WWE worried about the backlash

[justcoz 0]

If I were Vince, I'd have Matt Hardy and Edge in my office trying to convince them that there is money right now in working a program together and asking that they be professional enough to realize this.

 

Storyline wise, I'd have Lita betray Kane for Edge. Granted, this could lead to some miserable Kane-Edge matches but the main objective is to rid the show of the fake Kane-Lita marriage. Lita and Edge could brag about having an affair, not only on Kane, but Matt Hardy as well. Perhaps even say that Lita had an abortion, losing the baby wasn't Snitsky's fault, and the father wasn't Kane or Matt. It was Edge's and Lita had the abortion because no baby was going to interrupt Edge's quest for the World heavyweight title.

 

This will get massive heat on Lita for being a slut and Edge for being an asshole.

 

Allow Matt to work indies, like ROH, and continue playing the victim, while secretly having a WWE return date locked up. He can publicly cry on the Internet as to how disgusting it is for WWE to turn his real life trauma into an angle and how Lita and Edge are the most disgusting people on earth for agreeing to it. Have him still use the Internet and his indie appearances to encourage fans to chant "We Want Matt" at Edge and Lita, everytime they appear. Make sure the heat towards Edge and Lita doesn't go away.

 

Edge vs. Matt Hardy at Summerslam with Lita suspended in a cage over the ring.

[Promoter 0]

It's funny how there was a rumour that Edge would be feuding with Kane post Mania. Maybe it is all an angle. I mean this doesn't seem like the wwe to pass up on this thing. I mean the Canadian screwing the American in revenge for Bret Hart sounds right up their ally

[Karc 0]

WWE was going to make an angle out of this from the start. But their arrogance and general lack of a backbone (i.e. stupidity in firing Matt) superceded the potential (e.g. huge money making feud by moving Matt to Smackdown to cool down and thus forcing the eventual confrontation to happen at next year's WM).

[justcoz 0]

This goes along with what I've been saying for three years - WWE could really work the net and insider fans, if they wanted to. People have responded by saying, "well, that's only a small percentage of the audience, why waste their time" and maybe they are right. That small percentage of the audience however is very vocal and the opinion and news that they spread travels very fast. WWE underestimates this and they are proven wrong every time, whether it's Brock-Goldberg at Mania or Edge/Hardy/Lita. A good creative team would capitalize on this. I'm not talking constant Russo'esque shoot angles that go over the casual fans heads, I'm talking creatively using the internet in storytelling.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

While some people may get their rocks off on doing something to try and work smart fans, in order to keep the illusion going, it would require more deception and lying than wrestlers normally put up with, in order to keep the circle of people who know the angle they’re doing is a work so it doesn’t get out that it is a work, that the levels of mistrust and paranoia would get even higher. It’s just not worth the stress it would create among the workers just to try and fool a minute percentage of the audience.

[UseTheSledgehammerUh 0]

When I saw the thread title of "WWE worried about the backlash..." I thought it MIGHT have to do with the PPV buyrate from a crummy card or fact that there are a bunch of wrestlers that generally have no major interest wrestling (HHH, Benoit, Edge, Kane, Viscera, Benjamin) but instead its Matt Hardy Thread # 4597.

 

I swear Matt Hardy is the 2Pac of WWE.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

I swear Matt Hardy is the 2Pac of WWE.

Except that Hardy might really return one day.

[The Robfather 0]

I love this. Lita will never be able to be a face again.

[justcoz 0]

While some people may get their rocks off on doing something to try and work smart fans, in order to keep the illusion going, it would require more deception and lying than wrestlers normally put up with, in order to keep the circle of people who know the angle they’re doing is a work so it doesn’t get out that it is a work, that the levels of mistrust and paranoia would get even higher. It’s just not worth the stress it would create among the workers just to try and fool a minute percentage of the audience.

 

I understand where you are coming from but it doesn't have to be difficult or stressful to the workers. It's just another viable option in your storytelling. It would make sense to use it rather than pretend that it doesn't exist, it's only a small minority of fans (which is true but again, it's word of mouth, that small percentage turns into a sizeable chant at an arena show or tv taping), and that you must protect kayfabe. Kayfabe can never exist again. People aren't going to believe this is real. Especially when you have a creative team that leaves major holes in their storytelling to the point where anyone with any sort of logic whatsoever can't suspend belief for one moment. Working the net and insiders isn't something that should be done on a weekly basis but why not do it from time to time? For all we know, Matt Hardy may still be with WWE and they are just letting him cool off, work some indie dates, speak to the net and continue generating heat towards Edge and Lita so there can be a Holy Shit moment down the road. Just like the Montreal incident could have actually been a work to give Bret some momentum going into WCW and create a heel character for Vince McMahon. Only a small percentage of the audience probably got the fact that "Vince screwed Bret" by demanding the ref ring the bell but it's legend grew beyond 'working the smarts'.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

Working the net and insiders isn't something that should be done on a weekly basis but why not do it from time to time?

