To Vince McMahon:  “Good business decisions, jackass!”

I have been a fan of professional wrestling since about 1988.  I stuck with WWE & WCW/NWA through all the ups and downs and ups of the 90s.  I have stuck with WWE since they purchased WCW and buried the company into oblivion.  I have continued to watch as WWE sunk to new lows on Spike TV and was eagerly anticipating the move back to USA.  I thought that when WWE moved to Spike originally that they would be able to continue their edgy programming, but then realized that Viacom would not allow that.  Since hearing that RAW was moving back to USA, I kept preaching to friends that wrestling might begin to get good again.

But since the let down that was WWE Homecoming, I gave WWE another chance last week to “pick business up.”  When that didn’t happen, I figured this week’s show could not possibly be any worse, but I was wrong.  The only two things on this week’s RAW that kept my interest for more than 5 seconds were Stone Cold’s segment and Ric Flair’s segment.  Isn’t that sad?  Stone Cold is past his prime (not old, just no longer a main event wrestler) and Ric Flair is being used as a legend.  Where are the next big stars?  Every week I’m waiting for Cena to do that one big thing that gets the ball rolling to make him the next Austin or Rock or Flair or Hogan, but he’s just not there yet.  Not his fault, because he has plenty of time.  I keep finding myself saying “Who cares about this match?” or “Who cares about this guy?”  That’s not a good thing for fans to say.

If this were a professional sports team, it would be the equivalent of having losing seasons for the past few years.  The owners have to stop for a second and say “How are we ever going to win a championship if we keep trying the same formula and come up empty?”  If the Indianapolis Colts had never drafted Peyton Manning, do you think they would ever be as good as they are now?  I’m not going to say that he is the sole reason the team is great, I’m just saying they pulled out all the stops and the Colts are now in contention for a Super Bowl.  How about the Atlanta Falcons and Michael Vick?  What do you think ticket sales for games in Atlanta and Indianapolis have been like since these two guys have come on board?  I’ll bet if I had the numbers in front of me, they would back up my theories.  I know that Atlanta tickets are a lot harder to come by now, but that’s just because I live in Georgia.

So am I trying to say that WWE needs to draft a big star?  Maybe, but that’s not the point.  Something drastic needs to change.  Some teams change coaches, or beef up their defense.  Some change playbooks to accommodate their players better.  Some move the teams to another city.  All of these are drastic changes that are made to drive business.  Right now, the only change WWE has made of late is moving from Spike to USA.  The product is still the same, the faces are the same, the writing team is the same, the stories are too similar for me.

A note to Mr. McMahon:  I know your ego is the prime driving factor behind you and your daughter’s creative decisions, but do you not care about making more money for your shareholders and your support staff?  Do you not want to make back some of those millions you pissed away with the XFL?  How about the couple of million you sunk into the WCW purchase?  I think you have plenty of talented individuals at your disposal, but no good ideas for any of them.  Carlito, Cena, Batista, Orton, Benjamin, RVD & Christian are some of the best in the business today at different aspects of their job.  You can push them each to the moon, but without the right idea, story & adversary, it won’t work.  All of the above could possibly lead the company into the next phase of prominence, but they probably won’t.  You’d rather spend precious main event TV time having your wife firing and kicking the best commentator ever in professional wrestling in the nuts, so you, her and your daughter could stand triumphantly with arms raised.  Good business decision, jackass.  Oh, but a new audience doesn’t want JR commentating, no they’d rather hear Coach?!?!?  Come on!  If we want to hear anyone besides JR, it’s Joey 'Frickin’ Styles!  But he can’t be controlled, you say?  EXACTLY!  When he went off on Mike Awesome during his match at One Night Stand, I couldn’t remember the last time I felt like that about wrestling.  The fact that that match was unbelievably awesome on it’s own made it even better hearing Joey Styles call it.

