WWE and Chris Jericho may try to cover themselves from criticism by saying they never promised anything on Raw, it was just "the Internet" that created a false buzz. Santino Marella's line to Maria about how she'll believe anything she reads on the Internet may just have been a dig at WWE's most faithful fans. You know, the ones with Internet connections who voted at Cyber Sunday and heard the unavoidable rumors that "SaveUs" referred to Chris Jericho.
The Jericho speculation was fun for a while. Jericho, in his book tour interviews, has been coy about whether he had signed with WWE. He toted WWE company line in the presence of John Cena and WWE attorney Jerry McDevitt on Larry King Live shortly after the Benoit Family Tragedy at a time when he could have really made an impact by taking a tougher stand. He could have written a "tell-all" book about WWE, but his book ends the moment he steps onto the WWE stage for the first time. He has done nothing but make it look like he's a company-man, with the company being WWE.
WWE could play innocent and blame "the Internet" for blowing things out of proportion and jumping to conclusions, except for a couple things. They added X29 to the "Save Us" videos last week. They knew fans would see that as Oct. 29. They knew the conclusion would be drawn that something regarding the "Save Us" video was going to resolve itself on that date. If it wasn't going to happen, they should have left that off the video. They also could have simply had Jericho, if he's eventually coming in, say on his latest interviews that he is not going to show up on Raw on Monday to avoid the inevitable, obvious big letdown and backlash WWE is facing right now.
If something fell through in negotiations, or if Jericho never intended to be there, or if plans were changed for some reason that was out of WWE's control, and Jericho was supposed to debut tonight, then WWE still has some goodwill to make up. But if this was a genuine coy "bait and switch" meant to teach fans not to believe everything they read on "the Internet" (which consisted of Jericho being quoted and people acknowledging the Oct. 29 clue on last week's vids), WWE will pay a big price. Their passionate fanbase and the Jericho fans seem pretty pissed off right now.
If WWE had a good show to fall back on, the blow would have been softened. But this was a crappy edition of Raw with a short, lame main event with a copout finish, coming a day after the Raw PPV main event ended with a copout non-finish. WWE had little slack with fans coming into tonight, and that slack is gone after tonight. And now, a return to 1997 (copyright TNA) with Steve Austin and DX next week is not a suitable consolation prize.
At least when WCW promised Glacier, someone showed up.
LATEST PRO WRESTLING TORCH NEWSLETTER #1037 (16 PAGES)
This issue begins with a cover story on the annoucement on Raw that Mike Adamle is the new Raw G.M... Wade Keller's BBL features a number of other shocking G.M. possibilities for WWE to consider... Page 2 Buzz with Jason Powell features his exclusive insider news galore... Pat McNeill continues his series of articles reviewing the history of Summerslam... Bruce Mitchell continues his series of Ric Flair DVD Liner Notes with a focus on "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers htis week... Part four of the "Torch Talk" with Doug Basham... Sean Radican reviews in detail the ROH PPV before it's offered nationally on PPV... Plus the Torch Newswire, Top Five Stories, reports on Raw, Smackdown, and Impact, and more......
