The whole General Manager thing on Raw has been a joke for almost two years now. I guess the WWE thinks it's found a solution in the person of John Laurenitis.
It's become Standard Operating Procedure for the WWE to take someone who has legitimate heat with the fans (Vince McMahon, Michael Cole) and turn him into a character, banking on their legit heat to carry their "make believe" persona.
It certainly worked with Vince McMahon because for all his flaws, the guy's a somewhat talented performer who was willing to take risks. It backfired horribly with Michael Cole because even though the people really hated him, there was no pay off because he was just gawd awful at everything except being an obnoxious prick.
With Laurenitis, I believe their plan has worked. As a the interim GM, his character is able to make decisions that can affect every aspect of the show. So his personality or his actions are not the only pay-off.
The Smackdown GM position meanwhile, has been an afterthought during that same amount of time. But now that both positions have gotten back into the limelight, Teddy Long has made quite a resurgence as a performer.
I'm sure because of his age, he's probably looking to retire soon and maybe this whole "Team Johnny v Team Teddy" storyline is just his way of going out with a bang (there's the next Aksana joke) but, he's done such a good job I'm not ready to see him go!
So here's my idea (and trust me, it's motivated by more than just keeping Teddy Long on tv):
- The match at WrestleMania is NOT for control of both shows. It's just a "bragging rights" match. Or, you could even come up with another stipulation like, winner gets to "borrow" ONE talent per month from the opposing GMs roster AND gets to choose which talent from his own roster to give to the opposing GM in exchange. Whatever, as long as you keep the shows separate with TWO GMs.
-Smackdown wins at WrestleMania. Oh, the possibilities! Scheming to get certain wrestlers moved, the hype surrounding a wrestler's return, plots to get a wrestler to stay with the new show, etc.
-Next night on Raw, Johnny Ace (because "Ace" is easier to type than "Laurenitis") is so furious that he bans all mention of Smackdown on Raw. Have him come out while Cole and Lawler are recapping the 'Mania tag match and make the announcement.
-Teddy Long does the same thing on Smackdown. Recaps of Raw take up so much time during Smackdown and they're totally pointless! Anyone who cares enough about the WWE to watch Smackdown is already watching Raw and knows what happened! Have Teddy, like Johnny, come out during the "Raw Rewind" and just shut it down (I bet it'd get a huge pop).
-Make Smackdown live on Tuesday nights PERMANENTLY! The reason it's the WWE's "B" show, is because it's treated like a "B" show. Give it the same prestige of live tv. And moving it to Tuesdays would give the fans' anticipation a chance to build. Reminding us all week long what happened on Monday adds to the whole unappealing sensation of the weekly shows just running together. Do something worth talking about each week and you won't have to remind us what happened. We would REMEMBER ON OUR OWN and be talking about it anyway!
So what's the point? Why go to all this trouble? What do I hope the WWE would accomplish by making these changes?
-Add prestige to everything about Smackdown: the titles, the talent, the storylines. On the rare occasions that Smackdown is mentioned on Raw, it's regarded as an afterthought. It's not mentioned as being something separate and special. The WWE could change that and start promoting it as if they actually cared about it OR, they could use this more creative method of attaching the show to some kind of controversy. Telling people, "Don't watch Smackdown" when it is a WWE product, might just cause some people to check it out out of nothing more than curiosity.
-Add prestige to Raw: the titles, the talent, the storylines. Right now, everything's mixed. Smackdown is just "WWE's other show." But by making them separate shows essentially competing against each other, you create the illusion of competition. Of course we all know that it's all WWE, but we also know that wrestling's "fake" and that doesn't stop us from suspending our disbelief long enough to enjoy a good match. Right now, the titles don't mean anything. Nobody cares about the talent. But how about just a few Daniel Bryan promos in which he refers to himself as the "real heavyweight champion of the wrestling world?" Have CM Punk allude to Bryan sarcastically without mentioning his name. Because both shows have "banned" each other, and no longer share tv time or talent, to the point that they are no longer allowed to even NAME talent from the other show, it gives the audience a feeling as if they have some kind of "insider" perspective on the whole thing because they are free to watch what transpires on BOTH shows.
Basically, what this boils down to is just a device to generate interest and boost ratings. Right now it's "bad guy versus good guy" wrestling and it's not holding anyone's interest anymore than it did in the 80s or 90s. What adults find entertaining are real world situations. Something that they can relate to. Reality tv shows centered around family drama have their niche because everyone understands family drama. Competing companies resorting to tactics like refusing to acknowledge each others' existence is something adults can relate to because it happens in the real world all the time!
Creating this scenario gives both shows a foundation upon which to build better stories. For example, Lord Tensai is going to debut. Well, that's great. He'll be interesting for about two weeks and then no one will care. But if two rival shows are competing for his services, then it automatically becomes something more interesting anytime a new talent debuts.
I'm not saying we need to go back to the ridiculous atrocities of the Attitude Era like people getting freaky with corpses or giving birth to hands, but we certainly need more "reality" than what we're getting.
Last word on this post, something HAS to be done about the announcers. Remember the good old days when announcers like Gorilla Monsoon, Vince McMahon, Bobby Heenan, Jesse Ventura, etc would actually talk about a wrestler's strenghts? Listen to UFC broadcast and nearly every single fight you'll hear Joe Rogan or Mike Goldberg point out something that each fighter does well.
When's the last time you heard ANY announcer on a WWE tv show do that for ANY wrestler, including the top stars? Take Primo and Epico, the tag team champions. The announcers don't even talk about them like they're real people! It's like, "here's Primo and Epico and these guys currently hold the tag team titles." No wonder nobody cares about the talent! What are they good at? Primo is a fantastic wrestler but you wouldn't know it by listening to the announcer team! To his credit, Booker T tries but he sounds so horrible that people plug their ears when he talks and don't hear what few good things he says.
For ANY program to work, the terrible announcing has to change.
Aaaaand, that's all I got for now. Discuss!
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