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PWINSIDER Q & A: CREATIVE BEING ANAL ABOUT FULL CONTROL, WHY WWE BUSINESS ISN'T WHAT IT SHOULD AND COULD BE, LASHLEY'S RETURN AND MORE

At the time that Kerry Von Erich came into the WWF/E and became Intercontinental Heavyweight Champion, I always wondered why Kevin Von Erich never wrestled in the WWF/E with his brother. I think Kevin was just as good of a wrestler as Kerry, so why didn't WWF/E bring in Kevin Von Erich along with Kerry?

As I remember it, Kevin didn't want to go to WWE.  He was happy to work in and around Dallas for World Class Championship and preferred being home for his family.  

Why did WWE move from letting guys write their own promos to scripting them line-by-line? During the Attitude era, performers like The Rock and Stone Cold got to deliver their own promos; as long as they got across the key points they had to get across, they could ad-lib and play off the crowd, and their promos were much better for it. Now, all promos are scripted word-for-word and, as a result, come off forced and scripted and stupid ("hot knife through butter" being the latest example of this). When was the change made, and what was WWE's reasoning in making this change (and why do they stick with it, given how horrible the promos are)? Also, are certain performers (maybe Triple H, Ric Flair, etc.) exempt from the scripted requirement and are they allowed to improvise? 

It started when Stephanie McMahon-Levesque took control of the WWE creative team around 2001.  It was done, in my opinion, because she wanted to control every aspect of the product, ignoring the fact that adlibbing has been a staple of the business for years (and has helped make the career of many characters).  I think it creates a real problem when you have a bunch of people who have never been in the ring scripting every word that the wrestlers say, but they don't care back in creative.  They want to be the end all, be all and probably won't admit for a second that their obsession with the promos has hurt the product, even though anyone with a modicum of sense can tell that it has (including people like Steve Austin who have publicly said that the promos are overscripted).  

The top talents can deviate slightly to address what the crowd is doing but they still have to hammer home what they are told to say.

When is Bobby Lashley slated to return?

He was told that he would be out about four months when he had surgery in the beginning of August so as long as everything goes well in his rehab, he should be back in December or January.

I heard your "rant" (?) about WWE Unforgiven, creative etc.
a) Wasn't Unforgiven a better wrestling show as SummerSlam?
b) You said, the show was predictable. Then who picked Batista, Candice Michelle and Randy Orton as winners?

A) Which is better, death by drowning or by suffocation?  Would you rather have a car accident with no insurance or get fined by the IRS?  Which is better, very dull and predictable or dull and very predictable?  However you feel about that will give you your answer.

B) This what I wrote before the show from the weekly tip sheet that we did for Unforgiven.  

I will say Candice retains but comes out much worse for the wear to continue the feud.

Hmmm, how about this?  Rey, through no doing of his own, has Khali pinned.  Since Batista set up the pin, he wipes out Rey and wins the belt and they feud. 

Cena keeps the belt if they have any sanity at all.  Orton is better than he was and is working harder, but most people still don't see him as a champion.  At this point (and don't think he hasn't already thought of it) I can see Cena holding the belt until he loses it to Triple H.  I really think they let Orton off the hook for the Signature thing because they needed a main event for this PPV.  They just can't put the belt on him right now.

So there you have it.  I guessed the right finishes in all three matches, if not exactly how they got there.  I guess you can see why I called it predictable now.

How can anyone deeply criticize WWE for creative or lack of? I mean, they still make good numbers with ratings being good and sometimes great for this time and age, ppv-buyrates being decent most times  (with higher PPV-prices). Although every fan and observer can have his own opinion, WWE is not in jeopardy or something to changing anything. I thought the negative discussions almost laughable, because almost every disappointed viewer turns in next Monday and next Monday.

OK, look at it like this.  Your town has a bunch of great restaurants.  You go to all of them.  They all have their strengths and you enjoy them.  Then, one starts delivering the best product that they ever have.  It's so good that people flock to it, going to the other places less and less.  Slowly, the other places are hurting financially and the top place buys them, for pennies on the dollar, and rather than build them back up and have many thriving businesses, they take the tactic of purposely changing them into rip off versions of their successful place.  They do this to show that they were better all along, even though they now own other places that they could make a lot of money from.  Ego overtakes common and business sense and they trash formerly solid places.

That is bad enough, but then, after closing down all the competition, the big place starts cutting back big time on their food quality, for no reason other than the owner put his daughter in a position of head chef that she should not be in.  There are a lot of great chefs out there, but working under her, they have to cook the food in a way that can't come close to comparing with how they used to make it just a few years earlier.  Because of this quality loss, their business drops off and they have a choice.  They can either improve their product to what it used to be or they can just charge more for their food to the people who are still coming in.  They choose the latter.  So, even fewer people come in.  A lot of the old customers still WOULD come in if the product was improved back to what it used to be but they won't pay top dollar for a substandard meal, one that pales in comparison (for no justifiable reason other than the owners' arrogance) to the product they delivered just a short while ago.  There's your answer.

See, a lot of people aren't stupid.  They don't owe WWE a thing and they won't waste their time and money on an inferior product.  Sure, WWE is not going out of business any time soon, but when you look at the fact that they used to do 6 and 7 ratings for Raw and now are doing half of that, the fact is that they are leaving a lot of money on the table due to their inability and/or unwillingness to deliver a quality product.

To answer your last question, that isn't true.  Not everyone is still tuning in.  I hear from people every day who have stopped watching and keep up with the business through this website, hoping someone will wake up in Stamford and improve the product.  Those fans care enough to want to know what is going on, but WWE doesn't give them a reason to watch.  Also, look at the huge ratings drop that WWE suffered last week, on the day after a PPV no less.  There are a lot of people that want to buy a quality product but won't waste their money on garbage.  I applaud those people.  Hopefully, they can help WWE see what they are doing wrong and lead to change. 

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