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VIP EXCLUSIVE - FROM PWTORCH NEWSLETTER #995

The Perspective with James Caldwell
By James Caldwell, Torch columnist
Original Headline: Addition by Subtraction: Mr. McMahon’s Night Off
Torch Newsletter #995 (10-25-07)

Where did this come from?

Like you, I asked myself that question many times on Monday night.

During the opening segment; when witnessing Shelton Benjamin with quality promo time; when Shawn and Jeff, then Randy and Kennedy set up a TV main event with backstage promos; when they carried out said main event in compelling fashion to amazingly set up a PPV in six days.

In case you missed it, WWE turned in a wrestling show. A living, breathing, moving, and compelling wrestling show on Monday night. Not the ACME hour with Coach chasing Hornswoggle up and down the U.K., with them only being a rabbit, a duck, and a skunk short of a Saturday morning cartoon. Not even Mr. McMahon's two-hour therapy session on Bonnie Hammer's tab.

Here's what happened in a quick recap. They started with a wrestling promo, filled in the rest of the show with storyline-advancing segments, sprinkled in some Santinoisms, and booked a TV main event to get some fence-sitters on the phone trying to clear the schedule for a Sunday night PPV.

Did WWE stumble onto this script by accident in a European airport? Did the writers suddenly find some breathing room to book a wrestling show? Is WWE so desperate to sell a PPV to an ever-shrinking audience that they scrapped the usual template and started fresh with a McMahon-free Raw with heavy emphasis on the paid wrestlers?

Frankly, I don't care what led to the sudden transformation from a show with the wheels falling off the bus to a show that sold a PPV. Bottom line is that the writers figured out how to write an episode of Raw.

Vince McMahon [artist Grant Gould (c) PWTorch]

Of course, ECW the following night was the usual barrage of big men, boring heels, and drab babyfaces, so nothing changed on Tuesday nights. Whether that means Raw will revert to its old form of the McMahon therapy session the night after Cyber Sunday remains to be seen.

But, for the sake of this company's ratings and PPV buys, the October 22 Raw cannot be rendered a mere glimmer of hope for what could have been on a weekly basis. It must become the rule, not an example of a shockingly great show every three months.

One of the determining factors for whether the Oct. 22 show becomes a sign of things to come or a mere memory will be the role of Vince McMahon going forward. He was off the show, presumably to allow the wrestlers to give the final hard sell for Cyber Sunday. But, that should be the case most weeks, not just on Monday nights when there's a PPV that desperately needs to be sold to that shrinking audience.

For McMahon, his role on TV needs to be redefined. There isn't a Steve Austin babyface for him to feud with to deliver compelling television that feels fresh, new, and exciting. The program with Triple H ran its course last year when Kenny was running around with his male companions, not spitting into a bucket for Victoria. Shawn Michaels is perfectly fine battling with Randy Orton until the end of the year, if the feud goes that long. Jeff Hardy is finally becoming a main event star during his feud with Mr. Kennedy. John Cena is on the shelf. Chris Jericho returning to feud with a non-wrestler would feel like a waste when there's money to be made with him in a top program on the comeback trail.

We already went through the experiment with Bobby Lashley to take a mid-level star and try to give him the McMahon rub and elevate him. It worked to a certain extent at WrestleMania when Donald Trump was involved, but it's too easy for McMahon to fall into the trap of writing his character into four or five segments each week as an excuse to build a program for his mid-level babyface opponent.

In essence, McMahon's role evolved before our eyes over the course of a two-hour Raw on Monday. It was rapid evolution, courtesy of a handful of mid-card wrestlers who stepped into the segments usually written for McMahon and delivered compelling TV. What I've written about, what the readers have begged for, and what everyone outside of the WWE bubble has talked about for the better part of two years finally occurred. The mid-card wrestlers were given time. They just needed time. Time to develop personality, time to set up matches, and time to deliver basic wrestling segments in the ring.

It's one thing to throw Shelton Benjamin and Cody Rhodes in the ring straight out of a commercial break and only give them two minutes. It's a completely different story to have a pre-match verbal exchange setting up the two-minute match.

Yes, it's still a two-minute match with Shelton Benjamin on the losing end, but the viewers got a sense that maybe there's more to it. Maybe Shelton won't disappear for five weeks, then show up with a different hair color for Thanksgiving. Maybe this time, Shelton will be back on next week's Raw to continue the program with Cody. After all, they wouldn't have given him promo time backstage unless they're going to follow through next week, right?

On the babyface side, Jeff Hardy never has that debate with Mr. Kennedy if McMahon is on the show. That's Vince's opening segment to scream and holler, then instruct Umaga to eat a small child or something silly. Instead, it was Kennedy having one of his better promos to date. Why? He had time to say more than his name twice. It was Jeff Hardy popping the crowd five or six times with passion and energy on the mic that we've seen glimpses of during his recent run, but not over the course of a ten-minute segment.

Instead of McMahon taking the crowd out of the show before the opening pyro have even cooled off, Hardy and Kennedy energized the crowd and built anticipation for the main event tag match and PPV situation. That's not to say

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