 

If we're talking about officially maintaining that a worked shoot is a work, while acknowledging off the record that it’s all a work, that’s one thing. But as I've already mentioned, trying to fool the smart fans into thinking a worked shoot angle is legit, which is what true working would be, unless the definition of the word has changed, would create even more stress among the locker room, and that just isn't needed.

 

For all we know, Matt Hardy may still be with WWE and they are just letting him cool off, work some indie dates, speak to the net and continue generating heat towards Edge and Lita so there can be a Holy Shit moment down the road.

 

One of the main arguments against this is that such an angle would undoubtedly piss off Hardy's huge internet fanbase, and Matt isn't considered someone who would do that just for an angle meant to try and fool a small percentage of fans.

 

Just like the Montreal incident could have actually been a work to give Bret some momentum going into WCW and create a heel character for Vince McMahon. Only a small percentage of the audience probably got the fact that "Vince screwed Bret" by demanding the ref ring the bell but it's legend grew beyond 'working the smarts'.

 

Montreal was not a work.

[Gary Floyd 0]

Why not just re-sign Hardy?

      -=Mike

would Matt even accept that pity now?

Umm, yeah.

 

Money is nice.

-=Mike

Somwtimes I don't agree with you Mike, but I agree with you here. If Eric Bischoff can become a part of the WWE, then Matt Hardy can return to the WWE. The only thing is, he might not want to return, but then again, as they say, money talks.

[Matt Young 0]

Why not just re-sign Hardy?

-=Mike

Exactly. Matt is a big boy, and he can be professional about it. If this happened in any other line of work, he could've sued the shit out of them for wrongful termination, so the least Vince can do is hire him back.

 

If we were really lucky and Edge and Matt could avoid stiffing the ever-loving fuck out of each other, they would have a great feud on their hands. Otherwise, Matt could go to SD and still get a great reception and he'd be a perfect candidate to take the US Title off Orlando Jordan.

 

I just want Matt back. My favorite male wrestler, Matt, and my favorite female, Molly, were each released within days, and I'm still in mourning.

[Boon 0]

I've got floor seats for Backlash. I cannot wait to start the "You Screwed Matt" chants.

[Guest MikeSC]

For reasons I don't get, Vince is throwing away money here.

 

The fans WANT Lita to be a heel. Let her turn on Hemme and make her the heel she already is. The WWE has never had her play straight heel yet and it might make her more tolerable, since she can't do high-flying shit to save her life,

 

The fans WANT Matt Hardy to be in the WWE. If you can avoid having them stiff one another, let Matt cost Edge his "money in the bank" title shot.

-=Mike

[CBright7831 0]

The only question is, when will Edge get his title shot?

[Guest MikeSC]

The only question is, when will Edge get his title shot?

If they were wise, they would stop mentioning it and then allow Edge to pull it out of the blue months down the line.

-=Mike

[justcoz 0]

But as I've already mentioned, trying to fool the smart fans into thinking a worked shoot angle is legit, which is what true working would be, unless the definition of the word has changed, would create even more stress among the locker room, and that just isn't needed.

 

I'm not necessarily saying that you have to fool the smart fans, just use them in the whole grand scheme of things. They are a target audience just like the marks. Their emotions can be manipulated just like the marks. Often, as we've seen with the Hardy situation, they guide the marks into the chants, etc. If wrestlers in the 70's went to such great extremes to protect kayfabe as to not take the believability away from the marks, why would it be so stressful to do basically the same thing, in a different manner, today? It's not scripting things specifically for the internet or smart audience. It's using them to plant the seeds for future storylines. It can be something as simple as planting a story on the net that there are negative feelings between Kurt Angle and Eddie Guerrerro or telling someone like Matt Hardy to disappear for a few months, wrestle indies and be vocal against the company in the media. It could run the danger of being over done but I don't see anything wrong with using this forum and this audience to generate interest in your product.

 

One of the main arguments against this is that such an angle would undoubtedly piss off Hardy's huge internet fanbase, and Matt isn't considered someone who would do that just for an angle meant to try and fool a small percentage of fans.

