The Straightshot- Paid Programming

THE STRAIGHTSHOT- Paid Programming
(By "The Straightshooter" Greg Andrews)

So now it has come down to bribery.

WWE, lost in the fog of arrogant dellusion, had a surprise for its shareholders this week as Vince McMahon offered to pay people for watching RAW.

Notice that McMahon made it clear the money was coming out of his 'personal' account and not from WWE assets. This was done so as not to scare shrewd WWE Inc. stockholders into thinking the company was frivolously wasting their money. Either way, it isn't where the money is coming from, it's the fact that such a gimmick had to ever be presented in the first place that should worry those that have junior's college tuition riding on WWE's future.

Is this the same WWE that gave us thirty years of moments to remember for a lifetime? Is this the same company that destroyed the territorial system in wrestling and perservered to become a publically traded, global superpower? Are they the same company that gave us Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock and scores of other touchstone characters from their past? Really?

Somehow, I don't see paying people to watch Monday Night Raw in the same ballpark as DX, WrestleMania or splitting brands.

We've endured some cheap, low rent WWE tricks to get our attention in the past. We've watched rape, necrophelia, transvestism, homosexual marraiges, domestic violence, gun play, sadism, masochism and any other 'ism' there is and still not run screaming for the hills, at least not everyone.

But now, even the bad ideas aren't coming any longer. Vince McMahon will pay one million dollars for your viewership because he realizes it's better to throw away a million on us than on writers that don't write and wrestlers that aren't allowed to perform.

This way, he keeps his long cultivated stream of easily entertained, non-wrestling fans that tune in each week to see what wacky hijinks occur next.

It's easy to rip Vince McMahon on many things, but in most cases, what he does fits his vision of a foundation to build his company upon. WWE recognizes that times change, tastes change and if they didn't keep up with those times, they'd be left behind.

That's why fans stayed although what they were seeing wasn't quite what they had hoped for. There were flashes of moments that gave us reason to come back for another try.

Now, those flashes are further in between and wrestling fans are being left with nothing they can relate to. Jim Cornette once said, "Wrestling fans want to watch wrestling shows where wrestlers wrestle."

In the last few weeks, WWE has literally turned out the lights on wrestling of any kind and instead swung the spotlight to secondary issues such as trying to make inept announcers cult favorites, lame sketch comedy and bush league, radio station cash giveaways.

The big question is if this works, when do they stop paying us to watch?



(Questions, comments or thoughts? Send them to straightshooter72@hotmail.com)

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