By Richard Garner, Torch specialist

You've heard the story. A unique situation, in which the Denver Nuggets Western Conference Finals game against the L.A. Lakers was scheduled for this past Monday at the Pepsi Center. WWE had already booked the venue months in advance, which caught the attention of the national media. Never to squander free publicity, McMahon embraced the story with fervor, calling regular press conferences in which he painted the WWE and its fans as victims of Denver Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke's incompetence.

After agreeing to move Raw to The Staples Center in Los Angeles, this week's episode became a forum for Vince McMahon to air his grievances about the way he had been treated by Kroenke, and an opportunity to expose the WWE product to those may have been tuning in out of curiosity.

Vince McMahon has courted the mainstream media ever since he purchased the WWF from his father in 1982, often with highly successful results. The first WrestleMania was the epitome of this approach. Mr. T teamed with Hulk Hogan against Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff in a main event refereed by Mohammed Ali. Andy Warhol, Liberace, and Cindy Lauper also appeared, helping to achieve McMahon's vision of the WWF becoming an important part of American popular culture.

For the rest of the 1980s, WWF would go from strength to strength. The celebrity cross-over had helped to draw attention to the WWF and Hulk Hogan, but Vince McMahon's product had more than enough substance to hold the public's attention for the rest of the 1980s.

Opinion began to change in the early 1990s. The mainstream media was still very interested in the WWF, but this time it was for the wrong reasons. A series of scandals emerged, the most notable of which being the Federal Investigation into Vince McMahon, who was accused of distributing steroids to his wrestlers. The revelations massively hurt the reputation of the WWF's leading star Hulk Hogan, as his drawing power diminished almost overnight as allegations of steroid abuse appeared with regularity in late 1991.

Although Vince McMahon was acquitted of all charges of distributing steroids, the trial and accompanying trial by media was a public relations disaster for the WWF, the company's image tarnished as business went into freefall.

While Vince McMahon would have surely loved the WWF to have kept a lower profile in the early nineties, he continued to value recognition by the media. Celebrities would still make appearances on WWF television, but the media were not interested in what had become a damaged brand.

In the meantime, World Championship Wrestling was taking massive strides in improving the quality of their product, and had actually overtaken the WWF in terms of domestic popularity in 1996 thanks to the innovative leadership of Eric Bischoff, the excellent NWO storyline, and the acquisition of key WWF talent. Wrestling was hot again, although it was Vince McMahon's competitor who had the attention of the media and the casual fan. What must have been equally galling was that the WWF had arguably surpassed WCW in terms of quality about half way through 1997 through an excellent feud between the Hart Foundation and Steve Austin, as well as the birth of D-Generation X, and yet this was in no way reflected in the ratings. What McMahon needed was another publicity stunt to draw attention to his product in the same way that the concept of Rock and Wrestling had done in the 1980s. This came in the shape of Mike Tyson.

Mike Tyson, already the most famous boxer in the world, was involved in one of the most infamous moments sporting history when he bit off part Evander Holyfield's ear during a record setting fight on June 28, 1997. Banned from boxing, Vince McMahon offered Tyson $3 million for a series of appearances, culminating in a role of special enforcer for the Shawn Michaels-Steve Austin match at WrestleMania 14.

His first appearance on Raw could accurately be described as the perfect WWE angle. His pull-apart with Steve Austin received major media coverage, and exposed a new set of fans to the exciting and unpredictable show that was Raw is War. WrestleMania 14 was a huge success, and two weeks after the WWF beat WCW in the Monday night ratings for the first time in 83 weeks, which was the platform for the most successful period in company history. WWF had been putting out an excellent product for the best part of a year, but it was the media coverage about Mike Tyson that had finally placed it in the publics conscious.

With this in mind, it is easy to see why Vince McMahon believes that mainstream recognition is the key to a revival in the fortunes of the WWE, which has maintained profitability through expansion into new markets against a backdrop of domestic decline and ratings attrition. Yet his handling of celebrities has often been a far cry from his excellent use of Mike Tyson in 1998.

Kevin Federline, a man largely known for being Britney Spears's husband, was allowed to pin John Cena. Floyd Mayweather, Jr. pinned The Big Show last year. Mickey Rourke floored Chris Jericho at WrestleMania 25. Although these appearances succeeded in gaining the WWE media attention, they had no effect in drawing a sizable audience to the WWE product, and certainly did not put over any of the WWE's wrestlers. This week's episode of Raw exemplified why mainstream publicity could potentially be the catalyst for a WWE revival, it is not a means of reversing the WWE's fortunes on its own.

Vince McMahon certainly had reason to feel aggrieved by his treatment by Stan Kroenke. That the planning was not in place in the event that the Denver Nuggets reached the playoffs was hugely unprofessional; a fact that Vince McMahon seemed to revel in as talks between the two sides reached an impasse. At The Staples Center on Monday, McMahon was even more determined stick the boot into Kroenke to gain further publicity, even if it was at the detriment of his own product.

The show opened with an appalling segment where McMahon verbally dueled with a Stan Kroenke impersonator. The massive failure of angles where impersonators have portrayed Ted Turner, George Bush, Rosie O'Donnell, and Donald Trump did not deter McMahon from booking a ten-minute segment in which he made puns on the name Enis, which yet again contradicted his commitment to targeting the children, and reacted bitterly to his treatment by the billionaire. The segment was not only one of the worst on Raw this year, it also made McMahon appear extremely petty.

The fake Stan Kroenke was accompanied to Raw by a fake Jack Nicholson, fake Jerry Buss, and fake David Stern. Nicholson was involved in an even worse segment later in the show. With the Bella Twins fawning over him, the blatantly bogus movie star was stopped by Goldust and Hornswoggle in the corridor. Goldust, who had revived his speech impediment solely for the purpose of this angle, stuttered his was through the most famous scene from "A Few Good Men," a movie hardly likely to be on the radar of their new target market. If this was an attempt to expose the casual fan to WWE "comedy" it was severely misguided; it was the sort of intelligence-insulting segment that makes you embarrassed that you watch wrestling.

The main event was billed as WWE's version of Lakers vs. Nuggets - a ten man tag team match with the wrestlers dressed in basketball shirts. Any time that the phrase "WWE's version of" is used, it is an assurance of bad quality, and this was no different. The match itself was bearable, but it made no sense for the WWE to providing publicity for a basketball match that could be watched on another channel. In addition to this, putting the heels in Denver shirts must not sit well with Nuggets fans in their audience.

The two most successful periods in WWE history were precipitated by publicity stunts that garnered the company mainstream publicity, and for this reason Vince McMahon always attempts to make the most of any occasions when the media shows even the slightest interest in his product.

But Monday night was a desperate attempt to appear relevant only served to highlight the worst aspects of WWE television. In 1998, Mike Tyson was used to superb effect, and was responsible for encouraging a new audience to watch Raw, but it was the quality of the WWE product at the time which sustained that popularity and built upon it.

The truth is that the WWE does not have a compelling product that is likely to hook viewers who tune in out of curiosity, and until that changes there are no publicity stunts that will bring about an upturn in business.

Raw drew a 3.2 rating.

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