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I’m sitting here watching the 10/3/11 airing of Raw. And, while the walk out is good television, I have one question for WWE: What the *#%*!@ are you doing? The Cena/Punk angle was the best angle I’ve seen in years. They have gone from a HOT Money In The Bank PPV where a new superstar was made in Punk and where people were excited about the product – and more importantly, *I* was excited about the product – to a show in which HHH is the main focus, and he’s not even a wrestler. It’s as if HHH saw Punk make himself, the awesome awesome Punk/Cena confrontations and matches, got jealous and wanted to be the man again so he used his weight behind the scenes to push himself – as a NON WRESTLER – to the main focus of the TV product. Is the WWE that stupid? Are they too blind to see they are digging their own grave? Help me out here, b/c I like wrestling, and want to enjoy watching it, but what they do just makes my head hurt.
I would love to help you out but I feel exactly like you do and have no good answer. It is pretty clear that they dropped the ball since SummerSlam. Even they have to admit it as their major indicators have all taken a hit since the show. They took it in this direction because they are convinced that they are brilliant storytellers and that the fans would find this stuff more interesting. I think it's fair to see that in at least a lot of cases, they were wrong.
Do you think that Cody Rhodes's mask will become like Cowboy Bob Orton's arm cast?
Given that Orton's cast was part of him being seen as a second for his WWE career instead of a top guy, I think it would be mistake to do that Cody. He has shown a lot of promise and I would hate to see them paint him in to a corner of being a secondary act.
After watching the 10/3 Raw, there were two new pieces of evidence saying that WWE has failed to create new megastars. First, when several mid-card heels were in the ring cutting a promo, the one star who got the biggest fan reaction was non-wrestler Vickie Guerrero. Second, Jinder Mahal, a relatively new roster member, had his name changed to Jobber Mahal when he got beat cleanly and quickly by permanent low-carder Santino Marella. And that's just scraping the barrel. Why is it that Vince and Stephanie can't seem to get the memo that they need to have a plan in place when guys like Cena and Orton are no longer at their physical peak? This is so frustrating!
It really is. I don't know what Jinder could do in the long run but having him to job out to Santino just tells the audience that "this guy is a joke". Then at some point the company will "have nothing for him" and "wish him well in his future endeavors" and say he did nothing to stand out. It's a cycle that we have seen so many times and it's flawed in many of the cases, yet they can't address it fix it. Yes, it is totally frustrating.
Is WWE dropping the ball on this walkout storyline? They are saying now that the stars will only appear on Smackdown until HHH steps down. Cole also said several times on RAW that Triple H was only running RAW. WTH?! He has been on both shows regularly and has stated that he controls both shows. Now they’re acting like we’re dumb and haven’t been paying attention.
Considering that HHH was introduced as the COO of THE COMPANY and also made a decree that guys from both brand will appear on all shows, meaning he has control of Smackdown, yes it is a solid 10 on the dopey stupidity scale, even if they did try to say he would stay away from the brand.
Do you believe it would benefit the overall product and overall buyrates for other PPV's if the WWE cut out maybe one or two of its PPV's from its yearly calendar?
Yes I really do. They just have too many of them and often don't have the proper amount of time to properly build them up. I think that if they had more time they would at least have the chance to make the shows mean more to the fans and thus increase buyrates. But as long as they remain profitable, and they still are, WWE will probably continue to keep running as many of them as they have.
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