Behind The Shotgun's Barrel
Submitted by Carlos Shotgun on Sunday, April 28, 2002 at 4:13 PM EST



In theory the Smackdown roster has a lot more star power than Raw, that is why I am having problems trying to figure out just why the Smackdown show seems beneath the Raw show.

I am one of the people that is against the roster split, because of it I cant watch Smackdown I miss some key stars that made me enjoy wrestling a little more. Ever since Kurt Angle debuted I have been one of his biggest fans, when the split went down I was deprived of his matches and his character. Same can be said about Jericho, the first undisputed champion could had made a name for himself in the Raw roster but instead they chose him to be in the Smackdown roster and to be lost in the shuffle thus becoming Triple H’s bitch, a job he has been good at ever since Triple H started to bang Stephanie.

The fact that Benoit is going to be on Smackdown doesn’t make me feel any better either, I believe Benoit is the greatest wrestler in the United States right now, of course I have to miss him thanks to Vince loading his roster with talent because he couldn’t allow Flair to possibly have a bigger roster than him. The thought of a Brock Lesnar vs. Chris Benoit match makes me get excited about wrestling again, the thought that in all likeliness it will never happen doesn’t.

However if the Smackdown roster has the bigger stars how come their ratings keep coming down and the Raw ratings remain at a steady and strong 4.8? While Smackdown seems more of the same thing we have seen for the last 2 years Raw is a little more innovative and unpredictable. Sure we still have to see some crappy filler matches like Crash vs. Jackie, but still we get an all around better product. When Vince McMahon decided to do the split if he wanted to load a roster he should had loaded Raw, after all more people get TNN than UPN, the bigger stars on Raw would had made for higher ratings, that is my theory I could be wrong.

Anyway my point is simple, it is in my opinion that the WWF is finally realizing that their top stars don’t draw as much as they thought they did. Triple H isn’t drawing as they thought he would, Hulk Hogan isn’t drawing as much as Vince McMahon nearly wishes maybe because history has shown that Hulkamania rises up from the ashes for two days right before the fans strike it down due to its sheer stupidity and the fact that no one can buy the fact a near 50 year old superstar can beat a younger star like say Jericho, Kurt Angle or even RVD.

You know what really hurts me about the split? There is no way to fix it, there is no reset button, there is no pull the plug on this, they did it without thinking, they messed it up, they cant go back and fix it without looking weak and stupid like WCW used to look. The WCW angle failed, the Extreme Invasion failed, the NWO and Triple H returns flopped, at least the split hasn’t thanks to much thinking for Raw and name power on Smackdown but there is still a lot to be fixed.

Thank you very much.
-Carlos A. Shotgun
lucretia@beer.com
AIM: CarlosShotgunLoP

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