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.

Super Smackdown: Holiday Hiatus

(courtesy of wwe.com)

I hope everyone had a great 4^th of July. We broke in the new grill at the townhouse in the sky with sliders, hot dogs, and grilled pineapple. Then fell into a food coma for the afternoon. God Bless America! When I woke up from my food coma, I watched the Great American Bash edition of Super Smackdown on my DVR. Again another holiday show with all the usual holiday bits.

It seems every holiday the WWE has a feast. At every feast there are three things that will happen. One, somebody will get covered in food. Eve got punched tossed on her nice white dress, so check. There will also be a big dance party after the faces chase of the idiot heel, and Ryder  did that, so check number two.  Finally, a heel will try to be a party pooper that leads to a brawl, that happened, which lead to Eve getting the punched tossed on her. So I guess that was actually two birds with one stone.  All of these fill the requirements for a good fight, a star getting a food bath, and a dance off. I swear when it comes to holiday shows the WWE just has a big mad lib booking sheet that they use.

Most of the matches for the show didn’t do much but place hold the current storylines. Anyone who didn’t think Cody Rhodes & Dolph Ziggler were going to be in the Money In The Bank match at the PPV, I have some nice ocean front property in Kansas to sell you. Christian vs. Cody Rhodes is a good match up; then again Christian is like a leadoff hitter for a baseball team because he is consistent each and every time. I don’t know if Christian will ever be the best wrestler in the WWE, but I do know he will never be in the bottom, which is where your second tier champion should be. 

As far as Alex Riley goes, whose apple jacks did he shit in? It’s no shame in losing to Dolph Ziggler, but Riley went from rising star to basement jobber in the span of a year. Remember last summer he was picking up wins against the Miz after Miz was coming off his Wrestlemania main event win against John Cena. Then again Miz is buried under the basement right now so it could be worse for Alex Riley. I mean he is on TV and not forced to make “The Marine 3: Straight to the DVD Bargain Bin”.

The mixed tag match was a throw away match. They didn’t get the new talent over. Layla picked up the win, but she’s the women’s champ so how does that further any storyline between her and Aksana. If Aksana picked up the win against Layla then you can build off that to a title defense on Smackdown next week or even at the PPV. It’s not like anything is going on in the Diva division right now. Cesaro is a talented wrestler, but you can’t showcase much against Khali. Again it’s another case of at least you’re on television, but who cares.

In the realm of who cares, Michael Cole tried to get himself over, again. I know he is doing a character, and it should be the creative team that gets blamed, but his shtick is tired. He is supposed to be interviewing AJ after her big closing moment to RAW the night before, and instead it turns into this creepy old guy at the bar moment. Why choose Punk or Bryan over you Cole? Have you seen yourself in a singlet? Your body is how Lesbians know they made the right life choice.

Again I will state, the Punk-Bryan-AJ feud is saving the WWE right now. Even a segment that started off dive bombing with Cole, ended up being the highlight of the show. Once they got the dirty old perv out of the ring then it got good. AJ shines as the star of the segment. As Punk left the ring his visible dejection sold home that it looked like his shunning of AJ had cost him the title at the PPV. When she jumped out of the ring and gave him a big smacker after kissing Bryan, it just created more of the wild card feel to AJ. Her allegiance to either man can change on a dime, or in the middle of a three count, which makes you want to see what she’ll do at MITB.

This whole feud is making Money In The Bank worth the price of admission. For one, CM Punk vs. Daniel Bryan will be the best wrestling match on the card, and maybe the best on PPV this month, depending on Austin Aries vs. Robert Roode this Sunday. Second, AJ’s role as guest ref adds a new element of surprise to the match that will have people sitting on the edge of their seat to see which way her twisted mind leans. Finally, what is the aftermath of the match? If AJ screws over Punk or Bryan, where does that leave the three? Will they all go their separate ways? All of these three elements add to a match that should be the anchor of the show. Mix in two ladder matches including the All Star WWE Title Contract ladder match, and you have a good reason to drop the forty some dollars to get this PPV. That couldn’t be said about No Way Out, which really was only one good match and a bunch of TV filler.

The battle royal at the end of the show was ok. Since the WWE has a PPV built around a huge battle royal, the free TV battle royals never have a main event feel. It was nice to show off some of the big name  talent without them having to wrestle. Zach Ryder winning at the end was a nice touch as he should make Smackdown entertaining next week when the WWE gets geared up for the PPV that Sunday.

The Great American Bash was a nice show. The WWE banked on the fact that most people wouldn’t watch the show because of the holiday, so they didn’t really break new ground. The Punk-Bryan-AJ segment will give them good footage for a video package on Monday, and Ryder being GM for Smackdown will be good to promote next week. If you missed it then there is no need to go out of your way to catch up. Everything you needed to see will be in a recap on Monday. They partied, they kissed, and they didn’t move the needle in either direction. It was a WWE holiday show by the books, even if those books are paint by number.