WWE: Then Now, Forever...
Wow, forever? That’s probably a tiny bit presumptuous. I mean, we’d first have to mutually agree that the human race itself is sticking around for all eternity, right? Whatever. It’s fine. The WWE can have its crazy new tagline as long as it means nixing the Nickelback. Because they are forever, as it turns out. You know, in an “ancient evil that surrounds us, living within our greatest fears” type of way.
And speaking of primal forces...FIRE!! There was a freakin’ fire in the arena before RAW went on the air; set off by the preliminary pyro tests. That’s right, the Olympics opening ceremony can ignite the entire Thames River and blow up the sky and not a nose hair gets singed, but the WWE almost brings down their own stage. Actually, with the WWE’s schedule, I’m surprised little mishaps like this don’t happen more often. But what surprised me even more was...how much they embraced their f*** up.
The business of "business picking up."
Sure, I suppose they needed to address it at the top of the show, to explain why people were still filing in. And because, you know, it’s news and they’d look like total ass-covering chumps if they didn’t. But then, along with all the avalanche of recapping that was done over the 3-hours, they kept on bringing it up. They kept reminding us about the fire. They were recapping it as if it was something they did on purpose! Like it was a segment. And they kept acting like the fire just added to the crazy, exciting atmosphere of RAW. “And speaking of volatile situations, we completely turned the Titan-tron into a lethal curtain of flames earlier tonight! Anything can happen!”
You’d just think that, given how much the WWE likes to contain their own news, they wouldn’t have tried to turn the fire into such a happening. Especially since there’s a possibility that someone might have effed up and made a mistake. If someone’s job was on the line, that poor bastard was probably like “Stop cutting to footage of the fire! This is my life!” And speaking of guys who might be looking for work after last night... Mr. AW, sir.
Mr. AW. Yeah, forget the fire, it’s AW’s comments that landed the WWE on the cover of TMZ this morning. I’m literally checking over to other sites while I write this Wrap Up, expecting to see a headline along the lines of “WWE Releases Abraham Washington” or “AW Suspended.” Or “Giant Meteor On Collision Course with Earth; Stop Writing Your Column, Idiot!"
LOUD NOISES!
I mean, if a top-of-the-line star like Jericho gets 30 days for flag-smashing, I’d be shocked if AW got off with less. Especially since it happened A: in America and B: on live TV. Now I’ve been meaning to write about AW’s “live mic’d” manager gimmick for a few weeks now. That’s been his thing. He wears a mic while at ringside so the whole crowd can hear the brilliance of his managerial stylings. And so last night he said, “Titus O’Neil is like Kobe Bryant at a hotel in Colorado... he's unstoppable.”
And here’s where the WWE’s desire to be the most “socially media’d up the ass” program on TV comes back to haunt them. Kobe Bryant trended worldwide. And the web ‘sploded. And Cole had to issue a vague apology for “AW’s words” when they came back from commercial. And now the WWE has told TMZ that they’ve taken appropriate action. And yet, I see no “future endeavor” headline yet. Look, I don’t want to see people lose their jobs, but we have to admit that it’s fun to see the giant WWE mechanism sputter and smoke. And to check and see if there’s any sort of uniformity in their decision making. Reports say that, understandably, AW was totally apologetic and made the rounds backstage, saying he was sorry and that he just got caught up in the moment. But... it was a whole joke. It’s not like he accidentally said f*** on the air. Or something else more impulsive. It was a joke he’d thought up ahead of time. It had a set up and a punchline. It didn’t just manifest itself in his brain.
More from RAW, including Punk, AJ and Daniel Bryan, on page 2...
Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com
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