I was doing something for my day job when, during the lunch break, I got a Twitter notification that Ryan Satin, of Pro Wrestling Sheet, reported that Eric Bischoff and Paul Heyman were named to Executive roles in WWE. (http://www.prowrestlingsheet.com/paul-heyman-eric-bischoff-wwe/ if you want to read the full article.) Paul Heyman will be the Executive Director of Monday Night Raw while Eric Bischoff will be the Executive Director of SmackDown Live (insert your own joke about Eric Bischoff representing the "blue" brand; a joke you would get if you listen to his podcast). According to the report, their roles will be similar to Triple H with NXT. And they will both report to Vince McMahon who will have final say.
I want to be overly excited for this. But history teaches us to both be excited and nervous at the same time. Here are a list of pros and cons I see in this possible situation.
Pros
- Paul E. (Dangerously) Heyman... Super Genius. When it comes to creative, you can't ask for a more creative person than Paul Heyman. He turned a bunch of (let's be real) wrestling rejects into household names though his character development and booking style in ECW. Tommy Dreamer, Raven, Taz, The Sandman, Rob Van Dam, Sabu, The Dudley Boyz... even the career resurgences of Steve Austin and Mick Foley. All of these can be attributed to how great Paul Heyman's mind is. Let's not forget he was also the head writer during the famed SmackDown 6 Era (2002-2004). Bottom Line: Heyman has a history of making bad performers into great superstars, and he has helped to mold great performers into legends. His new role as Executive Director of Raw gives him an ability to do this again on WWE's flagship show.
- Eric Bischoff knows how to handle the business side of the professional wrestling industry. Whether you believe Bischoff is a great creative genius or not, Bischoff has shown that he can handle a TON of corporate pressure in the past. I'm surprised he wasn't under the influence having to deal with 1990s Turner on a weekly basis. But he showed an ability to walk that fine line for years (until getting burned out, by his own admission, around 1998). He also showed a tendency to work with corporations with his own business and later when he worked with TNA/Impact. Now, he's going to be Executive Director on SmackDown right when it debuts on FOX. It's a high pressure situation, for sure. But Bischoff has shown an ability to flourish in these situations.
- An ability to wipe the slate clean and reinvent WWE. (I am going to elaborate on this more in Part 2).
- At least, it is in theory an acknowledgement that things need to change. For years, WWE wouldn't admit that their stuff didn't stink. This is a pretty open admission that perhaps their stuff does indeed stink at least a little. (Or at least a more sincere admission than they had in December.)
Cons
- We've been here before and ended up with broken promises. Remember when the McMahon Family came out and promised that there would be changes and that the fans would ultimately be "The Authority?" That didn't exactly happen, did it? Sure you can mention Ricochet and Kofi Kingston (which at best, WWE basically backed into by circumstance; at worst. the fans basically held the WWE hostage to make that happen). But for every one of those successes, including R-Truth and the 24/7 Championship, what has really changed elsewhere? Wrestlers are still left off TV for ridiculous amounts of time because creative has "nothing" for them. The McMahons still dominate TV in one fashion or another. Heels have been defanged or have been shoved down our throats (Baron Corbin) despite fans letting WWE know they have GO AWAY heat (which isn't Baron Corbin's fault. But it is what it is.). The Women's Division, more or less, has lost a ton of momentum after WrestleMania, thanks to the poor booking of Becky Lynch and the entire Women's Tag Team Championship debacle. I could keep going on with the problems of WWE programming (and my personal hate for the inside-baseball, eye-rolling Firefly Funhouse), but that's a brief description of some of the problems the company has had since "changing" things.
And now we're supposed to believe that THIS is going to bring true change?
- Can we really expect Vince McMahon not to be... Vince McMahon? Let's be honest: Vince McMahon is more hands on than Donald Trump in a Russian hotel... allegedly. He's the micro-manager of micro-managers. I can't honestly believe even in his later years of life that Vince McMahon is going to take a step back and allow other men to run his show without giving into that impulse of "NO! GOD$T$% IT! We're doing this! I want a rewrite at 5AM." If I am real with myself, I'm about 60% positive that this is the most likely of the scenarios. As much as I'd like to believe that Bischoff and Heyman will be given complete autonomy to make the changes needed to revitalize an unhip product, I just can't shake the feeling that Vince is gonna Vince. And we'll be back at this in a few months. Nothing short of a hostile takeover by the Board of Directors, a corporate buyout from Disney or another large mega corporation, or any other corporate procedure to remove Vince McMahon from power is going to convince me that Vince McMahon is going to remove himself as the absolute final authority in all things WWE. And the biggest roadblock to WWE's greater future success could be its own creator. It's the stuff of Shakespearean legend.
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So, overall, I can only be so optimistic about this. We've been lied to so many times over the years about these sort of things that I need to see the change happen before I can get fully excited about it. Still, there is a lot of fun to be had on the idea of legitimate changes that Heyman and Bischoff could implement as leaders of two distinct different brands. On Part 2, I will look at the Top 5 changes WWE can make in order to revitalize their product, with a couple being brand specific recommendations. And then on Part 3, I'm going to do a mock draft in which the rosters are divided back up without a "Wild Card." Look for Part 2 sometime Saturday or early Sunday. Part 3 may be posted on Sunday or Monday.
What do you think? Should we be excited about this, or is WWE doomed to bad luck and misfortune until Scrooge McMahon is deposed from power? (That's right. DuckTales reference...) Leave a comment below or on the Facebook UnWrest page.
Until next time, take care of yourselves. Spread some awesomeness.
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