WWE continued to incorporate Twitter into their live broadcast this week. Cole let us know early on that he’d be tweeting from ringside. Via Twitter, Cole did nothing more than draw more heat by ripping on King, WWE Diva Eve and special guest ref Stone Cold. With the expansion of the WWE Universe growing emphatically on the Internet, I think they’re missing a major opportunity: supporting the mid-card. More after the jump…
If you can dig up a Raw from ’98 or so, you’ll see a reoccurring formula for each episode. The show would kick off with a promo by a top face or heel setting up the main event match. Then over the next 2 hours you’d see an average of 5-7 decent matches. Despite only having one show in that era, WWE found enough time to do dozens of story lines each month. Going into Wrestlemania 14, all 5 major titles had a decent build-up and all 5 were featured on the WM card. There was also a mixed gender tag match, a grudge match and a tag team battle royal. That means 44 Superstars along with 2 Divas were featured on the show including 6 future World champions.
Wrestlemania 27’s card pales in comparison to that. Every WM27 match features a former World champion (8 are currently scheduled plus current Champs Miz and Edge, WWE Alumni Austin and The Rock and presumably former champs Big Show and Kane). Some people might consider that a plus, but I feel like we’re watching a bunch of guys who have already peaked. We mentioned quick pushes on this blog a few weeks ago and the continuing trend is nothing but a disservice to the WWE World championships, the wrestlers, and the fans. Wrestlemania is supposed to be the annual event with magical moments. This year, only 4 WWE Superstars on the current card haven’t already won a World title.
With all that said, it means one thing: we won’t have a Wrestlemania moment this year and we won’t until there is a more competitive and enticing mid-card to WWE shows. Wrestlemania moments are born when a superstar has climbed the ranks after years in the WWE and deserves a World title. Del Rio hardly fits that description. The only person in the company like that is the much deserving John Morrison and he’s stuck in a WM match with a reality TV star.
This is where Twitter and Facebook could help the WWE. Rather than using social media to generate more heat for the already over Michael Cole, WWE should be developing feuds among their younger talent. From Tuesday-Monday, mid-carders could engage in a war of words online for the whole world to see. That night on Raw, they could wrestle and either settle their differences with a clean finish or continue to jab at each other online and build tension leading to a longer feud. Either way, this practice would give the mid-card guys an on-air personality without dedicating time too much time to a painfully long in-ring promos.
Imagine if Justin Gabriel and Evan Bourne had a public conversation via Twitter or Facebook debating which move was better, the 450 Splash or the Shooting Star Press. They could go back and forth all week, fans could get involved in the conversation and on that week’s Raw, they could have what would probably be a great match. From there the mini-feud could be settled and they could each move onto a new match next week. That’s what weekly pro wrestling should be. Instead, our mid-card comes from mediocre heel stables that survive on nothing other than uneven beat downs of top faces until they’re defeated at a PPV and disappear. I want my Wrestlemania moments and the only way they’ll come is with a competitive mid-card for singles wrestlers. #IWantWrestling
