So…. yeah, that happened. Sorry, couldn’t start off without some snark, but I’ll try to minimize it, since I’ve proven my self-destructive tendencies by volunteering to do TNA recaps, (assuming my streaming site uploads Impact quickly enough), and I’ll need my snark to retain my sanity for those. Though it could be argued getting my column back while Starcade runs free without a muzzle is proof of masochism.
So let’s get to brass tacks; Triple H and Steph seriously need to get off TV. How they’ve managed to cling to the delusion that putting themselves on TV has EVER helped the product is beyond me, but it needs to stop. If they truly care what’s best for business, they’ll write themselves off tv and stick to their corporate jobs.
It’s a historical fact that ratings for Raw dropped whenever Tripsy was the main event focus, the top of the card. No matter what he says or does the fans are never going to remember him as legendary or as one of the all time greats. History will, as an in-ring performer, remember him as a guy with adequate skills who had good matches with actual greats. He’ll be remembered as a footnote who feuded with guys that the hardcore lifelong fans will fondly remember.
Though really I blame Vince for letting it happen. Vince is the classic spineless Daddy, letting his daughter have her way to make her happy. So he let Tripsy basically commandeer the company for 15 years, to the point of driving the only McMahon people actually enjoy seeing on TV completely out of the company and away from the family.
The bottom line here is that Tripsy is not and never will be a box-office draw. As he so often loves to say about other better guys, Tripsy on his own has never drawn a goddamn dime. People paid money to see the guys he worked with, not him. It’s always been that way, it always will be. The biggest pop he ever got was from coming back after his first quad tear, and that was because EVERYONE coming back from a career threatening injury gets a huge “good on you mate!” pop from the audience.
BD pointed out in a comment last week that the Authority’s return seemed eerily well-timed to coincide with Danielson’s return, possibly so they could say THEY popped the ratings. And I don’t doubt they probably actually believe that, even though their on-screen return happened at the end of the night, unannounced, and wasn’t even rumoured to be happening. Anyone with a brain knows ratings popped for that Raw because Edge and Christian were hosting and because Danielson was rumoured to be announcing his retirement.
And ironically Tripsy and Staph, (intentional typo. Give it a minute), who insist, both in character and out, that they only want what’s best for business, adamantly refuse to listen to the people who they need to make the most happy; the audience.
Being a disabled woman I have a great deal of free time. So I spent a few hours on Twitter looking through hundred of mentions directed at Staph and Tripsy. Guess what I found. Go on, guess! That’s right! A majority of tweets directed at the Golden Couple boil down to “Please take yourselves off tv, we don’t want to watch you”. Various wordings of course, but that’s the recurring average. My best guess is 6 of every 10 tweets they get are people asking them to get off tv.
That’s not heel heat, that’s X-Pac heat. And it’s not like it could be misinterpreted either. They’re not getting barraged with “You suck!” tweets like Rusev and Lana, which can be seen as legit heel heat. No, the fans are clearly en masse asking them to just stop already. Get off tv. You’re boring us. We’re sick of you. We don’t boo you because it’s fun, we boo you because we want you gone.
But the way they both troll the audience shows they clearly actually believe they and they alone are the company’s top heels. Even as ratings drop, they refuse to acknowledge the hand they play in it. Which is especially bad for business when the Network is still underperforming.
Next week; Why NXT Proves Vince is an Out of Touch Idiot
We now return you to a vague implacable reality you can get drunk questioning.
