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PWINSIDER Q & A: CHANGING RAW, FIXING ECW, DARK MATCHES, TONGA KID, NO-COMPETE CLAUSES AND MORE

A question and a comment...A name popped into my head the other day for no reason. It was The Tonga Kid (I think). I don't know if this makes the cut for your Q and A however, I don't recall who he was or if he wrestled in the WWE, AWA, NWA, or regionally in the midwest. I was also wondering if he wrestled under any other name. Someone told me it's Sabu and I say NO WAY.

Tonga Kid debuted as the "cousin" of Jimmy Snuka in the WWF to help his cousin during Snuka's feud with Roddy Piper and Bob Orton. He was meant to be like Snuka, a young high flyer. As he got older, he got heavier and worked in The Islanders tag team. He is the brother of Rikishi and part of the Wild Samoan family. You can find out more information him at the Wild Samoan website by clicking here.

I have been watching Raw every week and been reading all the other results etc on your site and also the points of view in regards to the WWE's product and failures, especially building up PPVs. Now, I know that maybe having a live show on a Monday isn't the best place to do what I'm gonna suggest, but would it not be perhaps in a way more sensible for the WWE to use a few more jobbers (like the old days), this way keeping the big matches more special and also protecting some of the mid carder's. This would also solve some of the creative issue's of pushing people or a team one week to only have them job out and become a total waste of air time (storyline wise). Do you think that this would be a direction that WWE should look at from time to time and let the storylines and feuds build up without the same guys in the ring week after week to then make people buy the same matches on a PPV?

WWE has been doing more borderline squashes of late and personally, I am not a fan of it.  This isn't 1984 any more when that stuff would fly.  The business has changed and I think if they were to go back to squashes, they would lose viewers.  There are a lot more options for viewers now and I think the company owes it to them to deliver a quality show, not a squash-fest.  On top of that, USA pays WWE big money for Raw so it's not fair to them to deliver anything less than their best effort.  The way I see it, during their hot period, the company had non-squash matches on and did their best business ever, so it's not like it can't be done now.  I think if the creative department did their job, they wouldn't have a problem.

With the recent departure of Sabu from the ECW roster, my concerns for the brand increase greatly. With Sabu gone, that leaves six original wrestlers (not including Tazz and Styles) left on the roster: Balls Mahoney, Tommy Dreamer, Stevie Richards, Little Guido, Sandman, and Rob Van Dam. Balls received somewhat of a push early on but then became a regular jobber. Richards and Guido have rarely been seen and are only used as jobbers. With the apparent end of the "Originals" faction, Dreamer appears to be doing nothing and will most likely not receive a push. Sandman looks to be in the same category as Sabu: on his way out. And last Van Dam, the most talented member of the roster, is not renewing (well at least not yet) his contract. The roster has only been able to build stars out of CM Punk and Elijah Burke and is working on Marcus Cor Von (which is much worse of a wrestler name than Monty Brown). While I didn't think that ECW would be the same in terms of the hardcore and great matches, I did think that they would show more Extreme Rules matches to be different and stand out (they show maybe one every two months). But sadly instead of doing something smart, creative seems content with ECW scoring 1.5 ratings (where is Heyman when you need him). I don't like Lashley as champion and he is the only one that they would have take it off McMahon. It just seems that unless a big name from another roster (with talent I hope) comes to ECW, it appears as though ECW is doomed to fail. How do you think they can fix, if they can, ECW?

First off, everything you wrote was true and is the result of Vince McMahon's plan for ECW.  All along, he wanted to create a third WWE brand, not give fans a different style of wrestling.  He brought in some of the old time names hoping to get the old ECW fans to try his new ECW by giving them what they wanted, then switching it over to a WWE style product.  Unfortunately, they have succeeded in the switch, if not getting fans to watch it.  Honestly, I don't think ECW can be fixed given the way that WWE is approaching it.  As long as Vince feels the way he does about making it a WWE brand, it will always be the distant third place finisher for the company.

Now I read that Edge has wrestled 7 matches in the past 4 days. Why does the WWE always have a dark match main event after a Raw or Smackdown/ECW TV taping? Obviously, there's a chance of injuring one of your top guys in a match that no one will see but the live crowd so what's the point?

For one thing, they like to give the hometown fans an added bonus at the shows.  It's their way of giving them something extra as a way of thanking them for coming out to see a show live that they could have watched on TV.  In the case of Smackdown, they also need those main events to keep the fans from getting up and leaving during ECW, since a good number of Smackdown fans don't care at all about the third brand.

Can you guys explain the WWE no compete clause in a wrestlers contract? Is it the wrestler's option or is it a part of everyone's contract? Is it for released wrestlers or even those who have served the full length of their contract? You guys referenced that RVD's contract is up soon so using RVD as an example does he have one and would we have to wait so many days specified by the clause before he wrestles anywhere else?

WWE contracts for most people in the company contain 90 day review periods where the company can give the wrestler notice that they are being let go.  The wrestler then gets paid their downside guarantee for 90 days and is allowed to work for most indy groups (but not TNA) during that time period.  Once it ends, and WWE stops paying him/her, they can work wherever they want.  In RVD's case, his contract will expire, which means he fulfilled all of his obligates to WWE.  The day the contract expires, he is free to appear for whoever he wants to, including TNA.

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