A stream of conscious rant from a wwf fan...

[Guest tominator89]

I went to RAW at State College, PA where the "brand extention" took place with a few casual viewing friends. We still hang out on Monday and Thursday (when we can) and watch the shows. Last night, was the end of it all. My friends had no clue what was going on with the name change. One friend, who is a marketing major, did not fully understand the change at all. The same thoughts were shared by a few others. It just didn't make sense. They watched the invasion of last year with me, heard about the steroid trial, etc, but nothing phased the WWF. Now, one Monday night everything changed and they didn't understand why. I mentioned the Wildlife Fund lawsuits, but they didn't buy it; and neither do I. Regardless, I was thinking, there has to be countless marks out there who are completely confused. JR, and who could blame him, wanted to say WWF but slipped. The WWF brandname meant everything to the wrestling industry. Sure, there's other names in existance, but it's like the Nintendo of the video gaming industry. WWF/Nintendo is exclusively recognized as a household name. "I'm playing Nintendo" or "I'm watching the WWF" are common, worldwide statements.

 

Those thoughts lead me to think this, with all the confusion (and backlash from longtime, hardcore fans) coming from last night's RAW, would it be a decent idea to do what WCW did and strip their champions of their titles and start over? I know it's a drastic step and they could easily pick up where they left off , or as JR essentially said "same attitude, different name". But, that's my entire problem right there. SAME! People laughed when I said WWF should have just used WCW as their namebrand because the WWF(E) shows are very reminiscent of WCW programming. Hogan? Flair? nWo? the list goes on. If Vince is planning on promoting his company the same way WCW did, then maybe he should finally make use of that little rasslin' company he bought a little over a year ago.

 

Everyone remembers when JR and others talked about the big WCW "relaunch". They mentioned things like rebuilding the name and all sorts of things. Well, if the brand WWF is dead, then why not make a serious effort to rebuild the OTHER brand that Vince owns? Maybe it's just my way of thinking, but substituting a 20 year old namebrand for a strange sounding WWE isn't gonna be as easy as they think it will be. At least people have heard of WCW. WWE makes me laugh; and not in a good way.

 

I think what the company needs right now is a major retooling period. I realize they just did the "brand extention", but that era has already been tarnished with HHH and Undertaker showing up on both shows, and in my opinion, it has become boring rather quickly. There are definitely positive things to build off of here, but I said in another post that I think it's strange that Hogan is on RAW but the initials WWF are not. Keeping with the comparison to Nintendo, I realize Nintendo has "Gamecube", "Gameboy", etc. as components of the namebrand. With house show attendance being down, I'd say try using Nitro as an offshoot from the WCW brandname.

 

In conclusion, wrestling is one of those interesting industries in which customer loyalty takes years to build. WWF was the ultimate wrestling brandnames and it's gone. As long as the World Wildlife Fund gets their way, WWF will be gone. Unlike WCW, which has a home on Vince McMahon's egotistical mantle of trophies, so-to-speak. I'm beating a dead horse here, but WCW might just be worth another look. I'd rather hear WCW world champion than WWE world champion; it just sounds better to me. And coming from a WWF fan of 20 years, I think that means a lot.

[Guest]

He's right about the re structuring. Vince needs to have a good hard look at where his company is heading.

 

As for wwE... FOR CHRISTS SAKE IT'S JUST A NAME!!! one letter!!!

 

Sorry.

[Guest]

Well I, for one, was very aprehensive at first about the WWE name. I don't like it, I probably won't use it when I'm talking about them, and I am not going to waste my time trying to condition myself otherwise. Frankly I think it was a stupid choice for them NOT to go with WWFE.

 

BUT, what's done is done. It's time to move on. The WWF is obviously moving on, so the fans should as well.

 

These days, to me, nothing the WWFE does really matters anymore. I catch the show for my favorites, and that's about it. I think that all of their double-talk about rebuilding the WCW brand, and how important it is to have a recognizable brand, blah blah blah, just seems hypocritical now that they've abandoned any semblance of the old WWF name brand.

 

I actually agree with your idea about using the WCW brand. I mean, honestly, when Hulk Hogan is your "top" face how much worse could it get?

[Guest Will Scarlet]

I agree about the restructuring.  The major problem to me in the WWF is that the Attitude is gone.  It's over. It's stale.  The WWF seems to realize it, unfortunately they are not sure how to get rid of it.  

 

This leads to the another major problem with the WWF. Much like how talking has replaced wrestling in the ring, the WWF seems to have the same problem where instead of "showing" you that something is different, they feel they have to "tell" that something is different.  Like with WWF Desire, they are all like "This is WWF Desire, folks." Meanwhile on the screen, I see a 20 minute interview, commercial, 2 minute match, skit, skit, commercial, skit, skit, commercial, 2 minute match, 20 minute interview, 5 minute match, commercial skit, skit, commercial, wrestler entrances, commercial, main event, ref bump, screw job, see you next week!" How is this any different from WWF Attitude? I thought Desire was to showcase the wrestler's abilities by, assumingly, letting them wrestle.  I am no expert on the Attitude era, but I believe it was just a gradual change to more "adult" storylines and stuff, then, one day, they just started calling it, "Attitude," and went on with the usual thing they had started months before, it was just called Attitude now.  The WWF needs to massively eliminating skits, two minute matches, McMahons, twenty minute interviews, etc., that are staples of Attitude and go into a completely different direction.  

