AS I SEE IT 6/25: Tastelessness, thy name is McMahon

AS I SEE IT
Bob Magee
Pro Wrestling: Between the Sheets
PWBTS.com

What kind of utter crap was
that last Monday night? Even after the real-life death of Sherri Martel,
couldn't Vince McMahon have scaled back his macabre death fantasy and murder
mystery...even for a couple of nights?



Nope, we got it in turned up even louder. And of course, we had to have the
tearful Stephanie McMahon coming out and "honoring" her father to end RAW to
crowd boos.

And....if the 136 replays of Vince's car and the fake McMemorials weren't
enough, we have yet ANOTHER 3 hour McMassive Mock Memorial Service later
tonight.

They finally got around to mentioning Sherri Martel's death at 10:20 pm ET
last Monday, buried far enough inside the show that few even saw it. Was it
REALLY asking that much of WWE to give fans a weekend, or even a night, free
of this crap...and taken the time to give Sherri Martel's death a REAL
acknowledgement? Would it have been THAT hard to put Shawn Michaels on a
remote and ask him to say a few things about her? Or Flair? or any of the
many people Sherri's worked with?

What's even worse is the beginning of a murder mystery by "Federal
investigators"...at the same time that there an actual investigation into
Sherri Martel's death. While there are no toxicology reports as of this
writing, in news that seems to have largely fallen beneath the radar; a
bombshell was let loose last night by Dave Meltzer on his Wrestling Observer
Live radio show when he made the statement on his Wrestling Observer Live
radio show June 17 that Sherri Martel's death "was not a typical wrestler's
death," was "not a suicide" and "she did not die of natural causes."

You figure out what he meant, readers.

But Vince has to continue on with his murder mystery, even under those
circumstances.

WWE is now even going so far as to have an official "I did it" t-shirt on
WWE.com.

;>

Here's the text of the ad:

On June 11, 2007, the unimaginable occurred when Vincent Kennedy
McMahon's limo exploded as he left Rawʼs McMahon Appreciation Night leaving
the question: WHO DID IT? As we continue to mourn this sudden loss,
suspicions are arising.

Everyone knows Mr. McMahon had a multitude of enemies, maybe it was YOU!
Declare yourself the presumed killer by owning the I DID IT T-shirt today!
Black. 100% cotton. Screen-printed in the USA. Imported.

LOVEly...

Tastelessness, thy name is McMahon.

Some fans are also more than a little unhappy with this angle:

From Jen Powell:

"Ya know I was fine with the McMahon angle until 2 things happened. First
the bell being rung at ECW and Smackdown. I donʼt even care about the
WWE.com promoted it to a point but I will mention that. I have tuned in to
many times and cried tears listening to the bells ring. And to tune in and
hear them for a storyline is just messed up. That is when I knew they were
gonna mess this up and take it to far.

The second thing was Sherri's passing. Her death was second rate on WWE.com.
She was a great star and deserved more respect than that.

I respect the right of WWE to run a storyline.. stupid or not.. but damn
have some class. To me this is more tasteless than using a dead wrestler's
name to promote storylines."

From Duane Pischke :

"After watching Raw tonight, I just feel ill. I watched the tribute shows
when Owen and Eddie passed away, and they were honorable, emotional events.
To see Vince, in my humble opinion, bastardize them and any other wrestler's
death for this stupid storyline, is just wrong. Let alone they didn't have
the memorium pop up for Sherri Martel until 1020E. I guess you can't have it
at the start of the show, one has to have wrestlers in the ring doing the
'whodunnit' thing first. Instead of trying to show up the Sopranos, Vince
should've just got in the limo, and 'rode off into the sunset'...."

From "Jodie"

"I love reading your As I See It Column on PWBTS. I believe a lot what
you say about TNA. As I amwatching Raw right now, I noticed that they
haven't even MENTIONED Sherri Martel. Of course its only the beginning of
the show, but still, they are hyping up the 'death' of Mr. McMahon. As a
fan I am insulted that they actually think I am that stupid to not see that
it was a complete set up.

