand extension was supposed to do actually occurring. Think about that in the span of roughly a month in 2002, three future World Champions debuted, and that’s not counting the fact that the brand extension allowed FOUR more future champions (Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Rey Mysterio & Edge) to put on classic, long matches for months and cement their status as legitimate stars in the eyes of fans. It’s remarkable to look back at that time and realize that seven future champions owe a lot, if not all, their success to the brand extension. Why? Because if it was just one roster in 2002, those guys wouldn’t have been given an opportunity. Eddie & Edge wouldn’t have had the chance to put on 20+ minutes classics. Batista would still have been stuck in OVW, trying in vain to learn what he could only learn in the big leagues. It’s a whole different world trying to work a solid match in front of 15,000 people than it is in front of 1,000. Batista has that experience and, whether you like him as a wrestler or not, he is certainly better for it.

In today’s WWE, where are the opportunities for new stars to rise up through the ranks? How can anyone push through, especially on Raw, where each segment involves either a McMahon, Cena or the divas. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, because it makes for entertaining television, but at some point, it gets stale. That was the entire point of splitting up the brands, I thought. The WWE thought at the time that fans would tire of seeing the same stars facing the same opponents week after week after week. With the brand extension, new stars could be created, different feuds could be cultivated and we would see a variety of matches. In the past few months, that has disappeared entirely. How many times can some combination of Cena/HBK/Rated RKO headline Raw? There’s nothing left to do there but, sadly, there’s nowhere else to go. Who else on Raw could step up, take on any one of those four guys and have the crowd believing they would have a chance in hell of winning? You believe Chris Masters could beat HBK? You believe Carlito at this point could take down Edge? I don’t think so either.

The WWE has come to a crossroads with the brand extension, as it has been said many times, because they have finally panicked. There are two possible reasons why the split is not working right now: the WWE doesn’t want it to or the WWE can’t make it work. There are so many underappreciated workers in the WWE that could step in and become solid to above-average mid-carders and possibly more if given the opportunity. Look at Raw. You have the World’s Greatest Tag Team, with two fantastic workers, relegated to nothing and wrestling about five minutes a week. The WWE had the British Bulldog’s son Harry Smith, by all accounts a fine talent, and they couldn’t find anything to do with him. Doesn’t that blow your mind? It’s not that they didn’t have anything for him to do, they didn’t have any time for them to do it. They are so focused on the main event that they’ve forgotten everything else.

It’s been reported on several occasions that Vince McMahon only cares about the main event and the main event wrestlers. The mid-card? The youngsters? He could care less unless he sees dollar signs. Well, sometimes those dollar signs need to be created through hard work and a creative gimmick. Do you think McMahon was all excited about John Cena in Oct. 2002, right before he stumbled into the white rapper gimmick? For every Rock that falls into his lap, there is a ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin that becomes a star when no one saw it coming. Certainly Vince didn’t see Austin as a future main eventer or I doubt he would have debuted as the Ringmaster.

The point has come for the WWE to make a serious decision about the future of the company because continuing a brand extension while having three “world” titles but having each defended on each show is ridiculous. Right now, the World Heavyweight title is the basic equivalent of what the Intercontinental Title used to be. This will make two straight shows where the WWE Title is defending last, while the Batista/Undertaker match will be nothing more than a supporting act. While it may seem insignificant, the WWE is basically telling us what they think of SmackDown. It’s the B-show, and the world champion of the B-show don’t mean nothing compared to the champion of the A-Show. And ECW? Forget it, it barely registers and I’m surprised it’s still kicking at this point.

There are two ways the WWE can go and, to be honest, I’d be fine with either one if they went with it. The first is to smush all the brands back together, run angles across all three shows a week and bring back one definitive WWE roster. Make a unified champion again: I think Cena/Undertaker for that honor might draw a little. Let the entire wrestling world know who your top dog is and go from there. It opens up all the feuds the WWE wants to do, because you know there’s stuff like Lashley/Batista and Edge/Undertaker that they’re drooling to pull the trigger on. Make it one, big, dysfunctional family and let it roll. I don’t buy for a second the WWE claims that there are SmackDown fans and Raw fans, there are WWE fans who will watch good wrestling.

The second option, and the one most hardcore fans would appreciate I think, is to reaffirm the brand split. Keep guys on separate rosters away from each other except for the big shows. Instead of rehashing the same matches with the same feuds on the top of the card, create new stars to interject some life into the proceedings. Instead of creating just one Mr. Kennedy in a year, try to create three or five. There’s plenty of wrestling talent the WWE has under its belt, whether at OVW or just being wasted backstage or on an online show absolutely no one watches. The opportunity is still there to make it work. It may mean a slight hit for the WWE today, but it will mean great gains tomorrow.

What will the WWE do? They’ll likely ignore my ideas because they’re good ones. They continue having all three brands on all pay-per-views. They’ll see marginal returns on pay-per-views for a couple of months and then they’ll burn the fans out. What other quick fix do they have when that happens? Oh my God! Is that Hulk Hogan’s music? Desperate times call for desperate measures…right?

Check out TooMuchSports.com this week for lots of hockey talk, some baseball and rants about anything and everything. It’s a happy fun place, I promise.