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PWINSIDER Q&A: CENA, UMAGA-SAMOA JOE, WHO OWNS THE RIGHTS TO DX AND MORE

Answered on 11/17

I am a recent graduate with a BA in business Marketing and have been studying WWE. One of the key concepts in Marketing is that of knowing your market and whom you are targeting. WWE, I feel has done a great job doing this with the Raw and Smackdown brand. However, can you explain why Vince thinks he can make a brand that was targeted to a Niche group of people and turn it into a global brand? ECW on TNN averaged a 1.0 with out even being advertised today it is getting about a 1.7. Why not just go back to the way it was and have more advertising?

Quite simply, WWE has pretty much abandoned the idea of retaining ECW's niche market and is simply using the name for nostalgia purposes (giving the brand a sense of history) and instead targeting it to their current fanbase, the same people that watch Raw and Smackdown. 

Due to Cena's limited moveset, why do you think Cena stopped doing his "throwback", where he somersaults over somebody's back and plants their face into the mat?

My wise guy answer is because the move never looked very good, and my more serious one is that a regular bulldog would look far more effective than flipping over a guy in a way that made the faceplant look almost ridiculous and forced the opponent to actually jump down and make it look good. 

After all the talk of a possible DX reunion, it got me thinking. Strictly from a storyline perspective, wasn't there a match once for the rights to the name of DX? And, as I recall, neither HHH or HBK were involved in that match. Who won that match and what was the lead up to it?

The match took place on July 25, 1999 and saw X-Pac & Road Dogg defeat Billy Gunn & Chyna for the rights to the name. The storyline was that Triple H, who had left DX for the Corporation the previous March, told Gunn that Road Dogg and X-Pac were getting royalties off the DX name, setting up the match. 

Do you think the push Umaga is receiving (beating Ric Flair at Backlash) is a counter to the push that Samoa Joe is receiving in TNA. Like we saw during the Monday Night Wars when Rocky Maivia (later known as the "Rock") won the intercontinental championship immediately when he entered the WWE and if memory serves me the next week on Nitro Prince Iaukea in his first match on Television for WCW won the Television Championship. Or I am completely off base in my line of thinking.

It does seem bizarrely coincidental that we have a "Samoan Bulldozer" and a "Samoan Submission Machine" being pushed at the same time in different companies, however, other than being Samoan and undefeated, there really isn't much the two of them have in common. I suppose it is possible, but for some reason I think WWE Creative wouldn't put that much thought into it (or anything, for that matter). 

I saw Harry Smith wrestle, and I was not impressed. He is far from filling his dad's shoes. Do you see WWE exploiting Harry's last name, and maybe even making him into a Bulldog/Hart foundation gimmick? Or do you think that WWE will let Harry blossom and come into his own character when they decide to bring him in?

I have to disagree with your assessment of Smith.  While he is not in his father's league (and in his prime, Davey Boy Smith was a great worker), he certainly has shown a lot of potential.  As far as exploiting the family name, I can't see WWE not alluding to it in promoting Smith when he becomes part of the main roster.  At the same time, you can push someone as being part of a wrestling family while not making that the sole basis of his push (note the Rock and Randy Orton).  As for whether WWE will truly allow him to blossom, or if they will push him too fast and burn him out, is something only time will tell. 

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