 

But if Matt turned around and re-signed with the company tomorrow, would that also piss off his internet fan base? What's exactly the difference between things just working out a certain way or being pre-planned to some extent? And would anyone really know one way or the other? Perhaps the boys in the locker room but if they cared about the business enough, they'd keep their mouths shut. It would all be speculative as to whether something was truely a work or shoot. We are taking the word of the internet and sheet writers as being the gospel truth when the truth is it's all coming from 'sources', none of which we know are accurate or not. If anything, it would confuse all the internet and sheet writers as to what sources to trust and who not to trust. It would be just as easy to plant something like Bret Hart returning to the WWF to lead the WCW Invasion as it would a Jericho/Goldberg backstage fight.

 

Montreal was not a work.

 

As far as we know

 

It broke the norm however. It was a desperate change of philosophies on the WWF's part and suddenly every fan knew that Vince wasn't just an announcer but he actually ran the damn company. Bret didn't "do the right thing" on his way out of the company, that being to drop the title as he was leaving for WCW. It was very much an "insider" angle, whether it was a work or not. And it's still one of the most effective angles ever in getting crowd reaction, surpassing NWO and DX catch phrases.

[Guest jumpingbombangel]

'Kay, I've said all I can on the topic, but I do want to add that I hope the anti-Edge and Lita sentiments continue at the shows. It makes for a better crowd, really...

[bobobrazil1984 0]

even if they do rehire Matt, it wont jumpstart his career. He'll be back to lower-end midcarder within 3 months. WWE bookers simply aren't that good. You'd think its a no-brainer, but they've proven continually how to fuck up no-brainers. There's a reason the hwole "controversy" has been so much fun to read about. Its about fifty times more entertaining than any actual WWE angles, including ALL "romance" storylines in the past 3 years.

[justcoz 0]

or reasons I don't get, Vince is throwing away money here.

 

The fans WANT Lita to be a heel. Let her turn on Hemme and make her the heel she already is. The WWE has never had her play straight heel yet and it might make her more tolerable, since she can't do high-flying shit to save her life,

 

The fans WANT Matt Hardy to be in the WWE. If you can avoid having them stiff one another, let Matt cost Edge his "money in the bank" title shot.

 

This is what disturbs me the most. Vince is really coming across like Verne Gagne Y2K here. How could the opinion of HHH, Stephanie McMahon, Johnny Ace and Fit Finley blind him from the obvious? The fans don't really have a personal hatred towards Lita. To be honest with you, I'm not even sure if there is that much of a genuine love towards Matt. He's just the sympathetic figure here. Fans just want to have fun by giving Lita some shit. You can't hide her and protect her from the wrath that she has coming. You can confiscate all the signs you want. The fact that this has absolutely nothing to do with current storylines, they aren't supposed to be chanting and know that it's not what the company wants will just make them chant all the more.

 

Matt Hardy going to TNA isn't going to make TNA competition. But how you could have thousands of fans chanting for Matt at MSG, then overseas one week later, and allow anyone but YOU to make any $$$ from that fact is beyond me.

[iggymcfly 0]

Personally I think Lita and Trish should just do a double turn. I know that means we no longer get heel Trish but how can we have both women be heel?

I think they already did.

 

The WWE just hasn't acknowledged it yet.

[Eclipse 0]

I have been a fan of Matt's since his Mattitude stuff started, and it serves the WWE right for firing him. HE GETS SCREWED over, while the guy that caused it gets a damn title shot...

[Precious Roy 0]

They should make an angle out of it with Matt Morgan, just pretend the chants are about him.....

[Promoter 0]

You know justcoz is absolutely right. Remember that other thread about the wwe's identity and we went over all the phases the company went through? Well, the wwe is not using the internet properly anymore. During the last boom the wwe would use the heat of backstage stuff on the television which made things become more realistic to fans from the cartoon crap of Doink The Clown a few years prior.

 

Look this is what I'm talking about.......................

 

1994

Bret Hart and Owen Hart have the best feud in the company and it's realistic where it kept people wondering how true some of the remarks were(such as Bret wanting Owen to wear a mask not to steal his last name*does seem like a Vince mindset for those days*)

 

1995

Shawn Michaels gets beat up in Syracuse. The wwe uses this in a storyline and HBK returns too soon and collapses on RAW. This angle was well recieved and an early indication that fans wanted a more mature product.

 

Diesel who fans started to love as a heel big guy turns face and becomes corporate. The fans do not take to this as champion. He loses the belt and he starts to act more tweener by taking jabs at Vince for turning him soft. He goes to wcw and plays up his real personailty more and gets even more over.

