This Sunday, World Wrestling Entertainment presents Vengeance,
a "Night of Champions." The hype for this show has been on the back-
burner thanks to the continuing fake news coverage over the death of
Mr. McMahon (which CNBC claims could make WWE vulnerable to lawsuits
over the fact that they are a publicly traded company and have
issued press releases in an attempt to blur the lines between
fiction and real life). Also add to the fact that Vengeance is right
on the heels of One Night Stand and the recent news that Backlash
did a poor buyrate, this show appears to be doomed. So what exactly
is going wrong in WWE land with this show and what could have been
done to fix this?
1) Mick Foley is stepping out of retirement (again) and is main
eventing his first pay-per-view since Wrestlemania 16 (back in April
2000). This is a stunt clearly designed to boost the buyrate, but is
this really an effective plan in the year 2007? WWE needs to realize
that Foley has been an inactive talent for seven years now. In
perspective, seven years before 2000 was 1993, where Yokozuna and
Lex Luger were headlining for the World Wrestling Federation. That's
an awful long time in the wrestling world, and the fanbase has
clearly shifted. When Foley came out on the draft episode of Raw and
announced that he was accepting the open challenge for Vengeance,
you could practically hear crickets in the audience. No one really
seemed to care, and I think Foley noticed it. I am a huge Foley
mark, but it is time to face reality now.
You may have noticed that in the past two years, Raw (as well as
Smackdown) has been enjoying larger attendance at shows. However,
these are not the same fans who were turned off by the product in
2002 and 2003 and have magically returned. These are new fans, who
have been sucked in by the buzz coming from the current stars, most
notably John Cena and Edge. When they see Foley on Raw, they are all
aware that he used to be a big star, but to them he is just an out
of shape retiree with a bad hair cut. They are also conditioned to
seeing Foley show up mainly to put people over. That is admirable on
Foley's behalf, but a lot of the newer fans unfortunately see him as
a loser in the process.
2) Stephanie McMahon on Raw. With less than a week before a pay-per-
view, you know, the shows that cost viewers 40 bucks a pop to
witness, Stephanie comes out and makes a big announcement about the
NEXT episode of Raw. Yeah, it's going to be three hours and have all
three brands (two weeks after the last three hour episode and draft
that was supposedly going to reestablish the lines between brands)
so the show is going to be a big deal. However, it makes a state of
mind in the fans that they have something big to look forward to
next Monday, on free television, so they can skip paying $40 for
Vengeance on Sunday, and maybe they'll pick it up later for $16 at
Wal-Mart or watch it on WWE 24/7.
Stephanie also faces the same challenge that Foley does. The current
fanbase isn't that familiar wtih her. Some longterm fans will
remember her as the helpless victim of The Undertaker in 1999, or
Triple H's scheming wife in 2000, and maybe some of the newer fans
can remember when she was the sympathetic general manager of
Smackdown in 2002 and 2003. But most of the new fans, who jumped on
board in the past two years, only know her as Vince's daughter, and
might even remember her as the obnoxious loud-mouth who tried
getting herself over again when Raw returned to USA. But based on
her nonexistant crowd reaction on the last Raw, it is clear to me
that the fans don't remember her or just don't care about her
anymore, or a mixture of both.
3) The "Night of Champions" concept is a pretty cool idea, but it
also exposes how poorly the WWE has been booking the championship
belts. The issue is that many of the titles have been booked into
oblivion or are being held by superstars who aren't really being
pushed. Let's take a look at the titles.
WWE Champion: John Cena. This is the best booked title in the WWE
today, which is a good thing because the title dates back to 1963.
Cena has been a great champion during his third reign, and I don't
see any reason why he should drop it at Vengeance. The match itself,
with a collection of former champions just thrown in there,
screams "fantasy booking," and has the potential to be a real
cluster-fuck. However, there is a strong chance that Cena's reign
could be up this time, and that gives the match a much needed
injection of excitement. This match will probably be the main draw
for this show, for obvious reasons.
World Heavyweight Champion: Edge. The rumors have been that Edge is
going to be a longterm champion, which many have assumed this means
that he'll be holding the belt until Wrestlemania time. Edge was a
great choice to hold this belt when Undertaker got hurt, because he
brings a fresh touch to Smackdown and it gives him an opportunity to
run with the ball, something that wasn't going to happen for him on
Raw. My only issue with the match on Sunday is that Edge has been
feuding with Batista for months now, and they have not produced
anything memorable as far as storytelling goes and reactions to
their pay-per-view bouts have been lukewarm at best. I'm eager for
Edge to retain the title and feud with a returning Rey Mysterio
later this year, while Batista finally gets his feud with Mark Henry
off the ground (assuming that Henry doesn't go down with ANOTHER
injury).
