The Wrestling Menu - Unpredictability, Kurt Angle & Steve Austin as GM
Submitted by DaveyBoy on Wednesday, May 28, 2003 at 6:25 AM EST




THE WRESTLING MENU #47

Welcome one and all to the 47th edition of The Wrestling Menu, the column that is sure to satisfy your taste buds when it comes to discussing all things wrestling.

Firstly, I'd like to apologize if this column comes off as a little rushed. I was pushed for time this week. I didn't have as much time as usual to deliberate on what I was going to write on, or to really think through my thoughts on the topics I have chosen. One of the reasons I was so pressed for time was the amazing feedback I received for my comments on RVD & Kane from last week. Replying to everyone was a priority & I finally did so. I'd like to thank everyone that sent me their feedback. I don't want to pursue that topic any further, as it was pretty much all there in black & white last week.

On with today's 3 topics.....


APPETIZERS - Kurt Angle

I have to be honest with you all. I had no clue on what was going to be my 'Appetizer' for today. I usually have my column topics planned out at least a week in advance (but change them if necessary). This week, I was really struggling to come up with something. So I looked to the LOP Forums for guidance & found what I feel is a good discussion point; Should Kurt Angle return to SmackDown as a face or a heel...???

Before I get to the current situation, I should reveal that I actually was in favor of Kurt turning face last November when it appeared as if he would do so. The reason for my opinion was not so much to do with Kurt himself, because I think he can successfully play either role, but more to do with Brock Lesnar. Even 4-5 months before, it was quite obvious that the WWE were setting up an Angle-Lesnar feud for WrestleMania 19. I thought it was more important that the rookie's character was established, rather than the veteran's. Thus, I believe that even to this day, Brock Lesnar should not have been turned face.

But Lesnar is currently a face and, excluding the WrestleMania aftermatch, Kurt Angle continued to play a heel up until a neck injury forced him to have just a little over 2 months off. But as early as next week, Angle will return & the WWE are forced to make a decision that will determine the major storylines on the SmackDown brand for the next 4-6 months; Will Kurt Angle return as a face or a heel.

There are already rumors floating around the internet revolving around this situation. While I usually take all of these with a grain of salt, the major rumor is a very interesting one. It suggests that the WWE want Angle to return as a heel & just continue his feud with Brock Lesnar. However, Paul Heyman is against this idea & wants a face Angle to team up with Lesnar & take on the soon to be pushed & turned tandem of Chris Benoit & Rhyno.

I am a big fan of long-term booking, so the WWE must consider this extremely carefully in my opinion. While I believe Kurt Angle does play the heel role better than the face one, I actually think he plays a decent face as well. Therefore, I would prefer that he does return as a heel (with a staged face turn initially for comedic effect), but this must not be done for one man's gain & the company's loss. What I am trying to say is that if Angle playing a face fits better into the longer term storylines & feuds of the WWE, then he should return as a face.

Looking at the mix of talent on SmackDown though, I believe he can successfully remain a heel. Firstly, it looks as if the WWE are determined to keep Lesnar a face for a little while longer. Couple this with The Undertaker's return and decent pushes for Benoit, Rhyno & Guerrero over the US summer, and I believe that the quality of faces on SmackDown is more than sufficient. Of course the word 'decent' should probably read 'better' for the latter 3 who need to be used a lot more productively than what they have been over the last 2 months or so.

Another factor that has to be taken into account is the amount & quality of wrestling that Kurt can do over the next month or so. If it is severely limited, then he would definitely be better off remaining a heel. In this scenario, I think it would be a lot more effective if he continues playing the leader role for Shelton Benjamin & Charlie Haas, while providing his usual entertaing & hopefully freshened up work on the microphone. Playing an on-air, but out-of-ring talent as a face upon return probably would not be as effective.


MAIN - Unpredictability

While I haven't been exactly perfect in my predictions over the last 3 or 4 months, I have had a great strike rate. After predicting 8 out or 9 matches correctly at WrestleMania 19 (I missed on the HBK victory over Jericho), it got me to thinking how important unpredictability for the viewer is, when watching professional wrestling.