The only good thing that has happened with the WWE was the draft. Raw got
an awesome combination with the tag team of London and Kendrick. Those two
bring so much energy to any show that they work. Also with the Great Khali
going to Smackdown leads to another feud with Kane. Despite his non
existence ring skills, he does carry a presence that rivals that of The Big
Show in size. Also with Mr. Kennedy going to Raw is big. You love to hate
the guy but you respect him because of his great skills on the mic and in
the ring.

WWECW even has a chance to get better with the addition of an ECW Original
Chris Benoit, and Raw gets a better mix of challengers for the WWE
Championship with Lashley and Booker T (I really hope they get rid of that
King Booker crap because it is just insulting).

That is the only good thing going on right now. This crappy storyline is an
insult to wrestling fans and degrades the memories of fallen wrestling stars
who have passed away, especially the memories of Owen Hart and Eddie
Guerrero and now Sherri Martel, whom they STILL haven't acknowledged as
having passed away."

Until next time...

If you'd like to add advertising on PWBTS.com (the flagship website of this
column), banner ads are available for $400 for one year/$200 for six months.
These ads would appear on each newspage appearing on the newsboard. Cube ads
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If you have comments or questions, if you'd like to add the AS I SEE IT
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e-mail at bobmagee1@hotmail.com.

(As always...this column represents the view of this writer and not
necessarily of the website on which it appears).

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Reason #98654326710554 why to hate the WWE

When something horrific happens, like a death or an attempted killing, who among us doesn't think to ourselves that one of the top priorities in the grieving process is selling a t-shirt

If they were playing this angle for laughs the entire time, this would not only be ok with me, but I'd wonder what took them so long...but since they can't decide between silly and serious and flip-flop on a segment by segment basis, it is just another stupid thing they've done.

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Okay, this is just too precious...

How cute:

click here

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WWE is giving me reasons to want to watch Slammiversary tonight.

First is the nonsensical supplemental draft

I don't understand among other things...

1. Why Raw got to pick first.
   
2. Why after all the talk of teams being split up, teams are drafted as units.
   
3. Who is making the picks on behalf of the brands. (Reading the article, it makes it sound not random)
   
4. Why a show like say Smackdown would draft Victoria when there's no women's title to fight for on Smackdown.
   
5. Why if selections are being made, nobody on either Smackdown or ECW has picked...oh, I dunno...John Cena?
   
6. Why it went Raw, Smackdown, ECW, Raw, Smackdown, ECW, Raw, Smackdown, Raw, Smackdown in the first 10 picks?
   
7. The time between picks would appear to differ, I guess like the Royal Rumble.

Let this be a lesson to you all. King of the Mountain and the supplemental draft are as equally complicated, but at least with KOTM...I know what it is that makes it nonsensical.

Lets look at what else on WWE.com has irritated me.

Fatherless Day how Shane and Stephanie are coping with the first father's day without Vince McMahon.
Who's The Boss? looking at who's in charge with Mr. McMahon's presumed death. I'll answer this one for them, if you want to know who's in charge just ask whomever is making the picks in the supplemental draft...they seem to have the power.
did he know? a prominent psychiatrist (yeah, right) explains that Mr. McMahon may have known the end was near.

Since the at the least attempted murder of Mr. McMahon was so traumatic for his family to endure, Thank God WWE has made it available frame-by-frame, for any traumatized family members or wrestling fans that want to check it out.

Oh, and below all that WWE does mention that Sensational Sherri died, but I guess since she had the misfortune to actually die instead of being in some bullshit storyline that makes less sense than anything you've ever seen on TNA (and yes, I'm including the reverse battle royal here). Maybe if I still feel the need to vent I'll list all the reasons this is so stupid in a separate post.

I can't decide if I'm more irritated with WWE.com and the WWE for this horrifically dumb angle or if I'm more irritated by the fact that the WWE actually made me want to watch Slammiversary when I had just gotten comfortable with the idea of not ordering it at all and spending my sunday staring at a wall.

