Neil’s Highlight Reel: The Donald’s Point?

(sidebar: To truly exhibit my distaste for Vince McMahon, from here on out I will no longer refer to that man by his name. Henceforth, he will be known as the Schizophrenic Top-dog Unable to Put together Impressive Disputes… aka S.T.U.P.I.D. I’m going to try it out and see if it works… if you have any suggestions, let me know.)

Two weeks ago we all could not wait for the big announcement S.T.U.P.I.D. (yea, that works) claimed he had in store for us on the 6/15 edition of Monday Night RAW. Naturally, since that particular episode was being held in North Carolina, and since rumor had it that Ric Flair – a revered man in the same state – was foaming at the mouth in anticipation of getting back into the ring, we fans thought we were putting two and two together by figuring that Flair would be named GM of RAW. How wrong we were.

S.T.U.P.I.D. stunned us all when he announced he was (kayfabe) selling the Monday night show off to, of all people, Donald Trump. Clearly S.T.U.P.I.D. went all Alzheimer’s on us and forgot that he used Trump just a couple Wrestlemanias ago, but I guess that’s neither here nor there now. Anyways, after that revelation came to light the internet was flooded with every schmo’s opinion on what possibilities could come of this. Some suggested that this was the lead-in to SummerSlam. Others thought this was just a ratings ploy that would span only a couple weeks, maybe a month. Even a Smackdown (ran by S.T.U.P.I.D.) vs. Raw (ran by Trump) storyline was suggested on one site. But despite my disgust for Trump and his tired schtick – which I’ve already ranted about on one of the XHeadlines radio shows – I have to admit that the possibilities for this situation were numerous.

But one week later in the same surprising fashion, S.T.U.P.I.D. bought back RAW from Trump in what I can only call one of the most artificial segments I’ve ever watched. I was shocked. And no, not because we had witnessed ownership change hands on RAW for the second consecutive week. I was shocked because I thought the WWE had set themselves up for a compelling couple of weeks open to mainstream media attention by bringing The Donald in, but they threw that opportunity on the ground and took a big giant “poopy” on it… John Cena style.

Now a full business week after the trainwreck, the short, succinct “power struggle” over RAW still blows my mind. I can’t even wrap my head around why the WWE would bother bringing in such a big name if the person would only be around for a short time. Did the WWE think that we’d be so distracted by that dead cat on Trump’s head that we wouldn’t realize how manic the last few weeks had been?

It’s possible that this was just a trial run to see if they could use Trump or a person of similar stature down the road – which an official WWE press release sort of confirmed when it said that the restill remained a chance of the business mogul and S.T.U.P.I.D. colliding again. Sadly, I can’t envision yet another scenario where Trump re-enters the WWE Universe. But hey, I was saying the exact same thing last time he showed his ugly mug.

Obviously, short-term ratings – the simplest reason of them all – could be the explanation behind Trump’s hello/goodbye. Ratings spiked from the normal range of RAW’s 3.1 – 3.5 up above 4.0. Granted, some of that may be due to the ad-free aspect of that RAW, but if it were quantifiable I’d bet that the attention Trump got was more responsible for that bump than the missing commercials. On top of that, the WWE’s upcoming pay-per-view “The Bash” has as much momentum heading into it as the next Charlie Haas match. Trump may have made his appearance solely to boost interest in the PPV even though, at the moment, looks like he’ll have nothing to do with it.

If I had to take a guess though, my explanation behind this whole ordeal has more to do with the kayfabe storyline. One thing I noticed is that the move turned the fans on S.T.U.P.I.D. in a big way, since he went as far as saying that the fans didn’t deserve all the things Trump was doing for them – which obviously garnered a strong negative fan reaction. I would pat myself on the back for solving this puzzle, but shortly after Vince “bought back” RAW he put Randy Orton in a Three Stages of Hell title match against none other than the wrestler currently laying the wood to his daughter (a move the fans cheered for, even though I booed). That sorta throws my whole theory behind Trump off, but hey, if they WWE blatantly ignores character history amongst their wrestlers, then I too can conveniently ignore what I want.

I have to say though – turning S.T.U.P.I.D.’s character around, if that is indeed what creative was going for, makes for some juicy television in the coming months. We could have a heel GM hire as soon as the next RAW (William Regal anybody?). Vince could even turn on HHH, although that wouldn’t make any sense at all. A babyface could get a big push by standing up to S.T.U.P.I.D. and his potential heel character down the road (like MVP’s now-rotting corpse). Sadly that babyface could’ve been – of course – Mr. Kennedy, and Kennedy vs. S.T.U.P.I.D. would have had the chance to push the WWE to a new level, but nooooooooooo… S.T.U.P.I.D. had to be a little pissant and fire him.

There I go, off on a tangent again… ladies and gentlemen, your daily Mr. Kennedy rant!  On that note, I’m out.  My brain is about to explode.

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