I don't think there's any doubt that one of the main ingredients in keeping the interest of a viewer is unpredictability. Whether it be watching a movie, reading a book, watching a sports match of any kind, or watching wrestling. Think about it. I'm sure there are some people out there that read the SmackDown spoilers, decide it's not a great show & then don't watch it. Same goes for a movie or book where someone may have spoiled the ending, or a sports match where you already know the result. Granted, it is not the only reason, but if what we are watching is unpredictable, then we are not only more likely to watch, but also more likely to view with a greater sense of concentration & anticipation.

Pertaining to wrestling, there are a number of different types of unpredictability. For Example, when a wrestler turns from face to heel, or vice-versa. Presuming a turn is done correctly & makes sense, the fact that no-one predicted it can make a show a great one, almost by itself. Another form of unpredictability is the old favourite; the whodunit. Remember who ran over Stone Cold Steve Austin & who attacked Shawn Michaels? What about who was behind GTV? Actually that's a good example, because as lame an angle as that was, it would have kept some people watching. Why? Because everyone had their ideas as to who was behind it & wanted to know if they were correct.

But I don't want to dwell too much on these examples of unpredictability. I want to write in greater detail about the importance of unpredictability in the matches themselves. This, in itself, can come in many forms, but the obvious one is the result of the match. Other forms include how long the match lasts, how good the match is & whether or not there will be any interference involved in the match. You may not think that any of these last 3 examples will determine how much you're into a match, and in turn, how much you enjoy a match, but subliminally they do have an effect. But the eventual winner of a match is of paramount importance.

Take SummerSlam 2002 last year as an excellent example, as it was universally hailed as the best pay-per-view that the WWE has put on in a long time. Now obviously the quality of performance in the matches played a major part in that, as did the match-ups themselves. But if you can think back to a couple of weeks before the event; it was very difficult to decide who was going to win each match. Those of us that did a Predictions column on LOP struggled to get more than 4 (out of 8) predictions correct. I personally got 4, Mr.Tito got 2 & the best I saw around the forums was 6. There weren't any real stupid screwjobs done by the WWE either. Sure, HBK defeating Triple H in his return match was a surprise, but it wasn't an impossibility. In my opinion, the difficulty to predict SummerSlam, combined with the results themselves, had a major effect on how good the event was. Same goes for the match of the night at WrestleMania 19; Shawn Michaels vs Chris Jericho.

Conversely, if it is almost a certainty that one wrestler will get the pin over another, then as viewers, we don't watch the match with any enthusiasm. It's probably not the best example because it marked Bill Goldberg's WWE debut, but Goldberg's match with The Rock at Backlash does prove my point. You can't tell me that you wouldn't have been more involved in that match, if the outcome was a little more uncertain. We all knew that Goldberg would be the victor, and because of this we watched this bout more to see how he performed, than for the actual match itself.

Apart from the Michaels vs Jericho WrestleMania 19 match, I'd like to now give you examples of a few past matches where the unpredictability of the results made the match better. These are a very small percentage & ones that come quickly to mind:

Shawn Michaels defeating HHH (SummerSlam '02): Who would win? The guy apparently having his last match, or the guy who was heading back toward the Undisputed Title & just turned from face to heel.

Kane defeating Steve Austin in a First Blood Match (King Of The Ring '98): Who would win? The guy who was majorly over at the time or the monster who had a distinct advantage due to the First Blood stipulation of the match.

DaveyBoy Smith defeating Bret Hart for the Intercontinental Title (SummerSlam '92): Many would argue that this was an easy result to pick as it was in front of about 80,000 Brits. But considering that the forthcoming elevation of The Hitman to World Heavyweight Champion was a surprise, I would argue it was just as much of an upset. I hold this match as the best in WWE history, and it's unpredictability element is a major reason for this.

Brock Lesnar defeating The Rock (SummerSlam '02): OK, this one is really arguable. We all knew The Rock was going to film a movie & we were pretty sure that it was just a matter of time until Lesnar was given the title. But in the background, there was that doubt over whether it was too soon to give Brock the title. The Rock could have easily lost the title to Angle or HHH on tv over the next week. Furthermore, if Lesnar was to win, how would it happen? Cleanly or via interference. If there was interference, would it be from a new ally (other than Heyman)? I think there was enough unpredictability leading up to this match to have us looking forward to it with some expectation.

Hopefully, my point of the importance of having unpredictable matches has been made clearly. If you have any other examples where the unpredictability of the outcome of a match, resulted in you liking the match better than you ought to, then please do not hesitate to let me know via return e-mail. If some good ones come up, I may share them with all the readers next week.


