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PWINSIDER Q & A: GOING TOO FAR WITH AUSTIN, UMAGA, KING OF THE RING, NASH, IN YOUR HOUSE AND MORE

This is going to sound like a silly question but do you think that the WWE fully capitalized on the Steve Austin era? The crowd was so incredibly behind him at WM X7 and his heel turn was so poorly handled that it was like the fans just ‘went along with it’ instead of totally buying into it. It seems to me that this signaled the start of the company’s decline creatively and I wonder if you have any feeling on how different the product might be today if Austin had stayed the top-face during the Invasion angle?

You asked two different questions really.  The first one is did they capitalize on Austin as much as possible?  For the most part yes, I think they did.  They made a lot of money from him and he was booked very well until the end of his run.  That leads to the second question, which is did they lose momentum at the end of his run.  The answer there is yes.  Whenever a creative group has something that is doing well and making a mint, they never want to end it too soon.  That certainly happened with Austin.  The problem is, it can also put you in a position where you start to get stale and hang on too long to concepts and characters.  By the time they turned Austin, he was losing steam (along with WWE on the whole) so they tried to mix things up by having him go heel.  It didn't work and it helped signal that the business was really in a new era where the fans often tell the company who the faces and heels are, not vice versa.  Sometimes, the company even listens!

Why do you say Umaga won’t be champion? Personally, I think having the “Undefeated” Umaga as champion would certainly be one for the record books. Now to have the “Double U” match (Undertaker Vs Umaga) once Umaga becomes champion have him lose the belt in a triple threat match. He then gets to retain his “Never been pinned.”

As I type this on Sunday, before the PPV, all I can tell you is that I never said that Umaga won't be champion.  I don't know what WWE's booking plan is for tonight but I could see them having Umaga win the belt and have Cena chase for it.  They have to keep Cena in programs that mean something, so I could see them doing it.

I don't think it would make sense to have Umaga go against Undertaker though.  If Umaga beats Cena tonight (and by the time you read this you will know if he did or not), they could actually keep the program going until Mania.  Getting Umaga in against Undertaker would just seem rushed and forced at this time.

I have a question about the The King Of The Ring. Why did WWE stop having it?

KOTR fell victim to the brand extension.  With WWE going to Raw and Smackdown rosters, they decided to have four major PPVs and then let the brands have their own shows on the other months.  The Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam and The Survivor Series were the companies big shows, and they got the co-branded status.  KOTR was dropped, in part because at the time they made the decision that they wanted to keep the brands completely separate, so they didn't want to have Raw and Smackdown wrestlers working against each other.

I recently have purchased quite a few of the tagged classic DVDs available in the UK, which are basically repackaged WWE PPV events. My question is what was "In Your House"? Was it a PPV event and were they successful?

WWE decided to expand their PPV business in the mid 90s.  At the time, they weren't doing monthly PPVs, believe it or not.  They made the decision to do shows every month decided to break into the business by doing two hour events priced at $20 a pop (ten dollars cheaper than their regular shows).  They called the shows "In Your House" events.  They ran for years until WWE decided to make all of their shows three hours long (and of course, raised the prices as well).  For the most part, I remember the events as being something that fell in between a TV show and a real PPV.  I was never a big fan of the concept because they just didn't seem to deliver like their three hour counterparts, but they still cost twenty bucks a shot.  

I was wondering why no one sees any value in Kevin Nash? It's obvious that he's past his prime and only puts over himself but beyond that he's way more entertaining than anything else on TV in wrestling. He's given all the X Division wrestlers that aren't in the main X Division feud something to do other than wrestle in meaningless tag and scramble style matches at the beginning of PPVs. Now they have a reason..no matter how flimsy a reason. They only give his X Division segments 1-3 minutes on an episode of Impact. I think Nash and the X Division get more get more out of there time than any other wrestlers on TV. Whys everyone so down on Nash?

I will start out by quoting you.  "It's obvious that he's past his prime and only puts over himself."  There's reason number one why people don't appreciate Nash being on TNA TV.  The other reason is that people feel that Nash is killing the reputation of the division and hurting very talented workers, guys that often have great matches.

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