ECW World Championship: Vacant. Chris Benoit and CM Punk are going
to wrestle at Vengeance for this title, and that is a legitimate
dream match amongst the internet crowd. If this match delivers, it
will be automatically worth picking up on DVD, no matter how awful
the rest of the show is. The winner should be Chris Benoit at this
point, mainly because he's never held the ECW title, and he would
make the ECW brand seem legitimate.
Intercontinental Champion: Santino Marella. The IC title has sunken
really low in 2007. It was making a comeback last year, during the
great Jeff Hardy/Johnny Nitro feud, but since Umaga won the title in
February (by absolutely squashing Hardy) the title has been off the
radar again. Umaga barely defended the title and Marella winning it
was a neat, if not completely random moment. Marella has had some
okay-ish title defenses, but he isn't catching on the way WWE hoped,
and it seems that his time is up on Sunday. If Umaga takes the belt,
I really hope they do something with it this time, because the IC
title has too much history behind it to simply be forgotten about
now.
United States Champion: MVP. Smackdown has treated the U.S. title
the way Raw should be treating the IC title. They aren't just using
the title to get MVP over, but they are also using MVP to add to the
title's prestige. That is something that WWE forgets to do with most
of their championships. MVP won the title at the end of a tremendous
feud with Chris Benoit, and I dearly hope he doesn't lose to Flair
on Sunday.
World Tag Team Champions: Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch. This title
is making a comeback of sorts, as Jeff and Matt Hardy did a lot to
bring attention back to the gold. Cade and Murdoch have been booked
much better now than they were during their first reign (they won
the title almost immediately after debuting and lost to little
fanfare against Big Show and Kane less than two months later). There
is no reason for the Hardy's to take the title back on Sunday, as
they are both on seperate shows and it is high time to reestablish
the lines between brands.
WWE Tag Team Champions: Deuce and Domino. This belt is really
hurting right now. London and Kendrick reigned for 11 months, but I
can hardly remember anything they were involved in during the last
five months of the reign. Deuce and Domino randomly took the titles
on a throway episode of Smackdown and have done nothing of note
since either. They don't even have scheduled opponents for
Vengeance, with many predicting the Majors Brothers will be getting
the shot. This is also only the second pay-per-view appearance by
Deuce and Domino, with their first being all the way back at No Way
Out in February. My question is why put the tag titles on a team
that they don't even think enough of to schedule on pay-per-views on
a regular basis, that it took a "Night of Champions" theme just to
get them on the show?
Women's Champion: Melina. This title almost always gets included on
pay-per-views, but that suggests that it is more prestigious than it
really is. The Women's title match is almost always the piss break
match, as it is routinely poor quality and frequently is placed on
the card in between main event matches. Candice Michelle has a very
real chance of taking the title on Sunday, and would be the first
Diva Search contestant to win the gold. Melina has not been taking
off as champion too well, but at least she is someone who WWE thinks
enough of to have regularly portrayed on television, unlike former
champions such as Molly Holly (she was practically invisible in her
2003 run) and Gail Kim.
Cruiserweight Champion: Chavo Guerrero. And we end here, on the most
depressing championship in all of the WWE. Why is Chavo Guerrero the
champ? To push him? To reward him for his hard work? No, the reason
Chavo is the champ is because they had NOTHING else for him to do.
His push towards the U.S. title flopped and his character was dead
in the water, thanks to the tasteless feud against Rey Mysterio
(even though Chavo won that feud, his character was damaged badly).
So Chavo won the title at No Way Out, as the surprise entrant to a
cruiserweight open, just after Jimmy Wang Yang had unceremoniously
ended the year-plus reign of Gregory Helms. Since then, Chavo has
been barely used on television and has been featured on ZERO pay-per-
views, that is until this "Night of Champions" theme forced
Smackdown to push the cruiserweight division again in recent weeks.
Again, I want to ask the WWE why is it that they would put a
championship on someone they did not plan on utilizing in any
meaningful way.
Final Thoughts: So there you have it, this "Night of Champions"
concept has exposed how poorly WWE has been booking the titles.
Thanks to the theme, they are presenting a pay-per-view full of
participants who are barely ever on pay-per-views, yet they are
somehow the champions or the top contenders. WWE officials and
writers probably don't care about this situation, but it would be my
deep hope that they will learn a lesson from Vengeance and that
things will improve from here.