Makin The Tag - Follow up on Lawler and WWE Personal Appearances
Submitted by Krueges on Saturday, October 26, 2002 at 3:35 AM EST





Greetings one and all to another installment of Makin The Tag. This week has been a rather busy one for yours truly. Not only did I have to sort through a deluge of emails concerning my last column on Jerry Lawler, but I also spent most of the week at the annual West Virginia Child Care Conference. How’s that for something you didn’t expect? When I am not ranting and raving about professional wrestling, I can be found working as a behavioral specialist in a residential group home. Yes, I am truly a jack-of-all-trades. With that being said, it’s time to Make The Tag.

Lawler and the autograph controversy
First of all, I have to thank all of those who took the time to send in comments about last week’s column. I was not surprised to see that many have had similar experiences. It seems as if no one really knows what to expect when they go to autograph sessions and personal appearances anymore because it seems that every single one is operated in a different manner. I don’t know about you, but I see that as a very serious problem.

I’ve attempted to contact the WWE several times this past week in hopes of finding out what the official company policy is regarding personal appearances and autograph sessions featuring their talent. I did receive this reply concerning my inquiry:

“We have received your message and will try to respond as quickly as possible. We should note however, that we do not respond to messages regarding ideas or proposals for scripts, storylines, character development, marketing or business operations.”

I’m not surprised about the policy, but I am a little concerned about it. In most cases, inquiries “regarding ideas or proposals for scripts, storylines, character development, marketing or business operations” should not be answered by the company. However, I believe that my inquiry regarding what policies and procedures are in place for personal appearances and autograph sessions is a completely legitimate concern that should be addressed. However, if an exception were made for me, then they would have to make an exception every time. I agree with the logic in not answering my question, but that does not mean that I am comfortable with the refusal to provide a fan with an explanation.

Since the WWE does not want to address this issue, I would like to recommend the following ideas that I would like to see implemented at future personal appearances by WWE talent:

1. Uniformity is a must. I don’t care if it is Crash Holly or The Rock, every single personal appearance by a WWE personality needs to operate in the exact same fashion. Then again, expecting a level playing field in the world of professional wrestling is like hoping Stevie Ray Vaughn would come back to life. It’s a great thing to wish for, but we all know that it just isn’t going to happen.

2. If fans are charged at one appearance, then they have to be charged at all appearances. The company cannot simply charge at one event and not another. Again, uniformity is the key.

3. If fans are going to be charged, they need to know about it up front. It needs to be mentioned in the advertisements as well as at the event itself on signs that everyone can see from anywhere in the establishment. Enticing fans to show up to meet their favorite superstar and then having all kinds of hidden costs come out of nowhere is a terrible way to do business.

4. It also needs to be clearly stated what can and what cannot be signed at these events. I received a lot of emails saying that fans have found major discrepancies concerning what they could and what they could not get signed at appearances.

I believe that if these suggestions were implemented, personal appearances would run much smoother and cause far less confusion for fans. All appearances need to be uniform in that they all are run by the same rules because the problem is (to quote Jason Statham from The One) “procedure sucks”.

Now I would like to address to comments that I made last week, I particular those to Jerry Lawler. I stated that he was a “cheat” and a “liar”. I would like to apologize and retract those statements. I’m not doing this because I got flooded with hate mail and threats from his fans, but because they were not exactly accurate. Let me explain what I mean.

In the group home that I work in, the behavior of my clients is largely based on what they are allowed and not allowed to do. If a staff member were to allow the clients to smoke and drink, then the staff member would be more to blame than the client. I believe that same concept applies to this situation. It isn’t that Lawler is a bad person; instead the blame is placed on the company for which he works because they are ultimately the ones responsible for his behavior by allowing him to do what he has been doing at these personal appearances.

Lawler’s behaviors are simply a result of a poor system.

Speaking of behaviors that the company will allow, isn’t it interesting to know that Scott Steiner has officially signed with the WWE? It’s not that I wish anything bad to happen to Steiner, but we all have heard the stories of how he has conducted himself backstage. Hopefully he learned something from what happened to Buff Bagwell. With that being said, here is the question of the week:

Will Scott Steiner still be with the WWE six months from now? A year from now? More?

The results will be posted in next week’s column. Thanks for reading. I would like to send out a big thank you to all those individuals who took the time last week to send in comments and there own personal experiences from going to personal appearances featuring WWE talent.



Krueges




 




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The closet thing we still have to Stevie Ray Vaughn!











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