Behind The Shotgun's Barrel
    Submitted by Carlos Shotgun on Sunday, May 26, 2002 at 5:15 PM EST

    When the WWE decided to split the company in two everyone including me thought it was a good idea. The WWE was already flooded with talent from the now dead WCW, they knew they didn’t have time to write all of the wrestlers into the program but if they had two federations they could, they also promised and convinced themselves that if they did that they would have double the profit from two shows and they would have new fresh main event wrestlers.

    We were stupid to believe this. Why did we actually believe that Vince McMahon would allow someone as talented as Lance Storm to main event over someone that has made him so much money such as Steve Austin? Why did we believe that RVD could actually get a push to the main event when The Undertaker has been the main event for 10 years? Why did we ever believe that Jericho would finally get a push and break the glass ceiling when someone like Triple H is banging Stephanie McMahon every day? We once had faith in the WWE and when they told us that changes would be made for the better we blindly believed them. We thought that we would get to see our favorite superstars shine in the spotlight, we thought we would get two incredible WWE brands, we thought we would get compelling storylines from both Raw and Smackdown, what we got is two WWE brands that are slowly losing attendance and ratings.

    In reality I don’t know how we didn’t figure out that the split would fold from the beginning. Before the split the WWE was already on a decline, when they split they became two products, the very same writing team that couldn’t handle the WWF brand couldn’t possibly handle two WWE brands.

    I’m sure we weren’t the only ones that didn’t notice this, Vince McMahon must have forgot it too if he green light the split. No one would forward an idea if they knew their staff couldn’t handle it, it looks like McMahon finally realized his writers aren’t the same they were once. They no longer know how to keep an audience, and I don’t blame them, I started watching the WWE when I was a kid and now I smoke and drink and go out and I still watch it, people change, you cant expect the same kid from 1998 to like the same things in 2002. Just like children outgrow toys, cartoons and silly clothing they outgrow certain things about wrestling. Why should we believe that Hulk Hogan could actually be the best WWE wrestler? Why should we believe that The Undertaker deserves the WWE title just because he has been in the WWE for 10 years, we don’t, and that’s the problem.

    The writers aren’t the only problem the current WWE split has, the titles in my opinion are also a problem. As I write I am trying to figure out who is the current European champion, and I am also trying to figure out to which brand the European title belongs to. Did anyone notice that the tag matches on Raw are useless? Want to know why? Because no matter how good a tag team is they can never win the tag team championships. That is enough to make the hardy boys go to Vince office and tell him to go screw himself.

    And let me go ahead and say something I haven’t read anywhere on the net, the undisputed title sucks. The belt is too small and the name itself is a little hard to pronounce it, it was way easier when you said the WWE title, but now we got to say the Undisputed WWE title, what is that all about. When it was called the WWE title it was more marketable, this is a fact, people are lazy and they like things to be easy to say, it is way easier to say WWE title than undisputed WWE title, its simple marketing logic.

    Also, did anyone notice that when the Smackdown brand feuds against the undisputed champion the Raw brand doesn’t really have a strong title to fight over? If the WWE were smarter they would had made the Intercontinental title more respectable by now.

    During the Triple H/Hulk Hogan feud I didn’t see Hogan once because I don’t get UPN so I don’t get Smackdown, what incentive did I have to buy the PPV if I didn’t know how the main event came to be? Did anyone bother to think about that? How about the fact that my favorite wrestler Kurt Angle is on the Smackdown brand, I noticed ever since Jericho and Angle are on Smackdown I have lost interest in the WWE as a whole. Who is in the Raw brand to get my attention? Scratch the New World Order because I don’t care about them, Steve Austin is the same character he was in 98, so who can I look forward to see on the Raw brand? RVD and Eddie. Simple, yet they have been abused so much by other wrestlers that it’s hard to take them seriously, I didn’t believe that RVD won the title on Monday for one second. The unpredictability is gone and so is the interest in wrestling right now.

    People love posting on the net how to fix the WWE, they should do this, they should do that, elevate Lance Storm, give the title to RVD, sign Goldberg, one man wont change the product, one man wont make the attendance go up and the ratings go through the roof, when The Rock comes back the WWE will get a nice pop in the ratings, but remember my words, sit back and wait for them to come back down again.

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




    HOT NEW PIX: The HOTTEST Kelly Kelly Pix Ever! Words Can't DESCRIBE!!!

  • Quick Links -
    [Back to LOP] [News Archives] [Results] [Columns] [Forums]