Easy Come Easy Go
Posted April 9th, 2002
I don't think there is a God.
There must be only us and Satan.
Case in point the WWF and Vince McMahon's deal with Satan to have the luckiest period in wrestling history. I mean look at how many chances the WWF has had to reclaim its high ratings and massive cross-over appeal of 1998-2000. Yet somehow they messed it all up. So let's jump into the delorean, turn on the flex capactior and turn back the clock.
We'll start off with just before Wrestlemania X-7. VINCE McMAHON HAS JUST PURCHASED WCW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What better way to jump start the North American wrestling product by having the dream inter-promotional rivalry. I mean both the smarks and the marks were drooling at this prospect. I mean who didn't mark out when Shane appeared on Nitro to challenge his father? The possibilities were endless and a really well devoloped angle could draw big $ for atleast a year, while producing and developing some new talent.
But they fucked it all up. The majority of mainstream and casual wrestling fans didn't know who the hell the WCW guys were. Besides, the way they were booked (with stupid gimmicks, or being buried by the WWF "B-Team" in matches), why should we have cared. So it was a good short term plan, but as the summer approached it became stale and the ratings were declining. But not to worry ye of little faith, because the WWF would get another shot.
During the summer of 2001, the invasion angle would be given a shot of adrenaline as Paul Heyman would re-unite the former members of the ECW roster and join forces with WCW. This pairing would be dubbed the "Alliance," and would be headed by Heyman, Shane, and Stephanie McMahon. Suddenly, the no-name WCW talent would be surrounded with more established talent such as Tazz and the Dudley Boyz, not to mention with the massively over Rob Van Dam. What resulted? Pretty much the same thing as in the previous invasion angle. No stars were created and the WWF clobbered the Alliance. Not even the name power of new members Steve Austin and Kurt Angle could save this diaster. By the end of the year, the Alliance had been defeated and "banished" by the WWF. Alas, this was not so worrisome as the WWF would catch another break.
HHH and Ric Flair would return to the WWF. These two would have decent drawing power as HHH was the bad ass #1 heel prior to his injury, and Flair was always gold on the mic and had a good booking sense. But they fucked up again. Both men were rushed into the thick of things and quickly became over-exposed. HHH was in the role of a baby face and had to share much of his heat with The Rock and Austin. Plus he just doesn't translate well as a face and his ring skills have seemed to diminish. Flair was put in a role to be the 50% owner of the fed thus making him enemies with Vince McMahon. The problem with him was that he didn't come off to well with his decisions and in his matches, which both weakened his character. The trend continued, good short term business with the ratings tailing off as the weeks went on. Not to fret fans, as luck would have it Vince would receive another change to regain his audience of past years.
In early 2002, Vince dipped into his funds and signed the core unit of the NWO. The bad boys were back in town. With a proper build and by constantly leaving the audience wondering "what are they going to do next?" this could rejuvinate the stagnant fed. Could the big name bad boy group draw again, like they did from 1996-1999? Again the answer was no. The group was split up post-Wrestlemania X-8, and only caused a slight blemish in the ratings. Finally, Vince's streak of lucky occurences has ended right? Wrong.
The WWF received ANOTHER jolt as the plans to split the promotion actually came to pass in March. It is too early to judge the success of the "brand extending", but the signs do not look promising.
The point of this article was to show how lucky the WWF has had it since early 2001, yet somehow managed to fuck up all it's opportunities. I mean if somebody told you in 2001 that in the course of a year and a half that the WWF would: buy WCW, have an interpromotional feud, merge the WWF & WCW World titles, regain the services of HHH & Ric Flair, regain the members of the NWO, and break the fed into two entities, wouldn't you think that they'd likely be as popular as they were from 98-2000?
Well the fed better watch out, because as all gamblers know good luck opportunities eventually fade out. The WWF better start getting its act together or else their stagnation will reach the level of that in the early 1990s. If things don't improve, somebody call Doink and tell him to dust off the old clown costume because he may be going back into action.
