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.

Monday Night RAW: Wrestling, Recaps, and Idiots

Last night’s episode of RAW wasn’t bad, it was just long. It felt even longer because of all the recaps that kept on getting replayed throughout the show. Hey guess what WWE, most of your fans are watching the whole three hours and last week, so they don’t need 45 minutes of their time wasted by recaps. How about putting on more wrestling, new characters, or developing your Summer Slam main event? That means creative was my first idiot of the night.

My second idiot of the night was AJ Lee. She’s now the GM and has gone heelish vanilla. What I mean by that is she lost her personality now that she has power and acts like somebody who is just being fed lines instead of being a unique character. The heelish part is that she seems to be doing half of her actions out of vengeance. She is acting like a scorned girl version of Johnny Ace. Is it because she’s a chick that it makes her a face?  She screws over Daniel Bryan and then she screws over CM Punk; yet does little else during the show. For her first show as GM I give AJ an incomplete because that’s what her performance felt like.

The third, and biggest, idiot of the night was AW. I said a few weeks back that having a live mic on this guy was going to be a bad idea. He doesn’t seem to do well thinking on his feet. He showed I was right last night when he used a Kobe Bryant rape joke. Not even popular comedian Daniel Tosh can pull off a rape joke, so why does AW think he has a chance of doing it? The only good that comes from this might be that AW gets removed from TV. He is new enough that if he was pulled from TV fans wouldn’t even know. Hell by Summer Slam they would probably forget who he even was.

The Prime Time Players have a lot of promise as a tag team. It would seem that they are headed toward a tag title run. Cut the dead weight that is their manager before his lack of talent brings them crashing down. If the WWE thinks they need a manager so bad then why not give them to Vickie Guerrero? She is a heat magnet, she knows how to handle herself, and two young party boys play into her cougar gimmick. It’s not rocket science, its wrestling.

One thing about going three hours that was great was the extended length of the main matches. The Albery Del Rio match was great. He has really hit his stride as of late. I know Sheamus is being booked as this monster World champion, but ADR could do so much more with the strap around his waist. Having Sheamus, Rey Mysterio, and Dolph Ziggler coming at him from all angles is months of ticket selling storylines. I hope at Summer Slam that is what is in store for my new favorite Smackdown heel. Plus doing the arm breaker on the Cobra was a great little move.

Daniel Bryan is the man. He made Sheamus look like a million bucks in that street fight. They had some cool moments, and the flying knee off the stage made me pop. I knew Sheamus was going to win because he doesn’t put anybody over clean as of late, but Bryan made me doubt myself a couple of times.

The segments with the doctor and Bryan were good. The first one was ok, but the Charlie Sheen one had me laughing. The goat face segment was original, and I like the creativity in it. Bryan has really developed his personality. The end with Kane attacking him was good. They should have a decent match up with Sheen somehow involved at Summer Slam. It also makes sense since Kane is one of AJ’s exes. He still pines for her a bit, and so he’ll beat up Bryan for her. It adds another quality match to the PPV, which is a good thing.

The tag match was great. Give me Jericho, Christian, Ziggler, and Miz in the ring any day of the week. They told a great story. Each had their own interactions with their respective feud. They had some cool spots, and the end was what it should have been with Jericho getting the advantage over the Miz. The aftermath with Ziggler smashing Jericho was spot on too. This build to their feud has been well crafted, and adds yet another good match to the PPV.

The middle matches like Tyson Kidd vs. Tensai, Orton vs. Slater, and O’Neil vs. Kingston were nothing special. Orton debuting was cool, but that’s all it was. Tensai just doesn’t do it for me. He gives tons of effort and seems like a guy who really puts in his all. It just isn’t my cup of tea. I think Kidd could be valuable, but not in this feud. These three matches were more filler to me than anything else.

The new direction of CM Punk has begun. He’s now feeling disrespected because he’s the WWE Champion and he should be the main attraction. I like it, but the WWE better be careful of burning him out. He appeared a lot last night in non-wrestling roles. He was opening the show, and closing it, with a promo segment in the middle with Cena. Too much of a good thing can make the audience go sour on him.

Also why didn’t he wrestling Jerry Lawler last night? He had issues with Lawler. The creative team wants to turn Punk heel. Everybody loves the King. It’s a no brainer, plus Punk can protect Lawler in the ring. They started out like they were going to have a match, but instead they got into war of words on commentary. Unless this has a payoff next week of Punk vs. Lawler, then it is a lot of wasted energy when more focus should be on Punk’s true opponents, Big Show and John Cena.

Speaking of Superman and Doomsday, they had a sloppy match. It wasn’t a bad match but there were moments where things didn’t click. Like when Show goes to toss Cena off during a pin attempt and Cena stands up then flings himself to the ropes. It just looks bad.

The end of the match with Cena being missile tossed into Punk was cool. The whole laid out until the 9 count only to gain the strength to dead sprint to the ring in less than a second looks stupid. I hate that spot because why doesn’t Cena have the energy to move after that? It insults our intelligence.

The very end after Punk laid out Show and Cena felt very flat. Again this comes from AJ, who gives little to the moment by announcing the Summer Slam match. Punk is screaming at her and she acts like nothing is going on. Give me some emotion in the face of his anger. What about putting Punk in a match next week? Like against Jerry Lawler. It’s something they could have promoted all week.

Maybe even make it for the title to add some spice. Have AJ say if Punk doesn’t want to be in the triple threat then he won’t be if he loses the title to Lawler next week. It is a small story arc that plays off what happened most of the show plus gives the WWE something to promote for a week. Maybe even have the match lead off the show. Again it’s not rocket science, its wrestling.

Overall the show was good. I liked the longer wrestling matches. I even liked some of the segments with Daniel Bryan, and the promo with Punk & Cena. It also had a lot of downfalls. I hope next week that there is no AW and a whole lot less recaps. It wouldn’t hurt to have somebody from the Summer Slam main event on the show. Three weeks from the PPV, yet HHH, Brock, and Heyman are nowhere to be seen. If that kind of booking continues then the same could be said about viewers.