World Wrestling Entertainment has a lot to think about following the Taboo Tuesday broadcast.
The concept was never anything near “revolutionary.” We were supposed to have “all the power,” as they so nicely had repeated over the past few weeks. I don’t know about you, but I personally felt that the audience truly had the power in only deciding one match — Chris Jericho’s bout. We were given options to choose from. Although it is certainly a new concept that has never been done before, we were considered to be sheep once again. Selecting Triple H’s opponent from a field of three is not really having all the power, is it? Were they too affraid that The Hurricane was going to get a title shot? Imagine that. The Hurricane. In the main event of a PPV (although it didn’t end up being the last match on the card), fighting Triple H all mighty for the World Heavyweight Championship. Unfortunately, WWE couldn’t look past the fact that it sounds appealing… and impossible. They beat themselves at their own game, proving to us all that they’re simply affraid. What if Coach was on the ballot for this match, and he wasn’t inserted in the IC title bout? (Which was stupid in the first place.) What if he had won? Jonathan Coachman vs. Triple H for the World Title. Yup, it’s possible. WWE thinks it’s even probably, so they decided to let you choose from one of the three babyfaces. Well, the two anyway, and the one that nobody really cares about seeing as he’s burried as a face and a heel already. But it was certainly a nice gesture to see them use the American flag as a background for the graphic that portrayed the three guys having a “debate” later that evening. There they were. Two Canadians and Michaels. The great pride of our country. They were in the midst of a debate… A debate. While Benoit and Edge tried their best to win the award for worst promo of the night, HBK did his part to ensure that although it’s not 1996, he’s still working the main event with Triple H.
RAW scored a 3.0 rating. Don’t bother looking up how far back you have to go for a worse number. I’ll save you the trouble. December 31, 2001. That was New Year’s Eve though, so reality would have me look at a non-holiday edition of RAW that has done a worse number than 3.0. Are you ready for this? This is the worst non-holiday rating since December 22, 1997. Scary. I wonder why? Yeah, it’s baseball’s fault. It has got to be. And I’m sure that Linda McMahon will agree with me when the time comes for another one of those lovely phone calls with lots of numbers and accounting. So next year’s theme is chess. You know… Football was the main reason behind the bad ratings before, now it’s baseball, next year will be chess. World Championship Chess. Does ESPN carry that?
Then came the unfortunate injury. Michaels will be remembered for working tonight’s PPV in his condition, but it shouldn’t be that way. He should be instead remembered of how great a performer he is when it comes to selling an injury. He had a good night, but the fact that in the end of 2004, the main event is Triple H vs. Michaels is scary. Hey, the people selected it. Yeah, it had nothing to do with them sticking that choice down our throat for three weeks by fading Benoit from the picture, and turning Edge into a clown, that resembled a long-hair version of Christian, a la 2002. Well, damn that injury. See, now The Game had to keep the belt. I don’t know if you know, but the original plan was for Mr. Helmsley to drop the strap here. Hey don’t blame him. There’s a long way to go until he reaches his 17th World Championship. And you know he’s not retiring until he does.
While all of this was going on, and while H did get a good match out of Michaels, a true legend entered the ring. After many years, Ric Flair returned to a place he knows well — the main event of a PPV. I hope Bret Hart was watching at home. I hope all of you were watching at home. I know Randy Orton was watching up close, and probably thinking to himself “Damn. This is Ric Flair who is making me a superstar right now.” And that’s exactly what Flair did. And that’s exactly what Flair has been doing for about four decades now. He made a career out of making others look good inside the ring. I know that Flair is right about one thing. There’s a lot of loose wrong usage of the word “Legend” on that program. The true legend wrestled in the main event. The fake legend wrestled for the World Title. They both had an amazing night, and they both proved that when it comes to in-ring wrestling, they’re both legends indeed. However, only one of them proved that when it comes to giving back to the industry where it counts the most (helping making young guys), only one did. I will remind you that last year, it took Randy Orton, a heel at the time, the help of the Seven Great Gods of the world to defeat HBK on PPV… and still nobody cared. That’s HBK. What Foley and Flair have done for Orton, nobody can do. Legends.
