The Issue #2
By: Bryon Frazier
June 25, 2003
The Issue
I was there with everyone else, watching in horror as the monster known only as Kane teased the removal of his mask for about six hours. Fresh off his most recent loss to the crafty French-Canadian Paul Levesque, Kane struggled to bring himself to pull that elastic band over the back of his head or lift the pleather cover from his surely disfigured visage. I felt his pain. I understood why he so deeply didn't want to go through with it. Deep down, Kane knew what everyone else knew: once the mask comes off, the WWE career of the man wearing it is as good as dead.
Monday night, the mighty Levesque vanquished another one of the villains from his weekly live comic book, WWE RawHHH. "That's one less threat I'll have to deal with" he surely said to himself as he looked on while Glen Jacobs was forced to pull the plug on his main event value. Yes, despite what people think, Kane did have main event value. Five-plus years of getting pushed as an indestructible monster will give you that kind of credibility, and removing the symbol of that mystique will relieve you of it in one fell swoop. I'm not trying to insinuate that Triple H was the mastermind behind this development, but surely he could've voiced his opinion against it. Hell, maybe he did, it's not like I'm backstage at these events or listening to the conversations amongst the purveyors of the WWE product.
There has to be someone in the company that understands the problem here. Kane may have gone as far as he ever will, but it was pretty damn far. Granted, maybe he will use this event as a shot in the arm and become an even greater success, but what is the percentage chance of the WWE finding a way to make this happen? The recent track record for creativity has not been a good omen. This gets to the real problem at hand. Who is on Raw that is worthy of defeating Triple H for his title? Kane should not have lost his mask, but even more so Triple H should not be losing the belt to Kane, and for this I guarantee he was willing to say so.
The purpose of giving a heel a long-term title reign is to vault a face into superstardom when he defeats the champ. The sad fact is that this shouldn't happen any time soon. There isn't a single guy on the Raw roster, and only a select few on Smackdown, who would be able to benefit from defeating Triple H to the point that they could then carry the company.
Wait a minute, I almost forgot about the one guy on Raw that could achieve the above goal. However, it is only natural that he slipped my mind because he only got about 45 seconds of screen time on Monday night's show. Goldberg has the charisma and intensity (which is really all that's needed) to throw the WWE's fledgling flagship weekly program on his back and return it to the land of milk and honey, but he's been crapped on from the get-go. They changed his tights, changed his music, made him sell . . . I'm not watching Goldberg out there, I'm watching "Goldberg, Presented to You by WWE." Then we had this past Raw match against Rodney Mack. First, the Berg's involvement in the match is completely unhyped, then when he does appear he gets attacked while he's still hidden in the pyrotechnics. The match itself lasts about twenty seconds, followed by another fifteen or so of post-match celebration, and he's off of our television sets. That's like anti-booking, as if you know he'd get over if you gave him a chance so you go out of your way to prevent it. I hope that they wouldn't really do that though (and yes, I'm aware of the word going around that they did it to test the ratings appeal of Kane, Trips, and Mick Foley).
The key to Goldberg's success was always taking a ninety second match and making it fit a six minute segment. Do that and he's as good as Gold . . . berg. It's almost as if the WWE braintrust weren't watching WCW when the Man was the only guy that was hanging with the then-WWF's top stars in terms of popularity.
Oh, but they were watching.
You see kids, the WWE wants to get people over "their way." This particularly applies to the WCW-established guys. They don't let Paul Wight no-sell for three minutes before chokeslamming a guy. They won't let Chris Jericho go to the ring and just let loose on the mic. They won't let Chris Benoit just wrestle; instead he has to wear a shirt that says "Toothless Aggression." Oh, and don't get me started on some of the InVasion guys like Shane Helms. The problem with this approach is that there are only so many good ideas floating around in the brains of these rasslin' folk, so they should accept that Turnerland may have come up with a successful formula for these wrestlers.
It's all about seeing the good ideas and not letting them go. Chances are a failure is only caused by not pushing the guy. That's why I can say that Kane worked, Goldberg in WCW worked, but every time they make significant changed they just reset their progress with the fans. Then again, it also ensures that Super Paul will keep his belt even longer, so I guess in some circles of Hell it's not considered all bad.
A Reason Why I Miss WCW
On Smackdown last week, I watched Rey Mysterio take on a returning Chris Kanyon and I couldn't help but to think back to the days of WCW. How could I not, that's where I was first introduced to each of these talents. Thursday night they got less than five minutes in the ring; just four years ago this exact same match would've gotten at least ten, maybe even fifteen. It probably would've been interrupted by a commercial break too. So despite watching the Innovator of Offense getting into his old groove, I couldn't help to be saddened.
No, this isn't about the fact that WCW used to really try to push these guys, I've already gone into the WWE's prejudice against WCW-established guys today so I don't want to dip back into that well. I'm really just pissed that I don't get to watch Nitro and its three hours. THREE HOURS! Do you have any idea how much time that is for a wrestling show? They had so much space to fill that a guy like Norman Smiley could be given double digit minutes in the ring. Chris Jericho could come out with an easel and diagram exactly how Konnan cheated him out of a match. Curt Hennig, Barry and Kendall Windham, and Bobby Duncam, Jr. could have a feud with Master P and the No Limit Soldiers. WCW could afford to do anything on Nitro because it was desperate to fill its slots!
You simply haven't lived unless you've seen Ciclope used as a central plot device. Triple H and his puny sledgehammer have nothing on that! Seriously though, I mentioned last week that Raven's WCW persona couldn't exist in the WWE because they don't have those THREE FRIGGIN' HOURS to fill, but this isn't just limited to Scott Levy. That one extra hour allowed guys like Dean Malenko, Perry Saturn, the aforementioned Kanyon, and Billy Kidman to get really over strictly through wrestling. It even allowed Booker T and Chris Benoit to wrestle a best of seven series, with each match getting a decent-sized time allotment. Of course, it was also the cause for guys like Hugh Morrus and the Barbarian to be stuffed down our throats, but you take the bad with the good.
People "haterized" on WCW back in the day because they didn't realize that it was revolutionary stuff. It saved us from having to go to the local indy shows to see random combinations of wrestlers being given ample ring time. Most notably though, an extra hour meant that sixty full minutes could be devoted to the NWO, and you'd still have the entire length of a Raw episode left over to promote the low- and midcard. That's why back in '98-'99, watching WCW's midcard wrestlers was as entertaining to me as any main event. They actually had a chance to get over.
I think I'll call this reason #115 for why I miss WCW in honor of the number of members in the LWO.