DESSERT - Austin as GM

In amongst all the feedback that I received regarding the tag-team of RVD & Kane last week, I was surprised to see how many people commented on Stone Cold Steve Austin's current role as General Manager of the Raw brand. If you can recall back to last week, I didn't really focus in on this topic at all, but it must have been a case where quantity stands out over quality I suppose.

As I always state before beginning my monthly Raw review, I do not review the tv show as seriously as I review the pay-per-view. Mr.Tito has the market successfully cornered on Raw reviews, so I try to make mine as different as I possibly can. Thus, the odd sarcastic comment & different view on proceedings. I remember that one website circa 2000 used to concentrate on a counter of whether or not The Rock threw more punches or did more wrestling moves during his tv show matches. While many found this excessive & annoying, it was an amusing distraction when viewed not so seriously. I suppose that was my thinking behind my Austin sightings vs matches counter of sorts.

So, what do I think of Stone Cold Steve Austin's current role as co-GM of Raw. To sum it up; He is doing a great job currently. But if you have the feeling that this is not where this topic is going to end, then you are most definitely correct. To the positives first though; While the GM or commissioner role has been flogged to death over the last 5 years or so, Austin has been able to give the role something of an importance as it pertains to what actually happens on Raw from week to week.

Furthermore, while I believe his character was getting a little stale as a wrestler, he does seem to have added a new spin to it when it comes to being GM. Of course on top of this is the fact that whether he is a wrestler or just a personality, he is very much over with the live crowd in attendance at the events. This cannot be overlooked as we all know that a hot crowd can almost subliminally lift the quality of a wrestling event on its own.

Finally, Stone Cold Steve Austin is undoubtedly an important asset to the WWE. If he is unable to wrestle due to his health (whether it be for the remainder of his career, or just in the short term), then the most logical thing for a company to do is to use him in some other fashion. Giving him a chance at this General Manager role is better than him getting paid for sitting on his a$$ at home.

Now to the other side of the coin: In one word; Overkill. A few months back, the quality of Raw improved noticeably, if not dramatically. This was arguably due to the fact of one man's charisma; The Rock. His hilarious segments oozed quality & when put together with his knack for putting over colleagues, Raw purely & simply improved. But if you remember back, The Rock's segments were not so much spread over the entire show, but were longer individual segments. In other words, they concentrated more on quality than on quantity.

There is absolutely no doubt that with Austin's current role, the WWE are attemptimg to continue the momentum started by The Rock. In a way, I completely agree with the different methods that they are using with Austin, compared to The Rock. Austin's microphone work, while just as repetitive as The Rock's, can be a little more annoying in my opinion. Mind you, this is extremely arguable as The Rock has probably more critics, if anything. It's just that I find the "What" chants so tiresome now. Over, but tiresome.

But unfortunately, sighting Austin on both Raw & the pay-per-views over 5 times a show is going to result in the angle getting stale a lot quicker than it ought to. If done more efficiently, there is no reason why Austin's GM role cannot last until at least the end of the year. But if we keep seeing his bald head on our tv screens as much as we did at Judgment Day & Raw the next night, then in 2-3 months time, I might be flipping a coin as to whether I would prefer to see Steve Austin or Rodney Mack appearing on Raw. This past Raw was a lot better, but was that just because of Austin's facial bruising?

So in conclusion, I am really happy with Austin's job so far. However, as always, the WWE must have one eye on the future while still concentrating on the present. More quality in his segments (including continuing on with his decisions that have high impact), and less quantity, will more than likely result in better tv for us fans over a longer period of time.


That's another column in the books. I hope you all enjoyed it. I'm getting closer & closer to the half-century mark!!! As per usual, please do not hesitate to e-mail me regarding your thoughts on any of the 3 topics discussed today. You know I will respond to anyone who writes. My e-mail address is DaveyBoy123@bigpond.com

Next Wednesday in The Wrestling Menu, I will have the second part of my review series on the 1990's. This one is an interesting look at the 1991 version of an event that is highly regarded by pretty much all wrestling fans. Of course, there will be a whole lot more in addition to that review. Look out for the column same Wednesday time & same LOP channel next week. Until then, this is Davey Boy signing off & asking you to remember that dinner is best served in 3 courses.














*NEW GALLERY* Very RARE and Personal Backstage Photos of the WWE Divas!

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