I don’t know why Chris Jericho still bothers with this company. It must be the money. It’s like falling on a ladder that goes up your ass isn’t enough, or something. Month after month, Y2J busts his ass putting Giant Baba wannabes like Batista on the map, then he has killer matches with Christian where ladders go up his ass, only to lose time after time after time, and remain one big nothing. Sure, I’m glad Shelton Benjamin was given the ball to run with. I am glad. But boy, how stupid is WWE? Did they really think that in LEGIT voting, anybody would pick a heel? How does that work? The faces are crowd favorites, of course the people are going to go with a Shelton Benjamin, or a Rhyno, isntead of a Batista or a Christian. They need to realize we’re not stupid. As far as Jericho goes, he needs to be the World Champion, or move to SmackDown. It’s embarassing what they’ve done to him.
There is one man that nobody gives credit to, and one man that deserves probably the most credit out of everyone this year. That owuld be Kane. For all the shit this man has had to go through… and I mean shit here… he sold for Snitsky like a Turkey Sale on Thanksgiving. He tried his best to help create a new name out there. With everything they have put on him this whole year, he’s done his best, and as good a job as humanly possible. A man whose character was never meant to speak for years, unleashed a lot of charisma and talent, and although all the storylines he’s been involved with from his brother’s wake-up call, to his wedding to the Bad Acting Fairy herself (as Bruce Mitchell would say), Kane has shown that he’s very talanted. If nobody can see or appreciate that, I know that I can. Kane will be off shooting his movie project, which is why they did that ending at the PPV. Hopefully when he returns they’ll give him something much better than what he currently has.
La Resistance. I think the only people that didn’t know they were losing those belts were the non-Internet fans from Quebec. Conway came out on Monday for the Heat tapings without his tag belt. They were obviously dropping the straps. I mean, it’s a REVOLUTIONARY concept we’re talking about here. Somewhere, Rhyno and Tajiri are watching tapes of Triple H, because they were told that they need to watch more tapes to progress and get an opportunity to open up. So after Vince McMahon came out at the Nasau Coliseum last year and cut their match short, they had the opportunity to stand next to him in one ring on RAW this past Monday night. They also were supposed to win the tag team titles after working on a tag team for months. But I guess that doesn’t matter. It was supposed to be the revival of the tag division on RAW, but it was better to give the belts to Benoit and Edge, former tag team champions, who are singles competitors. But those Triple H tapes helped! It’s like an Evolution-ized form of Simon Dean.
Well, Trish tried. She has been trying for about two years now in that division. Stacy didn’t win? Aww.
I hope they’re having fun with Eric Bischoff. The man who this company despised for about a decade came to the WWE to simply work as an on-camera talent. He put all of his pride aside, and did whatever was asked of him. And a lot was asked of him. Whether it was getting his ass whooped by Steve Austin, getting thrown up on, getting thrown into a “pigs only” area, or kissing Rikishi’s ass on PPV, coming up with HLA, ruining the gay wedding of Billy and Chuck; Bischoff pretty much did it all for them. This is how they thank him. And am I the only one who can’t stand his character on TV anymore? Why don’t they just get it over with and move on? He’s so lame on TV, and all I do weekly is wonder what he’ll do for Triple H and against Randy Orton.
Nick Dinsmore. The shy wrestler who spent months in OVW and on the road working hard to manage to get over a character that nobody would ever buy on paper, but everybody grew to enjoy when it came together. How hard must he have worked to make it happen, I wouldn’t know. But hey, H took care of that one, too.
Christy and Carmella? Why? They don’t have enough guys on the roster?
Following Taboo Tuesday, the company needs to sit down and reevaluate everything they’re doing on Monday nights. Shawn Michaels and Ric Flair saved this PPV, but the rest of the matches were below average. There was nothing extra special that made the viewer buy the event, and if you had to choose between the PPV or baseball, I know which one you would have chosen. At this rate, I’m not sure if they’ll have to worry about finding a new channel station for RAW in an year. By then, I’m expecting Vince and H to be the only upper management left.
Mr. Pat Patterson — Thank you for all the wonderful moments you have given us all. I hope the rest of your life is everything you were hoping for, because you deserve it. Thank you.
Thanks for reaidng everyone.
Eddie
Levski11@aol.com
