The Immediate Problems of WWE pt. 1
Vol. III Ed. XLI
Written by: Dr. Trevor Hunnicutt
June 15, 2004
The Squandered Opportunity of the Lottery
Last week’s (Editor note: SmackDown from 6/3) offering of WWE Smackdown! was the embodiment of a bad wrestling show. It was bad enough to draw ire—and an average score of 0.75/10—from the staff of the Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter. Two weeks ago, it caused Scott Keith to stop penning his weekly “SmarKdown Rant,” citing his frustration with the product.
Indeed, Smackdown these days is usually accompanied by a tone of regret and frustration, especially when compared to its WWE counterpart, the more successful WWE RAW. Partially it’s a problem of the Smackdown writing staff’s own doing. Many decisions made by the staff, headed by David Lagana and Bruce Prichard, just haven’t been smart. But in many cases they have been the result of tough choices resulting from a lack of established stars.
Prior to WrestleMania, it was a problem WWE recognized in the aftermath of Brock Lesnar announcing his decision to leave the company. Kurt Angle’s injuries and the eventual exit of The Big Show Paul Wight for his back injuries further confirmed the need for some sort of change. And when WWE announced a 3/22 lottery, it was far from a surprise. The result—though entertaining and a ratings success (4.34)—failed to help Smackdown by giving it the necessary amount of established stars and potential stars without giving up much. In the end, Rene Dupree, Mark Jindrak, Rob Van Dam, Teddy Long, Spike Dudley, Bubba-Ray Dudley, D-Von Dudley, and Booker T (the latter three a trade for Triple H). Angle came back on as GM, replacing Paul Heyman, who was switched to RAW and then quit.
Let’s posit that out of 6 trades (which in the end were 8 new stars after the Triple H trade), 3 needed to be great for Smackdown, 2 could be good (like a potentially great star with work), and 1 could be irrelevant. Dupree was a good switch, as he has potential to be something good in the future, but he’s not ready to be positioned as a star now. Jindrak was irrelevant because he’s not that great and he hasn’t meant anything. Rob Van Dam was good because of what he can contribute but not great because he hasn’t been built as a star in the past, so he won’t be seen as one until some work is done. Teddy Long was irrelevant because talking pieces aren’t exactly what Smackdown needs or would benefit from with the draft format, plus he’s been given Jindrak, who is nothing. Dudley is irrelevant because he’s been position as a jobber. The Dudleys, as a team, are good but not great because they can’t and haven’t saved business. Booker T is good, and I’m being generous, because he has a lot to offer but he’s been buried. (The heavily promoted arrival of Kenzo Suzuki will not do miracles, either.)
What the above amounts to is no one the caliber of a Shawn Michaels or Triple H who is established and can amount to immediate business with the World Champion Eddie Guerrero. Which means: no immediate business. The result, a hastily developed Bradshaw (newly packaged as a heel)/Guerrero main event at Judgment Day, a horrible show with horrible promotion, that drew 205,000 buys according to current estimates. This leaves four goods. Dupree was immediately used fabulously as a rejuvenated heel, but had a lackluster feud with the now ineffective John Cena. The feud itself, in theory, was a good choice, but the options made as far as writing were not great. Since neither are polished workers, their match at Judgment Day did not meet expectations. Rob Van Dam has been a good addition to the Smackdown roster, as a good face and a good wrestler on a show that has lately lacked much great wrestling. That said, they haven’t done much with him. The Dudleys are a popular tag team and with Heyman, they are now a good heel tag team. However, they need to make an ascent up the ranks of the tag team division rather than pursuing a fruitless feud with the current incarnation of the Undertaker.
Booker T, the fourth new Smackdown employee entity labeled a “good” trade, was immediately and slovenly introduced to Smackdown. As if it weren’t bad enough that a whole tag team in addition to Booker T was worth one Triple H, the goal with his character was to get heat on the fact that he hated Smackdown. This is a no-no. Wrestling characters exist only within the universe in which they appear. Booker T can’t complain about being on Smackdown because that is the only universe in which his character exists. In essence, Booker T becomes irrelevant because he has no interest in competition on Smackdown. When Ric Flair came from WCW/NWA in the earlier 1990s wearing the WCW belt and saying WWF was inferior, it was thought out well from the start. The reason Ric Flair, by doing that, didn’t set himself up for the same risk that was made with Booker T was because Flair’s comments were made in the sense that he felt he was superior to every other athlete in the company and he had already proven it, in essence no different than the weekly Triple H promo on RAW. In other words, he came there to prove he was better, opening himself up to eventual competition with people like Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage. Booker T, on the other hand, was just a wrestler with a shitty demeanor who didn’t want to prove anything to anybody and didn’t really have any desire to be with an inferior brand. That takes him out of the “wrestler cutting a promo” light and puts him in the “legitimate opinion” light, and it’s self destructive. Secondly, it opens up the brands to comparison and WWE doesn’t want that. Thirdly, the brand split isn’t strong enough to alone be able to draw heat. After a few weeks, WWE luckily dropped that aspect of his character. Booker T turned heel again on 4/8, turning on Rob Van Dam in a useless angle. The target of all this was that Booker would job for the Undertaker in his line of defeats to keep his character strong, as were made evident by Booker T’s ten losses to Undertaker on house shows since late March. To make the feud as gimmick-laden as possible, Booker visited a shaman, adopted a prayer ritual, and carried a bag of spiritual salts. In WWE’s own ritual, when Booker used his magical salts, The Undertaker failed to sell the attack, defeating him in squash fashion. Only weeks later, the viewer is expected to forget this aspect of Booker T’s character as well. Booker T: Buried Alive.
With the exception of Booker T, Smackdown hasn’t done a horrible job with the new additions to the roster. That said, they weren’t given much to work with. They lost Kurt Angle, Brock Lesnar, the Big Show, and Shelton Benjamin, but never received anything comparable to continue to build shows off of on a weekly basis. At some point this year, or perhaps even before, Vince McMahon decided that the brand split wouldn’t be equal, but that one brand would be the flagship, which RAW retains as its moniker to this day, and the other, a secondary brand. Thus, WWE failed to make the sacrifices of the RAW brand necessary to save the SmackDown brand and the quality of the show has noticeably suffered. The cruiserweight division has again descended into laughing-stock territory. Characters, like Mordecai (Kevin Fertig), The Undertaker, and John “Bradshaw” Layfield have been written cartoonishly, hailing back to an era of weakness and incompetence once decried by Vince McMahon and opposed by Vince Russo at the start what would come to be known as the attitude era and the end of the dark ages. Just as the responsibility of the quality of Smackdown program is that of the entire company, the resurrection of the brand should not, and cannot rest on the backs of the Smackdown creative team solely, or on the talent-rich RAW solely. However, it is within the best interests of both brands to realize that the success of both brands is key to the success of WWE, and thus the onus to repair the mistakes that have been made rests upon the entire team.
Next time: In continuation of this series, a focus on how WWE can solve their problem with star power over the long-term and in the short-term. I will address answers that have always worked as well as answers pertinent to WWE’s current operation and the present day, including, in the wake of Jim Ross announcing the possibility of a fourth season of the popular reality show Tough Enough, an analysis of that option. Thanks for reading.
THunnicutt@aol.com
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