 

1996-1997

Austin starts to berate Bret Hart. Bret Hart rags on HBK about being champion and feeling betrayed about losing the belt. The bickering continues on the net with backstage info and Bret and HBK end up having one hot ass feud. Austin jumps into the fray calling Bret a whiner and fans start to turn on Bret. Bret starts slamming America about turning on him for a hyena with no morals in what was becoming a cess pool in America. Hart family values.

 

In wcw, they played up things that Hall and Nash were sent by the "new generation" wwf to make war on Nacho Man and the Huckster. It turns out Hogan joins Hall and Nash as he becomes the third member who "came from a great big organization up north". Then they brought Piper in to counter Hogan being the man who made wrestling and so on.

 

1998

Austin and Vince is rooted in Vince wanting his "champion" HBK retaining against the pr nightmare of the bird flipping Austin. Vince was also getting heat for what he did to Bret Hart. He throws challenger after challenger and Vince's master plan works with The Rock whom he saw as a corporate champion. The wwe used the knowledge some fans through his push to the moon as IC champ to make it realistic that Rock was wwe bred for the role as champion the way Vince saw it with his background. There is realism to it although it's all storyline. The wwf makes one of the greatest comebacks of all-time that year.

 

1999

This is where it all went downhill with the overscripting and unrealistic storylines.

WCW is in the same boat with stuff that aren't related to the internet AND the masses.

 

2000

HHH and the Mcmahons are also rumoured to becoming together. It seeps into the storylines along with HHH's workrate and he is the greatest heel champ they ever had that year.

 

2001

It went straight to hell again with storylines, but the only thing on the net that fascinated fans was the growing relationship with HHH and Stephanie.

 

2002-2005

Things on the net are non-existant and so is the buzz for wrestling in the mainstream. Can all this be coincident or that the wwe just doesn't have someone like Russo who can turn real life incidents into compelling television that makes fans emotionally involved with something they might believe to be real?

[Precious Roy 0]

Anyone with a brain could see a backlash coming, which is why firing the guy was so fucking stupid. I can't believe that only now they're second guessing the move, which had PR nightmare written all over it.

 

And I hope the fans never let off Lita, because I can't stand her as a face. Turn her heel and pair her with Edge, end the awful neverending Kane storyline, make lemonade. Plus, turn Trish into an edgy face, because the fans obviously prefer to cheer her.

 

I wouldn't bring Matt back if I were Vince though, and if I were Matt I wouldn't go back, at least not before giving TNA a shot. What's done is done, I honestly think the release was a blessing in disguise for him. Unless all partys would be willing to run an Edge/Matt program, which I don't see happening, it would be beyond pointless.

[2GOLD 0]

Anyone with a brain could see a backlash coming

 

Apparently not Vince and World Wrestling Entertainment.

Like people said, Matt was a mid-carder so who would care? Granted, they MADE him the mid-carder themselves and he was getting over on Smackdown without their help since he actually thought up Mattitude which the McMahons thought would suck.

 

Vince and Co forgot ONE thing. Matt was a HUGE part of the Kane/Lita storyline and they couldn't just expect the fans to blindly accept he wouldn't come back. The fans are stupid, but they aren't THAT stupid.

 

Which the WWE forgot a long damn time ago.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

I'm not necessarily saying that you have to fool the smart fans, just use them in the whole grand scheme of things. They are a target audience just like the marks. Their emotions can be manipulated just like the marks. Often, as we've seen with the Hardy situation, they guide the marks into the chants, etc. If wrestlers in the 70's went to such great extremes to protect kayfabe as to not take the believability away from the marks, why would it be so stressful to do basically the same thing, in a different manner, today? It's not scripting things specifically for the internet or smart audience. It's using them to plant the seeds for future storylines. It can be something as simple as planting a story on the net that there are negative feelings between Kurt Angle and Eddie Guerrerro or telling someone like Matt Hardy to disappear for a few months, wrestle indies and be vocal against the company in the media. It could run the danger of being over done but I don't see anything wrong with using this forum and this audience to generate interest in your product.

 

As I've already said, and it seems like I've got to say again, it's one thing to officially maintain that a worked shoot angle is legit while unofficially admitting it's a work, but to keep the pretence up that a worked shoot angle is legit, for the length of time it would need to get over, would cause more distrust and stress among the wrestlers, who already don't believe much of what management tell them anyway.

