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The Perspective with James Caldwell
By James Caldwell, Torch columnist
Original Headline: Unforgiven a microcosm of WWE's disastrous PPV year
Torch Newsletter #991 (09-22-07)
THE PERSPECTIVE:
The Undertaker vs. Mark Henry. Out of the 101 people currently listed on WWE.com under the Raw, Smackdown, and ECW rosters, WWE came up with a main event of Undertaker vs. Henry at Sunday's Unforgiven PPV. Granted, half of those 101 are divas, announcers, authority figures, midgets, injured, or suspended, but with the ability to pick any match-up from either of the three brands on Sunday, WWE went with Taker vs. Henry.
They went with a wrestler fresh off a serious arm injury whose previous match was in May before Benoit, suspensions, Congress, and Nancy Grace stories. They also went with a wrestler whose last legitimate match was against the wrestler now known as U-Gene. That was also before Benoit, et al.
It would be like taking Britney Spears fresh out of rehab and putting her in the spotlight at an awards show on MTV or something.
Oops. Bad analogy.
Henry vs. Taker might not have been as bad as Spears going through the choreographed motions a few weeks ago, but it was the perfect way to end a PPV that epitomized the problems WWE has created with the PPV business since moving to tri-branded events.
When WWE decided the best way to counteract low buyrates for off-brand PPVs was to bring everyone from all three brands under one roof, it was inevitable the quality of events would suffer. The "mega-event concept" usually reserved for WrestleMania, Summerslam, Survivor Series, and the Royal Rumble became just another event. Especially when WWE's focus on PPV matches has taken a back seat to TV storylines.
As I suspected earlier this year, WWE has coasted on the idea that having all three brands on one PPV sells itself. "If it works for Summerslam, why can't it work for Unforgiven?" seemed to be the fundamental idea behind the change. So, we came to a point for the Unforgiven build-up where a TV storyline, such as Vince McMahon's search for his illegitimate son, overrode the hype for the Raw main event of John Cena vs. Randy Orton.
As I suspected would happen, WWE has decided that the sum of all promotion across all three brands is equal to the hard-sell from one brand for a single-brand PPV. Sprinkle in a little hype for Cena vs. Orton. Mix it with the makeshift Punk vs. Burke feud. Toss in Undertaker's magic show and Khali squashing people's heads to place babyfaces in jeopardy (even Rey Mysterio, who did not make an appearance on the Smackdown before the PPV), and presto! Now they have what's supposed to amount to equal build-up to the basic single-brand PPV.
Here's the problem with that. It hasn't worked. It didn't work in the second quarter of 2007, as WWE pointed to in their latest financial results. I'll make a prediction that it isn't working in this current third quarter. Yet, no changes have been made to the strategy since the second quarter.
What's happened is that PPVs have become bridges to the next PPV. Instead of being the foundational pillars - with TV filling in the storyline arches from pillar to pillar - the formerly single-brand PPVs have dragged down the overall mega-PPV concept.
The perfect example is the John Cena vs. Randy Orton match that went eight minutes with a cop-out finish. Back on the old system, the cop-out finish to Cena-Orton wouldn't have happened on a PPV leading to their No Mercy re-match. It would have happened on free TV where sports entertainment finishes are generally accepted because fans aren't paying $40 for a legit finish.
Instead, with a three-week turnaround time from PPV to PPV, WWE was forced to throw away one PPV to set up another one. What good is gained by hyping the next PPV if customers who bought the current PPV are turning off the TV with a bad taste in their mouths? At best, it's a wash. At worst, it's losing customers who expect WWE to deliver a credible John Cena main event. And, what the PPV business has become for WWE is a fundamentally solid and exciting John Cena main event with the Raw brand represented on every PPV.
With the change to mega-PPV events across the board, WWE essentially gave up on the mid-card. They gave up on building Shelton Benjamin, Jimmy Wang Yang, Kevin Thorn, the mid-card singles title divisions, and the tag divisions as credible PPV draws. They essentially decided the six months of effort to rebuild second and third tier wrestlers to carry the undercard of single-brand PPVs was too much effort. They essentially said the short-term results of satisfying USA Network and The CW with decent ratings was more important than taking a tougher route to long-term success in the PPV business.
Now, what WWE is faced with is a watered-down PPV business. Writers are strained for ideas. Instead of having the tough, but manageable job of building five or six bridges each year to connect the main storyline arches, they're now faced with the near-impossible task of building 13 or 14 bridges. That's certainly one reason WWE unabashedly threw away Cena vs. Orton at Unforgiven to hype the next PPV without even waiting until Raw.
Imagine if WWE re-focused on the undercard six months ago and took their lumps along the way, but was set to rotate into the main event picture some feuds that had been building on the undercard for months. Instead of Batista vs. Khali and Cena vs. Orton re-runs, plus a going-nowhere Taker vs. Henry match, the Jeff Hardy vs. Shelton Benjamin match that kicked off Raw this week could have been a main event or semi-main event on a single-brand Raw PPV. And, it would have been worth paying to see after months of build up, hype, and anticipation.
Instead, WWE chose not to do the work. They chose to take a......
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