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Here are a few rhetorical questions that I would love Vince & Company to sit back, think about, and try to answer:

Why does HHH get the pop of the year when he returns after being out for around a month and you automatically turn him back heel?  So eventually you can put him into a program with Cena and have him win back the WWE Title for the 42^nd time as the most hated heel?!?  And who actually cares about that match?

Why do you “go back to the well” and prominently feature the McMahon family on RAW, but as a fully functional heel family, rather than the dysfunctional family we’re used to?

On that same question, if all 4 McMahons are heels and run the show, how is anything going to be done “in the interest of the fans?”  Who can compete with the owners of the company?  Who is realistically going to tell them “No, you can’t do that?”

What brilliant mind decided that the owning/controlling family of the company should all be heels, the General Manager of RAW should be a heel (but they don’t get along), the lead announcer on RAW should be heel, and the lead color commentator should flip-flop between matches as a heel and a face (becoming a heel when he pulls for the heel wrestlers, but helps out faces in trouble and divas)?  Then, on the “inferior” brand, why place the General Manager of SmackDown into a face role, the lead color commentator as a face and the lead announcer play it straight down the middle?

Who ever told Vince & Company that tag teams and cruisers don’t deserve equal time and build as mid-carders and main eventers on both brands?  Anyone in Connecticut picked up a TNA DVD or ordered their PPVs since the company’s inception?

On that note, whose brilliant idea was it to not renegotiate with the Dudley Boyz (I refuse to call them Team 3D or the Deadly Brothers)?  Did anyone involved with that renegotiation happen to watch One Night Stand?!?

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I won’t even begin with all my thoughts on what WWE could do to make their product more interesting, but I will say this.  You want some hiring and firing advice?  I have no idea how these men are personally, I’ve never met them.  But I’ll tell you who I would want and would not want on my rosters (based purely on talent, here).  I know there are some that I list here that have been loyal employees, but I flip the channel anytime any of these men come on TV, which isn’t good.

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FIRE (or send to OVW to hone their skills or develop something new):

Chris Masters, Gene Snitsky, Tyson Tomko, Funaki, the HeartThrobs, Rosey, Viscera Orlando Jordan, Heidenreich (& let’s get Animal in a suit and let him be an agent or something)

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(TRY TO) HIRE

AJ Styles, Monty Brown, Chris Sabin, Amazing Red, AMW, Sabu, & Sting (why not)

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How about a group of guys that you’ve buried that are actually over with the live crowds, but can’t get anywhere on TV because you’ve devalued their names so bad?

Steven Richards, Hurricane, Val Venis, Scotty 2 Hotty, Rene Dupree, Big Show, Paul London, Eugene, Tajiri, Hardcore Holly, & Simon Dean

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Mr. McMahon, I have always been a supporter of your company and your business.  I have even defended you and your family, but I can’t do that anymore.  If you continue to hire yes-men to kiss your ass and tell you that it tastes like sugar, your company will diminish to obscurity.  Your once mainstream popularity has faded and professional wrestling has fallen back into the category of entertainment that is “not cool to tell people you’re a fan of”.  You need to do something drastic to get out of this rut.  You can live for the rest of your life in mediocrity or you can get off your ass, inspire your creative team to, I don’t know maybe do something, um, CREATIVE!  I heard you say that when you saw a fire, you had to pour gasoline on it, but it seems like lately every time a halfway decent idea comes about, cold water is thrown on it before it gets the opportunity to make money.  Edge & Hardy was one of those ideas that seems like it was booked in such a way that it was supposed to fail.  Rushing Orton’s push to the World Title was another.  If Shane & Stephanie are going to take over your company and run it into the next few decades, please stop slowly strangling it.  Please stop killing these great performers’ careers.  Sticking a guy like Nova with the Simon Dean gimmick is as bad as putting Hurricane on a show that doesn’t even have a cruiser division.  Please fix your company.  I’m sick of sitting by and watching the slow death of WWE.