An Open Letter to the WWE.
June 20, 2011 4 Comments
Rapper, Actor, Wrestler?
Dear World Wrestling Entertainment:
I have been a fan of your product since you were the World Wrestling Federation. Many a days, I hit my younger brother with a Stone Cold Stunner, or made my little sister cry by putting her in the Sharpshooter. I have many fond memories that involve you, and I’m glad you exist. I’m not asking you to go back to your “Attitude Era” in the late ’90s where Stone Cold was giving everyone the bird and swearing was more prevalent. I’m fine with the current era of your business.
What I’m not fine with, however, is the way you treat your fans.
By absolutely refusing to have your top guys lose cleanly (hell, lose at all), you take away any surprise, any unpredictability, any drama. When John Cena faces someone like R-Truth for the WWE Championship, everyone knows that Cena will win. What’s worse, is he wins the same way every single time. 90% of the match, Cena will take punishment from his opponent. Then, once the “Go Cena” chants start, he’ll Hulk-up, hit two Shoulder Blocks, a Fisherman’s Suplex, a Twisting Back-Drop-to-a-Powerbomb, and then the 5 Knuckle Shuffle.
Side note, do you guys realize that one of Cena’s signature moves is a euphemism for masturbation? Like, for reals? The 5 Knuckle Shuffle? Not only is it super dumb (oh noes, a fist drop!) it’s a term used for pleasuring one’s self. I digress.
After Cena hits his Masturbation Fist Drop, he’ll point to the crowd and hit the Attitude Adjustment.
I’ve literally described every single John Cena match in history.
I don’t actually have a problem with Cena. He’s lame, but he busts his ass and has respect for the history of wrestling. He’s also not like other top guys who refuse to accept losing. He’s all about the business, and he helps put guys like Zack Ryder over. I have a real problem with the WWE writers, who make Cena into Superman, but since they’re nameless and faceless behind the scenes guys, I have to take out my anger on Cena. It’s what a lot of people do, and the reason you hear “Let’s Go Cena/Cena Sucks” chants simultaneously on Raw.
I don’t have a problem with Cena or Randy Orton being WWE Champion and World Heavyweight Champion, respectively. My problem is your insistence to never have them lose, ever, WWE. CM Punk is one of your best guys, and he and Orton’s feud was fantastic. However, Orton never lost to Punk. How can you have a rivalry where one guy wins every single time?
You need to introduce the element of surprise. Pushing R-Truth was a legit surprise, and even though I hated it at first, I like that it’s someone new and interestingly crazy. However, if you let Truth beat Cena, that would have shocked everyone. That would have been a legit surprise. That would have made for an interesting storyline. John Cena doesn’t need the title to be your biggest superstar. Without the title, R-Truth goes back to being largely irrelevant and insane.
You had The Miz, who was your Champion at Wrestlemania, lose to Alex Riley. That was legitimately surprising, and it completes the rub for A-Ry. You had Dolph Ziggler beat Kofi Kingston for the US Title, which was also somewhat (although not completely) surprising. You had Evan Bourne cleanly beat Jack Swagger, which is hilarious and it’s obvious Swagger pissed someone off backstage.
But what you didn’t do was complete the job. You allowed both Orton and Cena to keep their titles, and their inability to ever lose makes their characters grow old and stale. Spice things up by having them not only lose, but lose cleanly. When you only have them lose by someone else cheating or extenuating circumstances, it devalues the other performer. I understand you didn’t want Cena to say “I Quit” vs. Miz, but 30+ minutes of Riley and Miz beating the hell out of Cena, and then Cena hits three moves and Miz quits? C’mon. That’s ridiculous.
The reason you’ve always been better than other companies like WCW was your ability to move past ego and do what’s best for the storyline. WCW couldn’t get out of its own way, and that led to its ultimate demise. Now that you really have zero competition (because, really, TNA fucking sucks) you don’t really care about if you’re putting out a good product or not.
Get out of your own way, WWE. Get over your egos. Make this product what it could be, not what you want it to be.
So I did a little investigative reporting (i.e. Googling), and it turns out that masturbation-euphemizing finishing moves have a long (emphasis on long) and illustrious history. See:
Kevin Steen – ‘package piledriver’
Samoa Joe – ‘rear naked choke’
Jushin Liger – ‘shooting star press’
Iron Sheik – ‘camel clutch’
Anyways, how much of the problem with the WWE ultimately derives from a dearth of interesting personalities? I mean, maybe I was spoiled coming of wrestling-watching age during the first WWF golden era and then hanging around for those epic WCW/WWF Monday nights in the late ’90s, but Randy Orton? John Cena? Geeze, just their names put me to sleep. And these guys are supposed to be the most interesting characters… Do you think the lack of surprises, then, just comes from pressure to continually feature the few stars the sport has?