No wonder I've not ordered a WWE PPV since One Night Stand, and no wonder last monday's Raw was the first I'd seen in its entirity since Dr. Hiney's imfamous appearance, and no wonder why I don't plan to change either of those things in the future. This angle has me doing something even worse than wanting to watch TNA...something so shocking and unbelievable for the safety of my audience I'm going to put it behind the cut.



This angle has me...longing for the simple days of a diva search.

Yes, I said it. I'd rather watch another waste of space diva search (which I know is coming soon anyway)

Man, I get closer and closer between WWE's pissing me off, and TNA's general cluelessness that also pisses me off, to just covering MMA and leaving my compatriots to take care of wrestling.

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WWE.com says Mr. McMahon presumed dead

Sometimes I wish his company would suffer the same fait. You can read this nonsense here

Here's the problem with this if what Ric wrote in his Raw recap is accurate and this is Vince staging his death to see what people say about him when he's gone.

If they wanted to do this right, they'd have Vince go down over the Atlantic on an airplane. Blowing up his car doesn't work because when the fir'es out and the wreckage examined they'll have a pretty good idea of whether he's dead or not. That wouldn't take more than a few hours, at your most incompetant pace.

Now let me be clear. I think this is a horrible angle. This does not mean I don't think it could be a successful one, and if they do it right (50-50 at best with WWE not being close to WrestleMania 24) but they've got to play it in the right way. When Vince comes back he's got to play it in a way that makes people sorry they invested emotion in his supposed death but at the same time doesn't make them feel offended for doing so. This will be a tough line to navigate so at least in McMahon they picked the only guy in the company with any chance (however small it might be) to do it.

I wonder if we're going to get the full angle? By all rights, tomorrow's ECW and Friday's Smackdown should be Vince McMahon tribute shows. You can't stretch this out past Friday cause nobody's going to fall for the "if you want to know if Vince McMahon is dead watch Raw next week" deal...and a Raw tribute next week won't work either because you've got 2 shows before then where you'd have to deal with the issue.

I can't believe I'm giving the WWE ideas on an angle that doesn't work for me as a wrestling fan, but that's proof I can try and make something work even if personally it doesn't fit my taste.

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Presenting...Dr. Mr. McMahon

here's the scoop

I want my honorary doctorate, I deserve one more than Vince. Expect to hear about this on Raw tomorrow and for the rest of your natural life.

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Interview with Vince McMahon talking WrestleMania 23 and more

Multichannel news has the piece which you can read by Clicking here

Here's what he says about Mania.

About WrestleMania 23 he said: "It’s too early for us to know what the buy rate is for WrestleMania 23, but the early returns are promising. We’ve achieved
an average of 1 million buys for each of our last three WrestleManias, and I’m certain that we will surpass the 1 million buy mark. WrestleMania is a $100
million brand when you take into account sales of merchandise and licensed products in addition to the revenue from pay-per-view and ticket sales. When
you compare the revenue from WrestleMania to a successful theatrical film release, we’ll make in four hours what a theatrical film might make in its opening
three days."

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Vince proposed insest angle with Stephanie?

The story linked above details how Vince McMahon supposedly proposed a storyline wherein he would be the father of Stephanie McMahon's baby. For those who can't figure it out, Stephanie McMahon is his daughter.

All of this is revealed on the new McMahon DVD.

You'll pardon me if I'm not just a little but weary of belieiving this one. I mean, don't get me wrong, this is the kind of thing that I could see Vince McMahon doing. However, I'm not entirely sure that means he really did it.

Vince McMahon's entire life is a work. Why would I believe that his DVD isn't a complete work as well? Think about it, what better way to generate interest in your DVD and cause a bunch of people to buy it that might not otherwise have than to put a story like this on that DVD?

Again, I'm not ruling out the possibility that it actually happened the way it is outlined and that Stephanie said no, but I'm also not going to take this one as being true just because Vince McMahon says its true. I'd put the odds of it being true at better than 50% but not high enough that I'd want to bet on it is all I'm saying.

Via: 411Mania

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