Greetings.
The National Football League, which is arguably the most successful pro sports entity going, wound up another successful season this past weekend by awarding its penultimate award – the Super Bowl, to the New England Patriots.
Aside from handing out the most valuable player award to Patriots receiver Julian Edelman, there were no other additional championships, trophies or extraneous overkill, which, in its own way made it such a great event.
The very same week, pro wrestling’s big event was the annual Royal Rumble pay per view extravaganza, which had not one, not two, but eight major championship matches, including a myriad of mens and womens singles and tag team title matches.
As if that wasn’t enough, the WWE had not one, but two epic thirty contestant Royal Rumbles, not to mention countless promos, pre and post match analysis and whatnot – all of which amounted to nearly seven hours of so-called sports entertainment.
I don’t know about you, but even though many of the matches on the card, in particular the Universal title match between Lesnar and Balor; the Styles and Bryan world title match and both of the women’s titles matches (Rousey & Banks and Lynch & Asuka), were excellent, by the time they got around to the two supposed main events – the womens’ and mens’ Royal Rumbles, I had seen so many high spots, hot (and not so hot) finishes and whatever else, that I barely cared and I suspect that most of the fans in the so-called WWE universe probably had similar reactions, which – correct me if I’m wrong, tends to defeat the purpose. I might point out that back in the so-called “glory days” of the WWF, back in the 1980’s, when Vince McMahon was launching Hulkamania and Wrestlemania and all of that, the WWF had only the WWF men’s world and Intercontinental titles, the world tag team title and the women’s title, and that seemed to be more than enough.
I might add that back then, because they had just raided most of the top talent from the various territories (including my dad’s Stampede Wrestling promotion), the WWF had considerably more bona fide superstars on their roster, including the likes of Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Andre the Giant. Big John Studd, Ted di Biase, King Harley Race, Dory and Terry Funk, Ravishing Rick Rude, Paul Orndorff, Curt Hennig, Roddy Piper, Cowboy Bob Orton, Rick Martel, Tito Santana, the Road Warriors, Demolition, the British Bulldogs and Michaels and Janetty, among others, than it has today, but even so, they didn’t see any reason to add a bunch of additional titles and they seemed to do just fine.
Putting things into context, can you imagine, if, after the recent Super Bowl game, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced that the NFL was planning to also add an Intercontinental, an Asian and a European Super Bowl champion, as well, perhaps, as an NFL Divas SuperBowl championship game.
I have no doubt that not only would it be met with skepticism and be condemned as gimmicky, needless overkill and Goodell would probably be ridiculed and probably fired,
A while back, Vince, Hunter, Stephanie and Shane, somewhat surprisingly, acknowledged that the WWE hadn’t been doing a very good job of running the wrestling business as of late and vowed to do a much better job.
Not to be telling the enlightened despots in Titan Tower how to be running their business, but it would seem to me a good idea if they were to take a page out of the NFL’s playbook, so to speak, if they were to cut back not only on the number of extraneous titles, but also the number of supposedly epic title matches. To my way of thinking, world title matches and that type of thing should be reserved for the main event of major pay per views and not necessarily be included on house shows and that type of thing, especially when very rarely, if ever do title seem to ever change hands on house shows, anyway.
As well, I think the WWE should cut back on referring to every wrestler on the roster – whether they’re a bona fide star or some marginal jabroney as a “superstar”. All that seems to do, is reduce the public’s perception of the actual superstars or make the word meaningless, which, correct me if I’m wrong, isn’t necessarily “what’s best for business”.
To my way of thinking, if the WWE were to cut back on a lot of the counter-productive overkill and endeavor to, instead, incorporate more actual wrestling, the product would, no doubt, be a lot more compelling.
Having said that, I hereby throw down the proverbial gauntlet to Vince and company to not merely talk the talk but to walk the walk as far as effecting some meaningful change. I beseech you, Vinnie Mac and cohorts to “take it to the limit, one more time.”
On that note, I’ll call it a wrap for this edition, but shall look forward to catching up with you all next time for more candid commentary on the wrestling scene.
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