WHAT THE WWE IS GREAT AT! A VINCE RUSSO BLOG

I couldn’t help but notice that tonight is a loaded RAW. Everybody who is anybody is going to be on the show. My knee-jerk reaction was why haven’t they blown it up the last four weeks?! Why wait to the go home? In my opinion, it should have been balls to the wall the night after Fastlane. But, with everything that Vince McMahon does–there is a motive to his madness. The build to WrestleMania has been weak–AT BEST–simply because the WWE already has you there.

Everybody and their Aunt Tilly is going to be watching Mania on Sunday. The simple fact that you can watch it FREE on the Network gives you absolutely no reason not to! When you have a “perceived” value of something being worth $60, and somebody wants to give it to you free—YOU TAKE IT! For $60 it has worth–therefore it MUST BE GOOD! It’s all perception in wrestling, it always has been and will be. When WrestleMania tickets first went on sale in Dallas months ago, people were waiting in line for HOURS to gobble them up–why–because it’s FREAKIN’ WRESTLEMANIA, it’s a SPECTACLE, it HAS TO be GREAT!!! Perception. The WWE has turned WrestleMania into the Super Bowl and you MUST give them all the credit in the world for that. They’ve made it seem and feel important—regardless of the card that is being featured.

Hell, Rock is going to be there, Austin is going to be there–the HEARTBREAK KID—I’ve GOT to WATCH!!! And, this is what the WWE is absolutely GREAT at. They are a marketing, promoting, advertising ANIMAL. When I was in San Jose for last years Mania, the WWE basically came in and BULLDOZED the town. It blew me away! If you were breathing within a hundred mile radius of California last year—WrestleMania was on your radar–you knew exactly where it was, what time it was starting and if tickets were still available. It’s really a shame that the nameless and faceless people in Marketing/PR/Sales and Promotion that make this day happen for the WWE aren’t publicly recognized, but hopefully they are getting well compensated for their efforts.

But, from where I “used to” sit, even if 110,000 tickets are sold—I still believe that the creative effort should have been just as fabulous as the sales job. Outside of Taker/Shane, what can you really not miss? Yeah, the boys and girls will no doubt tear the house down this Sunday—but creative should have been doing that weeks ago. They didn’t . . . but in the big scheme of things it doesn’t matter. The machine got you there and kudos to them.