Vince Russo's The Brand

Yeah, it was all hands on deck last night on RAW . . . the POOP DECK!

What a horrible go-home show, but like I said in yesterday’s blog, it doesn’t matter because the WWE already has you at WrestleMania with the show being free—so there is NOTHING to sell. You were going to watch on Sunday regardless of how last night’s show ended–that is an absolute fact.

Last night, RAW should have ended where it started and I think any wrestling/TV fan could would agree with that. After the first segment with Shane/Taker, there was just nothing worth watching on the show. Nothing changed, there was no progression, not one single heel even got heat for cryin’ out loud—NOT ONE. That in itself is just beyond belief to me. Whether you pay for the pay-per-view or not, you always want to see the babyface get his big comeuppance at the big show—how could that happen if there is no comeuppance to get? What am I paying to see if the babyface leaves with the upper hand on the go-home show? Answer–NOTHING–you’re not paying for NOTHING because the show is FREE—that’s why the basic formula is thrown out the window here.

Unfortunately, Vince and crew remained married to two basic formulas that in my mind, damaged the WM build. The first being that in wrestling the World Title always takes precedent over everything else. It is the most important story of the show—and always the focus. Well, that theory is correct 99.9 percent of the time . . . this being the .001 percent that isn’t. The importance of the ownership of RAW far proceeds even the WWE Title in this case. The future of the entire company will depend on the outcome of the Shane/Taker match. Even the announcers made that point vibrantly clear last night. That HAS TO BE the main story—not a match between Reigns/Triple H that a good majority of the fans have told us they don’t even care about.

Number 2—the failure to allow storylines to overlap–because they will tell you that’s a no-no in wrestling, robbed us, the fans, of the Stephanie/Triple H/ Vince/Shane drama that should have dictated the show for the last five weeks. Instead, Shane/Taker stayed in their lane, Reigns/Triple H stayed in their lane, and the power that lies in the balance failed to get its just desserts. What a missed opportunity simply because Triple H and Stephanie were not allowed to have two things going on at once in their lives. Don’t ALL OF US have more then one storyline going on in our day-to-day?

But–all of that matters NONE. We are all watching WrestleMania because it is free. The only thing the WWE can do beyond that is to pay us to watch—maybe that’s coming at SummerSlam.