 

If wrestlers in the 70's went to such great extremes to protect kayfabe as to not take the believability away from the marks, why would it be so stressful to do basically the same thing, in a different manner, today? It's

 

To keep the pretence up that a worked shoot angle is legit, for the length of time it would need to get over, would cause more distrust and stress among the wrestlers, who already don't believe much of what management tell them anyway. Go back to WCW when Eric, Russo, Nash et al were constantly running worked shoot angles on the locker room, and see what it did to locker room morale. Would you seriously want to risk doing that just to try and fool a minute percentage of the audience. It sure worked wonders for WCW. Like I said earlier, officially keeping up the illusion while unofficially admitting it's a work is fine. But to keep up the pretence to the point that you lie to wrestlers for any length of time is just not worth that extra distrust and stress that it would undoubtedly cause.

 

But if Matt turned around and re-signed with the company tomorrow, would that also piss off his internet fan base? What's exactly the difference between things just working out a certain way or being pre-planned to some extent? And would anyone really know one way or the other? Perhaps the boys in the locker room but if they cared about the business enough, they'd keep their mouths shut. It would all be speculative as to whether something was truly a work or shoot. We are taking the word of the internet and sheet writers as being the gospel truth when the truth is it's all coming from 'sources', none of which we know are accurate or not. If anything, it would confuse all the internet and sheet writers as to what sources to trust and who not to trust. It would be just as easy to plant something like Bret Hart returning to the WWF to lead the WCW Invasion as it would a Jericho/Goldberg backstage fight.

 

Matt re-signing with WWE wouldn't turn off his fan base if he explained to them that things had been worked out, and it was all in the past. If you don't know what the difference between things working out naturally and things being a work is , then I don't know what else to say, other to once again point out what a mess it would create in regards to distrust and paranoia in the locker room. To try and brush off their concerns as, "Well, if they cared about the business they'd just shut up", is to be woefully ignorant of what such actions would do, for all the reasons I’ve kept trying to point out to you.

 

As far as we know

 

If anyone still thinks Montreal was a work, then they really need to take a look in the mirror. The only people who think Montreal was a work are those working themselves, so they can convince themselves they've not been fooled and turned into a mark, because god knows a smart fan must never be fooled.

[Jingus 0]

If I were Vince, I'd have Matt Hardy and Edge in my office trying to convince them that there is money right now in working a program together and asking that they be professional enough to realize this.

 

Storyline wise, I'd have Lita betray Kane for Edge. Granted, this could lead to some miserable Kane-Edge matches but the main objective is to rid the show of the fake Kane-Lita marriage. Lita and Edge could brag about having an affair, not only on Kane, but Matt Hardy as well. Perhaps even say that Lita had an abortion, losing the baby wasn't Snitsky's fault, and the father wasn't Kane or Matt. It was Edge's and Lita had the abortion because no baby was going to interrupt Edge's quest for the World heavyweight title.

 

This will get massive heat on Lita for being a slut and Edge for being an asshole.

 

Allow Matt to work indies, like ROH, and continue playing the victim, while secretly having a WWE return date locked up. He can publicly cry on the Internet as to how disgusting it is for WWE to turn his real life trauma into an angle and how Lita and Edge are the most disgusting people on earth for agreeing to it. Have him still use the Internet and his indie appearances to encourage fans to chant "We Want Matt" at Edge and Lita, everytime they appear. Make sure the heat towards Edge and Lita doesn't go away.

 

Edge vs. Matt Hardy at Summerslam with Lita suspended in a cage over the ring.

That's pretty much exactly what I would do if I were in Vince's shoes right now. This is a huge money-drawing angle just begging to happen. Yes, it would've been shitty of the WWE to have worked us all about this situation from the beginning, but now that events have happened the way they have, the only smart thing to do is to turn the shoot into a work.

 

You could even turn Trish face out of the whole thing, why not, everyone's already cheering her anyway. And just because she's no longer Heel Trish doesn't mean that she can't still be Evil Bitch Trish; for chrissakes, name me one happy smiling do-gooder babyface from the entire Attitude era who got over.

 

The only one who'd get kinda left out in the cold by the whole deal would be Kane, and that kinda sucks, but hell, it's friggin KANE, he's like the modern-day Flair, no matter how many times he gets buried he always somehow rises back to the top.

[Carnival 0]

the abortion angle is EXTREME. i love it.

 

they may even catch hell in the media with it. Vince would love that. But then again, the media would have to give a shit about wrestling.

[Guest JerichosHi-Lite]

[source: PWTorch Newsletter]

 

The main feeling in WWE right now is that they have created a monster by firing Mat Hardy, and that monster will be very hard to keep quiet.

It took them this long to figure it out?