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Submitted by Jim Forzese on Thursday, August 21, 2003 at 1:20 PM EST
What’s that you may ask? That, as it pertains to the wrestling business are the details that makes a good angle great and a poor angle tolerable. Too many times in recent memory the WWE has been guilty of not paying close enough attention to detail in their own storylines. Maybe the fans see them and maybe the fans see them and don’t care but WWE should rid themselves of the problem altogether. I don’t mean the details the like of Kane not really being burned because I like the twist so much I can forgive that. Apparently by the ratings so can everyone else that has been watching lately. What I am referring to all took place on the 8/11 episode of Raw. First and foremost Stone Cold Steve Austin forces Eric Bischoff into signing a wrestling contract with the fear of being sued from Jim Ross. Fine so far because a person being put in an unsafe working environment could result in a lawsuit. I’m no lawyer but it sounds feasible enough. This is where it starts to deteriorate. After Bischoff signs the contract and learns it was all a rouse, his fate is to now wrestle Kane instead of Shane McMahon. All things should get settled in the ring in the world of wrestling but why didn’t Bischoff just add to the match and make it more beneficial to him? WWE pushed hard the fact that opposing General Managers could not change a match made but they have the ability to add to it. Simple right just add a stipulation like a handicap provision. Also Bischoff could have just run out of the ring and got himself counted out as well since it was not a no count out match. Bischoff could have done a number of things that would have been legal for him to do and also made some semblance of sense. OK I will let that one slide alittle; it’s not that big a deal right? Then after Bischoff convinces Kane to not destroy him, out comes Stone Cold again for his next contractual swerve. This time Austin informs Bischoff that since he won the match he, due to the fine print in his contract is now scheduled to face Shane-O-Mac at Summer Slam. First of all Shane is an owner of WWE.Austin has no jurisdiction to book Shane in a match without Shane’s consent. Since Shane has heat with both Eric and Kane I’m sure he would have agreed and did OK it but it should have been stated that the fine print provision was Shane’s idea. Again a simple little thing that makes boatloads more sense than what WWE presented us. The other problem with the fine print inclusion in the contract is that Kane was already involved in a match at SummerSlam.The match between Kane and RVD was announced the week before so how could Kane possibly be double booked for Summer Slam? Did Austin already know that Kane would be counted out and lose? If he did then your just screaming to the fans that everything we do is fake so don’t watch us. Why not just have it be that whether Eric Bischoff won or lost he was facing Shane McMahon at Summer Slam regardless? Maybe you think this is nit picking but to me the mistake was as glaring as when Stone Cold came out with the wrong leg bandaged after a New World Order attack a few years ago. Sometimes the writers really need to pay closer attention to these details. I know that maybe 90% of the viewing audience did not catch it and maybe 100% don’t care but I definitely do. I can suspend my disbelief to a certain degree but sometimes I just can’t swallow what’s being served to me. What is it that people say sometimes the little things are the most important. Don’t ask me what people I don’t know any. Next Christian strolls out wearing the IC title belt. I guess that’s not as important as Shane vs. Bischoff since half the show was over at this point but anyway. The fans then get informed that a title change happened at a house show of all places. Why, if WWE knew that this was going to take place were there no pictures of the event to show on the TitanTron? Showing the fans that YES anything can happen at house shows may have helped house show business a little bit. It would have also been a nice little rub for Christian so that fans could see that it really did happen and Christian really did pin BookerT.WWE could have showed this was not one of those phantom title changes. After the fans find out about Christian’s big win Christian himself announces who his opponent will be next. HUH? First just because it was the Spike TV debut who made Spike Dudley a worthy number 1 contender to the IC title? Secondly who besides Christian authorized the match? Did Austin give the beloved underdog a chance at IC gold or did the smarmy Bischoff send Spike out to be slaughtered? I guess we will never know for sure will we? Instead of doing this wouldn’t it have been better for Austin to come out and stop the gloating Christian by announcing his next opponent at Summer Slam so that the IC title will be defended on one of the big PPV’s? Shane vs. Bischoff at SS but no IC title, no wonder the belt appears to have little value to it. I guess there was nothing good about doing something like I suggested right? Yeah we need more of this type of non-sensical booking, go Gerwitz you rule. Bottom Line: Remember folks I’m only talking about one episode of Raw here. There are plenty more examples of the same type of booking mistakes weekly. Why do most fans think Smack Down is the better show? Because they are less guilty of this sort of inconsistent booking. Maybe you agree with me and maybe you don’t but the fact of the matter is that attention to detail is a necessary evil in any business. Does a baseball coach tell a batter after he just struck out to go back and bat again? If a hockey player scores a goal and the puck comes out of the net can you knock it back in for another goal? Can a GM book Kane twice on one PPV or can a wrestler pick his own opponent for a match for a title belt? I guess in WWE they can. Not everything needs to make perfect sense. I can accept Torrie Wilson feeling a justified measure of revenge against Dawn Marie after Dawn sexed her father to death. When Torrie beat Dawn in a wrestling match at the Royal Rumble this year it ended a very bad angle. That is fine but some things really don’t make sense at all and in turn devalue what we are watching. Why is Gail Kim’s gimmick that of a character from the movie “The Matrix” but Trish Stratus does the Matrix move? How is Randy Orton called the Legend Killer when he is in Evolution with the biggest legend in the business? Why has it taken this long for Bischoff to finally address his hatred for Shane in regards to WCW? I don’t want this to be a bitch session but some things need to be consistent. WWE has a loyal fan base and by the looks of the numbers lately it is growing so why not make it grow even further. Give the fans adult based realism with some consistency and intelligent booking. Don’t dumb down a product that WWE claims is for the teenage to thirty-five demographic. We get it don’t play down to the fans. Kane is a great example of how to make your booking intriguing. Another example of decent booking was the Vince vs. Zach Gowen angle. That angle really helped Zach kick his WWE career off in the right direction by making him seem important and special. The S.H.I.T angle is all about cornball humor that is funny to some but not all. I personally have no problem with it because it’s at least a lot better than another hip-hop style wrestler but isn’t walking an old woman across the street or rescuing a cat in a tree more like a boy scout rather than a super-hero? I know that it’s only a lowbrow wrestling show but some of us take it very seriously. So should the WWE or any other wrestling organization. Until next time that’s just my view. Jim Forzese forzeseview@yahoo.com *NEW GALLERY* Must See! McMahon FAMILY PHOTOS! Shane's Wife & More! Very Rare!
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