 

Problem with restructuring though is that the WWF has to have a LONG-term plan.  This is the problem.  The Split, in theory, was a great idea, but the WWF never thought it through.  Sure, it may have seemed intriguing that Flair chose the Undertaker, but when the draft was over, the top heel on Raw was UT, the top face on Raw was Steve Austin.  Nobody wants to see THAT feud again.  On Smackdown, you have HHH, Hogan, and the Rock as the assumingly top faces, and Angle and Jericho as the top heels.  Rock goes away, Hogan does his own thing leaving Triple H to go feud with Jericho and Angle.  The problem is that HHH is just getting over a Jericho feud that failed and HHH-Angle has been over and over and over again.  Why not put UT on Smackdown and Jericho on Raw? Have the UT-HHH feud since it seems like they want to do that anyway, and have Jericho and Austin feud with Flair mixing in somehow, perhaps have him turning heel and choosing Jericho as his golden boy and the leader of the Raw brand, Austin gets pissed, and Austin and Jericho feud or something.  

 

The WWF went with the draft they had, assumingly to go in a direction that failed to surface, and, well, Raw has Austin feuding with Hall, X-Pac, the Big Show, and Ric Flair.  So, you have your top face feuding with two midcard job boys, an upper midcarder guy who jobs to the stars, and the owner of company. Exactly why am I supposed to care about this feud? How is Big Show a threat to Austin when he has lost to everyone from Billy and Chuck to RVD? How is X-Pac a threat to anyone? How is Scott Hall who has victories over such luminaries as Crash and Spike Dudley supposed to be a threat to Austin? So, it boils down to Flair vs. Austin.  Whoppee! Hardly something I care too much to watch.  They can do so much more, but they have no feud that people want to see at the top of the card, and no top heel besides UT, leaving a HUGE problem for someone like Austin.

 

The WWF seems to think that it is 1998 again and they have barely anyone on the roster.  Back then, interviews worked because you had a bunch of guys who were not the best wrestlers, but were good talkers, and so the WWF style went to talking and brawling.  The problem is that you have guys who, you know, wrestle now.  The WWF needs to look at its roster as a "team." Look at real sports, you have teams who go out and buy a bunch of free agents and all stars and their team sucks; by contrast, you have teams who barely have anyone who could possibly be considered "great," yet they go and win the championship.  The same can apply to wrestling.  WCW had all the stars in the world, yet the WWF beat them, despite having guys like Stunning Steve Austin, Cactus Jack, "The Blue Chipper" Rocky Maivia, and Jean-Paul Levesque as their top stars.  Hardly guys who, at the time, were big stars, yet they found a good character, they found something they can do well, they did what they were good at, and became superstars because of it. The WWF also re-adapted their style to a brawling style to hide the weaknesses of their wrestlers.  The problem now is that the WWF is mad because a lot of their roster cannot brawl, and they actually wrestle.  If half your roster throws weak punches, then try to adapt to a more "wrestling" oriented style where punches do not play such an important role.  It would make most of the roster look better, and might get them over.  

 

Next, you have to figure out where everyone would fit in.  Does someone have the potential to be a main eventer? Is someone a fantastic wrestler who can make other people look great but does not exactly have to right look or charisma?  Is someone basically useless, but can fill in as a tag wrestler and jobber?  The WWF needs to figure these things out and plug their roster in accordingly to the spots where they would best work.  The show would probably improve and ratings.

It is all a matter of hiding your wrestlers weak points, while emphasizing their strong points, instead they emphasize their weak points and hiding their strong points. A perfect example of this is Big Show.  I enjoy him sometimes, but he sucks.  Way back when, he was starting to get over the WWF stuck him in a tag role.  His partner would get beaten up, he would get the hot tag, and clean house.  It was perfect for Show, so the WWF decides to push him as a singles wrestler, completely forgetting why no one cared about him as a singles wrestler to begin with.  It is little things like that which separate a wrestler from being a useful commodity, or a useless nothing, in my opinion.  It is all about finding that one spot on the roster that the wrestler can excel at.  

 

Unfortunately, the WWF is trying the old "square peg, round hole" kind of booking, where they feel that if something does not fit, they will make it fit, and it ends up fitting badly, causing people not to care, and basically guys with tons of potential into nothing jobbers, and guys who can be useful in other roles into overpushed garbage who the fans completely turn on.  It is too bad, too, because with the roster the WWF has, it could be really good right now.

[Guest]

Just a thought on the name change. I do not like WWE either, maybe if we come up with a witty chant they'll change back. Like when the Islanders changed their logo and fans chanted "fishsticks" until they went back to the old one.