CALDWELL'S TAKE CORNER CUBE MONDAY 6/16 - WWE can still make McMoney work for the long-term Jun 16, 2008 - 2:24:26 PM

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By James Caldwell, PWTorch columnist

Updated daily from the corner cubicle, Torch columnist James Caldwell's weekday blog focuses on hot topic current events and other items of interest from around wrestling.

Updated Monday, June 16, 2008

Week 2 of Vince McMahon's personal charity giveaway is tonight with another $1.0 million promised. For the other 4.5 million viewers who won't be getting that phone call from McMahon tonight, we can only hope the phone calls are more entertaining than last week.

Of course, McMahon being Rick rolled and Charlie Haas blankly staring at the telephone were entertaining enough to make "The Soup" on VH-1, but wasn't entertaining enough to keep viewers tuned into the program. If the TV rating drops below 3.0 for Week 2 of McMahon rotary-dialing, then it's conceivable McMahon will quietly stop at the grand total of $2.0 million given away.

Clearly, there was a problem on Raw last week with live telephone dialing producing busy numbers, no signals, ring back tones, and a lack of reaction from the winners. Viewers at least want to be able to enjoy the entertainment value of someone else making a fool of himself or herself on live air. It's why we keep the radio station locked in when they're giving away free concert tickets. The reaction of Joe Listener screaming and hollering and acting a fool is quality entertainment.

Hopefully WWE will learn from last week's mistakes and shorten the amount of time spent on McMahon dialing numbers. The idea of incorporating underutilized talent into this deal should be explored more.

For example, Haas might have been the butt of a VH-1 joke, but when in the world would he have ever been on national cable TV outside of WWE programming? In this entertainment industry, it's a matter of getting face time, even if that face time means being made mocked or made sport of.

WWE picked up a good amount of publicity in New York last week as part of their quarterly gimmick to keep the press interested in whatever WWE's latest stunt is. It will look good on a quarterly presentation and keep investors of their backs, but it shouldn't come at the expense of alienating the money-spending fanbase.

The character-development can be achieved through McMoney with more involvement of mid-card wrestlers in the giveaway, or McMahon referencing storylines that these men and women are involved in.

When the boss acknowledges an ongoing storyline, such as Murdoch's singing, it's a subtle clue to the viewer to pay attention. That's one way to make this work in the long-term. Otherwise, it will be $2.0 million poorly spent.

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