The WWE GM Problem

This Friday on Smackdown the new GM for the show will be announced by Vince McMahon. If you haven’t read a spoiler then I would stop reading this blog until Saturday morning. If you’re still reading then you know that it will be Booker T that becomes the Smackdown GM. Along with AJ Lee, the two make up the on screen upper management in the WWE. They are the people that stand between the unseen, and all powerful, WWE Board of Directors and the WWE Universe with the WWE talent caught in the crossfire.

The two replace Johnny Ace, who lost his GM powers a few weeks back. Ace was one in a long line of short lived GMs or Commissioners in the WWE. From the popular Mick Foley to the unpopular Vickie Guerrero, and the loathed Anonymous GM, the role of show boss has always been a mixed bag of tricks that gets the bums rush when creative gets bored. How many successful businesses do you know that switch bosses two or three times a year? The answer is none.

Be it hated or loved, the WWE Universe rarely has time to latch on to a GM. Just when we get comfortable with a personality they are removed in favor of the flavor of the month. AJ came out of nowhere and so now she is the RAW GM. That’ll probably be over before X-mas when Vince gets tired of her, and then who is next? The same can be said of Booker T, who could barely cut it as an announcer.

Recently the WWE has been doing something shocking. They have been planning ahead. They took a year to build up to The Rock vs. Cena. They have used a whole summer to build up to HHH vs. Brock. Now they are using the rest of the year to build toward the Rock challenging for the WWE championship. They need to start doing the same with their GMs. They need to plan for the long term, instead of who is hot right now.

This interchange of GMs every few months may be a quick way to produce some excitement for the audience, but well thought out storylines that utilize the GM can have an even bigger effect that is long lasting as part of the mythos of the GM’s character. Much in the same way that years later Stone Cold Steve Austin is known for not tapping out to Bret Hart, which led to adding depth to his character. This can happen for a GM that has long term interactions with the talent on screen instead of always being flushed away at the first sign of going stale. If going stale got you fired then Steve Austin would be doing the Ring Master gimmick on the indies right now.

When I look at Booker T, I see somebody that the WWE fans already know. He hasn’t changed much in years. He has the same corny lines and the spinaroonie. When those two things run their course by the end of the year, he will be out as GM. Then we’ll have to go through another for a few months until that one is run out of town.

AJ looks to be going down the same path. Only a few weeks ago she was one of the most interesting characters because she was different. She was going crazy. She wasn’t acting like a cookie cutter diva. Now in her first week as GM she shows up in a pant suit, and acts more like a contestant on the Apprentice than the off her rocker Queen of crazy that fans fell in love with. It would seem the only change her character has gone through was from unique to same old same old.

Until the WWE figures out a long term plan for one of their main roles, the overall product will suffer. The GM role is vital because it plays on so many platforms. It helps establish the show to the audience and explain parts to the viewers that a vignette or a match couldn’t. A GM gives a feud direction by being the outside force that can dictate matches, stipulations, and play the neutral ground (or in heel GM cases, not so neutral ground). The GM also can help creative explain certain jumps in logic like why one person is now doing something, why a talent is not on a show, or why a certain match is set up. These are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the roles that a GM plays on the show.

With the two new GMs in place hopefully planning long term will become a staple for both AJ and Booker. Hopefully their characters will grow and change into something more than the usual GM that becomes stale and then becomes replaced. When the WWE establishes a GM with tenure then the audience can establish the emotions to either love or hate that character not because of what they are doing, but because of what they have done.

That kind of love or hate runs deep and is more effective at drawing in the fans than the hotshotting of a character, which may give instant success, but never lasting effects. Keeping fans for decades should be the purpose of storylines, because they’ll produce future fans. Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair get pops twenty years after their prime because their characters became loved and hated at a visceral level.

The turnstile hiring and firing of GMs won’t even run skin deep with fans, who will brush them off like dust on a shoulder. This seems to be a lesson that WWE creative has yet to learn with all their characters, but mostly their GMs. Then again if learning from past mistakes was a WWE strong suit then we wouldn’t have seen Mae Young’s son last week. That’s a whole different kind of hate from the past.