There is a strong difference between using the history of the wrestling business to improve and build storylines and exploiting or shock storylines. Vince McMahon apparently can not distinguish between the two.
Bringing up the Bret Hart screw job a few months after the release of Bret Hart’s DVD, in front of a non-Canadian or San Antonio, Texas audience, eight years after the fact, is pointless. What does this do to promote the upcoming PPV or even the current storylines within the company? Vince McMahon showed that he may be the worst of all, because the message I understood from the segment is he can’t stay off the television, his ego is way out of control, that the one thing he claimed he did right for the business seems to be something he fantasizes everyday not because he did it to Bret Hart but because he could do it to anyone in the business because it’s the McMahon show. There is speculation this is to build a Shawn Michaels versus Vince McMahon at Wrestlemania but unless Bret Hart walks down the aisle to screw both of them (swerve one and then swerve the other) then why would I really want to see this match? Maybe Vince will try to keep Shawn Michael’s autobiography selling during this storyline, maybe Vince will say how Shawn Michaels was the poster boy of the WWE Attitude generation, his champion and bring up all sorts of storylines and perhaps in Vince’s mind how HBK is now ungrateful as a man changed by God. I’m okay with that but that doesn’t back up how Shawn Michaels was the company man and followed Vince’s instructions and was loyal to Vince, all it shows is that Shawn was man enough to move on in life. Sadly if this happens, this won’t be for a belt, this will be for pride. So far, it was yet another storyline imitating a shoot.
The proper way to use history has been staring them in the face ever since they bought out WCW and the ECW tape libraries. You have basically 90% of the wrestling business at your disposal in various media form, you even have WWE 24/7 (though DIRECTTV subscribers such as myself do not have access to this yet) and yet the writers won’t build strong feuds showcasing the history of the talent who has wrestled for all three companies. For example, Chris Benoit. He’s been with the WWE for five years but has been wrestling for twenty years working in all three companies. Most fans aren’t uneducated when it comes to the history of the Wolverine but why bring him involved with the various talent he’s worked with, in the various mat classics he’s wrestled for. We all know his history with Booker T, the angle would be much stronger if they showed how it occurred in WCW and actually write it differently. They could push it by reminding people he has a DVD out, “Hard Knocks: The Chris Benoit Story” and push the past wrestling programming featuring Chris Benoit on WWE 24/7 online and on the television.
Right now the writing in the WWE is shaky at best. WWE is clearly hiring individuals that have no understanding of the business or have lost touch with the wrestling audience entirely and aren’t familiar with the current WWE product to write a good show that isn’t relying on shock storylines and that’s putting it in perspective. Thank you for reading, especially for last week’s feedback, please feel free to write me anytime at Bam@4sternstaging.com.
