Every once in a while, Matthew Michaels sends me an Instant Message with some random, cockamamie idea. What most of you don’t know about Mr. Michaels is that he’s a busybody who can never leave anything well enough alone. He’s the guy at the office who likes to make improvements to things that don’t really need improving. You know that guy… the one you want to punch in the face because you’re working on fifteen different things but he wants you to work on one more. Think for a second… yeah, that guy. One day, in East Coast Bias, I may address his idea to add another wildcard team to the baseball playoffs. For those keeping track at home, that would be five playoff teams.
So anyway, when Matt presents me with an idea, I usually take it with a whole shaker of salt, but he and I actually extended a conversation he had with Steve Murray previous. And that was basically a way to do something with the tag belts to make them interesting again. Take a trip down fantasy road with me, if you will.
I think everyone can likely agree that the tag belts are dead. Quick, are there tag belts on both on Raw and Smackdown? Can you name both sets of champions? Me neither. The challenge is: make the tag belts interesting, and make the tag belts an event. Without getting into specific teams and team members, let’s take a minute to book it all out.
First, it’s safe to say that we don’t need a tag belt on both shows. The first step is to specialize the tag belts to one of the two shows. Since Raw is generally considered the A-show, let’s let the singles wrestling remain there. Smackdown seems to be the B-show or, at least, the show that fewer people watch. As long as the show remains on Friday primetime, it’s never really going to be as watched by Raw, and the audience is always going to be different. Smackdown is already, theoretically, the place for the Cruiserweight division, so why don’t we make it the home of the tag division, too. It solves two problems, it further differentiates the show from Raw and it allows us to have cruiserweight tag champions (usually far more exciting than heavyweight tag champions). Since Raw is so crowded with singles competitors, why not let Smackdown be more of a variety show? With a tag division, it allows you to get a variety of guys out there who there wouldn’t normally be room for.
The first step toward accomplishing this, obviously, is to unify the belts. Unification matches are something that should be reserved for Wrestlemania. It requires zero build because it’s a title unification match. You can welcome guys inter-show the week leading up to the title match for “exhibition” purposes. One of the good things about guys who would be in the tag division is they wouldn’t have ego problems quite yet. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see Kendrick/Kenny on Raw followed by London/Mikey on Smackdown leading to the unification match? It’s the only build you need. Management announces that the winners of the tag match get to bring the belts to their show, where they will exclusively defended. The tag champions become immune from the draft, should they ever decide to have one again.
Now that the problem of creating The Smackdown Tag Division has been solved, how do we create an event surrounding the tag titles? What Matt and I decided was to create a Tag Team Invitation Tournament. I decided it should be called the Smash Of Demolition Memorial Tag Team Invitational. I like that name. It’s not negotiable.
Something that the WWE doesn’t really ever take advantage of is the fact they do, basically, pretend to be a sport. You know something that sports fans love? Brackets. People who don’t gamble all year long love brackets. Something the WWE never really did for the King of the Ring was to create a big deal out of their brackets. This is their opportunity to remedy that.
Since the early part of the year has the Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania, why don’t we try to make the Summerslam to Survivor Series part of the year the “tag team” season. Each year at Summerslam we can have the Smash Invitational bracket selection special. The WWE Championship Committee (or the McMahons) unveil eight teams from each (Smackdown, Raw, ECW) roster. Each of these teams receives an invitation to the tournament and are seeded in a bracket. Do you even realize how much press the brackets will get? WWE.com can have bracketology specials, along with every other website that covers wrestling. However, since this is wrestling, I would see no reason why competitors couldn’t be goaded into putting their invitation on the line or, if a selected team couldn’t co-exist, why they wouldn’t wrestle over their team’s invitation. Now, each roster has sixteen guys who suddenly have something to do for the next three months. Would the first eliminated team be happy they suddenly got out, or would they make a nuisance of themselves? Would some of the winning teams suddenly get “injured” to force alternates into the tournaments?
Over the next three months, you can book 8 teams on each show pitted against each other in Survivor-like intrigue. You have, at minimum, 7 matches over the course of 12 weeks, with the option of putting your finals on one of your show’s pay per views. When you get Survivor Series, you have 3 team finalists. How you draw in your wildcard team is entirely up to the year. Random draw? Battle Royal? Doesn’t matter. You get two matches on Survivor Series that have been built up for two months with the finals decided at Armageddon, the Smackdown only December show. The semi-finalists are loaned to Smackdown for the evening (think of it as interleague play). If the winners of the finals then beat the current tag champions, they become property of Smackdown. The losers are sent off to the winners’ show as roster replacements. It lets you shake up the rosters a bit and gives a simple storyline reason for the tag team to split up on whatever roster they eventually appear.
Unfortunately, there’s three reasons this will never happen (four if you count Eric’s ‘if they read it in a column, they’ll never do it’ reason):
- It’s a loooong storyline, which, as we’ve learned, the WWE appears unable to make work. This is even a little more difficult, as it requires the constant health of 16 guys on each roster. However, that’s even addressed by rules allowing alternates to enter into the tournament if one team is unable to continue. There seems to be an overwhelming desire in the WWE front office to have quick gratification storylines for everything not involving the main characters. I assume this is because of the McMahon’s collective belief that no one cares about the undercard and, since Vince seems to have a short attention span, he assumes everyone else does, too.
- The WWE has decided the tag division is as useless as the cruiserweight division. I don’t really understand it, as the tag division gave them Shawn Michaels. It also allows them the opportunity to give a ton of guys on the roster something to do. However, tag teams are not marketable outside of wrestling, which seems to be the only thing the WWE is concerned about at the moment. Even though it could eventually give you one, we need gratification NOW.
- And, combining 1 and 2, they’re never going to dedicate the amount of television necessary to make it work. They would also have to have a writer other than a McMahon book the division. Also a no-no.
All-in-all, I love the idea, but likely I’m the only one. Can you improve on it? Let me know.
Plugs
Like he needs a plug, Scott Keith reviews a ROH DVD.
The DVD Guys put together a comprehensive review of the Lord of the Rings DVDs. New set worth it? Check out Fellowship of the Ring, Two Towers, and Return of the King.
The Pulsecasts are alive and well. Check out Hatton’s Rabblecast and Patrick N’s IP Sports Radio, bitches.
Murray looks on the bright side.
What the Red Sox could have been this season.
In Conclustion
This column took way longer than I thought it would. I’m done for the week.
