So you read about the little stunt to end Monday Night RAW this week. If you haven’t, read Pulse Wrestling’s coverage here: Pulse Wrestling’s Real-Time Coverage of WWE RAW for 6/23/2008 (2008 WWE Draft).
I’m sure the video will pop up all around the internet, but here’s a breakdown of the make believe accident:
- The piece of lighting gear falls from the ceiling: My smart take on this is that the camera was in the EXACT right place to capture this thing falling from the ceiling. The WWE knows how to frame a shot, and they don’t deviate from the formula often. This shot wasn’t one that we had seen previous to tonight.
- Fireworks? The sparks clearly came from underneath the stage, not from the falling object. The smaller spark to the right came from somewhere that had no impact too.
- The stage collapses: The front pyro goes off, clearing everything on stage. Then the right side of the stage gives way. Now, this is something that makes no sense to me. The falling piece landed far from the right side of the stage. Vince kicks the podium out of the way and stands up, under the Million Dollar Mania sign.
- The falling sign: Here’s where the fun begins. Once the stage isn’t in the way of our view of the bottom of the sign, we see HINGES at the base. The hinges are on a switch, which you can see disengage before the sign starts to fall.
- “Paul” Come on man. You’re smarter than that. The only people that would understand who he’s talking to when he says Paul are the people who shouldn’t be falling for this.
Not to mention that Million Dollar Mania wasn’t working. Ratings went DOWN the first week that the WWE committed to the contest. This is a nice way of wrapping it up now that Vince won’t be on TV anymore.
The company needed a bump in the ratings for Night of Champions and this gets the brand’s name out a bit more than usual. It also helps that the Wrestlemania press conference is in less than 24 hours so the company can “address the matter”.
Let’s also remind ourselves that nearly a year ago Vince was blown up in an “accident” and that story ended prematurely with Chris Benoit’s suicide. Vince never got to play that angle out, so here we are one year later and we get to re-live the pain of watching the limo blow up week in and week out.
So there’s the quick and dirty list so you can sleep knowing that this was a work.
