Dear Mr. McMahon,
When you purchased WCW, wrestling fans around the world had thought it was the greatest thing ever, finally WWE vs. WCW! Alas we know the story there-you had taken a once fascinating idea and burnt to the ground. It wasn’t your fault entirely, after all; many of the old WCW’s biggest stars didn’t come along for the ride.
What was the your fault was that instead of crafting new stars out of the WCW mid-carders that came with the sale, you instead made them look vastly inferior to the WWE stars. I understand your product took down the competitor and now you have to show your better than they ever could be but this is wrestling. All the fans know that it’s a work, did you really have to destroy an old brand for the sake of your pride. Wasn’t buying WCW ego-boosting enough, let alone showing up on TNT during the final Nitro broadcast?
Fast forward to mid-way through the fledgling “invasion†storyline, again with none of the big stars that made WCW famous, you brought in Rob Van Dam and Tommy Dreamer and aligned them with any and all ECW guys you had under contract. In one of the most amazing moments in wrestling in the last 10 years, ECW was alive again and ready to kick some ass. Until that is about an hour later when you began to neuter them as well. Aligning them with WCW instead of having all three “brands†fight it out for superiority was in my honest opinion bad business yet again.
At Survivor Series that year you showed how truly afraid of failure you are – by having the WWE superstars beat the
One Night Stand, an event that was created to showcase everything the old ECW was, was a momentous event. For one night, you swallowed your pride and allowed any and all old ECW guys come perform for the raucous
I’ll admit that silly angles in wrestling are some of my favorite, when they’re done well.
You have refused to let any show other than Raw have the spotlight. Even if you don’t want “E-C-Dub!†to return to its prominence, you continually refuse to let it do any sort of good business. You can’t be that dumb – do you really think we enjoy week-in/week-out CM Punk/John Morrison matches? No matter how good the two guys are in the ring together, we all want to see new programs after a while. Why do you think the Miz of all people won the vote at Cyber Sunday? It wasn’t because we love the Miz, it’s because we’ve seen Big Daddy V/Morrison vs. Punk matches until we all feel like Alex Dfrom a Clockwork Orange.
One of the reasons that the Attitude Era worked was because you had nowhere else to turn to. With WCW beating you into a pulp in the ratings, you not only had to make new stars, but he had to listen to any and all ideas.
Now that your king of the wrestling world, it’s lonely at the top and we’re the fans are the ones made to suffer through guys like Snitsky. I’ve got nothing against the guy but let’s face it-he sucks and you suck for jamming him down our throats every week. Being pushed is one thing but when the fans couldn’t care less, you begin to enter X-Pac territory, which in case you forgot is “get off of my TV†heat.
I understand you’ve been hurt by the actions of Benoit (we all have) and the recent suspensions, but with a seemingly endless supply of talent, you build some new stars in the interim and let them get the rub from the stars who return from injuries and/or suspensions. Carlito is a fairly talented guy and you place him at the front of the job-squad-what gives Vince? Are your grapefruits that small that you can’t stand to see anyone break through the glass ceiling?
Triple H says that guys have to go out there and create their own opportunities. Normally, I agree with that sentiment 100% of the time (heck, that’s why I wrote this). But what opportunities can you create for yourself when the Boss and the Boss’ daughter ‘ok’ every move and your son-in-law is one of the top guys clinging to his spot. Kudos to Trips for not tossing his hat into any title picture but that’s not enough, it might be time for him and Shane to step in and explain to you and your daughter that its time to start doing new things, isn’t there a saying as far as high-flyers go “you go to the well one too many times and you’ll come up dry?â€ÂÂÂ
So what do you do? Well for starters, you take that third brand that you try to sell as ECW and you disband it. I don’t mean go back to two brands but call it something else. Take away fan expectations. Stop having CM Punk/John Morrison matches every week. Give Tommy Dreamer his balls back. Give Elijah Burke the credit he deserves. Debut new superstars on the third brand and advertise their arrivals on Raw and Smackdown. Make people dare I say this –want to watch. Vince, show some grapefruits and make people care about Tuesday Night Thunder/Nitro/Extreme/Whatever you want to call it. But if you’re not going to be “extreme†about it, then don’t bury the name and don’t raise fan expectations, which have staggeringly lowered.
As for Smackdown, you have Cruiserweights and a vacated title, why not gee…I don’t know use your Cruiserweights and put the strap on one of them after holding a tournament instead of those out-of-control “cruiserweight opensâ€ÂÂÂ. The fans will start to care about them once again, and it won’t take away one damn bit from guys like Batista and Undertaker. They might have to step up their games a bit, but people are coming for the entrees, the cruisers would be just a delicious appetizer. Get rid of Khali while you’re at it. I don’t mean to put people out of a job (not that this letter would), but lets face it, the guy stinks. Why is he on Smackdown? It’s because Kevin Dunn can edit his matches.
And please Vince, don’t think that the flagship Raw doesn’t need and tweaking, because it might just need more than Smackdown does. For starters, quit relying on guys like Stone Cold to help improve your ratings. The guys done and everyone knows it, they might cheer for him due to nostalgia but I think they’d cheer for Hector Guerrero in a Gobbly-Gooker suit out of nostalgia. Secondly, it’s time to bring back Y2J already, you’ve gauged the fan interest with the videos and have heard the internet chatter, give the fans what they want before it doesn’t matter anymore.
Also its time to push Jeff Hardy; listen to the crowds when he comes out, I understand he’s had his issue with management. But are you trying to stay afloat or do you want to sail? While we’re at it, it might be time to push Chavo Guerrero, Umaga, Kennedy, Elijah Burke, and maybe even Kevin Thorn as monster heels and faces they can be. While you’re at it push the Tag-team titles please. You have about 8-10 teams between the three brands, have some angle where you admits the titles don’t mean anything these days and your going to make them mean something again. Make the tag-titles one title, defended on all three shows and have another tournament. Pull a Wrestlemania IV, and have Cade and Murdoch face-off with MVP and Matt Hardy to start the second round.
Face facts Mr. McMahon, you have the biggest and best collection of wrestlers in the history of the sport. It’s really time to start using each and every one of them to their full potential. Your three shows will be infinitely better; the fans will start to want to watch as opposed to being slaves to convention, which means they’ll force all of their non-wrestling fans to watch just like they did during the Attitude Era.
It’s really not all that hard to do. You just have to swallow your pride and show us you actually do have those grapefruits you always boast about.
PS-Survivor Series this year is the 10th Anniversary of Montreal. Please, pretty please do not replicate it. Just have the best event you can have, no stupid screwjobs, please.
You can write Eric at eblatt81@yahoo.com.