Seems like the NBA had a similar problem after Jordan (i.e. Michaels/Flair/Austin/Rock combined) retired. The league played up the few transfixing stars it had left – Shaq, Kobe, Iverson – basically because the rest of the players, no matter how good, were boring as hell (ex. 4-time champion Tim Duncan).
I really don’t follow anymore, but I wonder if you’re writing this post if the WWE rolled out the same roster of stars it had at its disposal in, say, 1995…
As for the whole lack of surprise thing, this is kinda the main element that drove me away. I can’t tell you how many PPV-teasing RAWs I’ve watched that ended with a title match predictably disrupted by some third party taking a chair to the back of the winning underdog’s head in the last 30 seconds. Yawn.
Sweet post.
Exactly. I guess when they strike gold with a performer now (and Cena is one of the top selling guys they’ve ever had) they have no choice but to pimp the shit out of him. I mean, I get it. I do. But like I said in the post, you don’t need to make him the Champ for all of his 10-year-old fans to still buy his bright purple t-shirts and matching wristbands.
I just think if they dedicate themselves more to the storylines, the merchandise sales will continue to grow, because you’re pushing other, newer guys (and ultimately, their merchandise). Last month’s “Over the Limit” PPV was one of the lowest selling PPVs in WWE history. People knew what would happen and stayed away. The WWE noticed and tried to switch it up at Capitol Punishment last week, and while better, still sucked viewer wise. They need to get over their egos, and Vince McMahon needs to realize that he may know more about the business than anyone, but being a senile old curmudgeon and refusing to give in to the fans of this generation’s a bad thing for business.
I created a monster.
Couldn’t agree more about Cena and Orton. I happen to be a huge proponent of Orton simply because he generates as much electricity in a building as any new star since the Attitude Era. He’s that good guy that’s really a bad guy that crowds actually buy into, but that doesn’t mean he is used right at all.
I do have to balance my blame out though. Yes, Orton and Cena work their asses off and deserve to be constantly pushed, but I don’t think them winning all the time can be directly blamed on the writers. They both strike me as the type of political backstage guys who refuse to let anyone else get the last laugh a la a Hogan or a Bret Hart.
I know you’ll agree with me that Chris Jericho is one of the best wrestlers of all time. But yet his motto once he made it big was always “I don’t need to win matches. If I lose to Evan Bourne tonight, people will still pop for me tmrw night, but if he loses to me, it’s over for him.” I don’t see this mentality in Cena or Orton at all. Cena could legitimately get his ass kicked by anyone and survive it from a character standpoint. He’s built a Teflon name in WWE. Same with Orton.
But still they seem to have a need to belittle everyone else on the roster. Is the amount of guys who could be headliners right now high? Probably not, but that won’t change if the company’s two champions don’t. For what it’s worth, I have a feeling every Cena title feud from now until The Rock comes back again will be a fluke. Punk should make for a fun month, but it’s nothing permanent.
It’s really a shame if WWE plans to push Cena as a face at all going into Miami, because people will be more sick of him than ever.
Yeah I’m 100% with you. Jericho is my all time favorite for a reason. He understands the business side, and it’s another reason CM Punk is so amazing. He’s the same way.
I see Orton more as a HHH clone backstage where the writers give him what’s going to happen, he rips it up and demands to win instead. While I don’t put Cena above doing that, I see Orton doing that more than Cena. I feel like Cena might be a pet project of Vince, but I could be wrong. Basically, I’m 100% positive Orton is a guy who refuses to job cleanly to anyone, and is not ok with giving anyone the rub in an attempt to get them over.
This “off-season” has sucked. This next month with Punk is going to be epic, and I expect him to lose and then Cena feud with Del Rio, culminating in a Cena/Del Rio title match at SummerSlam. The problem is, if they really wanted to put Del Rio over, they’d give him the strap and make Cena heel. Because you’re right, masquerading Cena as face at WM vs. Rock in Rock’s hometown will go over about as well as Cena bringing out a choir from a black church in Atlanta and… oh, wait. Nevermind.