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CALDWELL'S TAKE
CORNER CUBE MONDAY 6/2 - WWE created a high-risk environment for wrestlers at One Night Stand PPV Jun 2, 2008 - 12:11:23 AM
Updated daily from the corner cubicle, Torch columnist James Caldwell's weekday blog focuses on hot topic current events and other items of interest from around wrestling.
Updated Monday, June 2, 2008
This is more important than storylines, match outcomes, and stipulations. WWE created an environment at last night's PPV where everyone was expected to take bumps and put their bodies on the line. It started at the top where WWE's most-respected veteran, The Undertaker, put his body on the line taking multiple chair shots and taking a high-risk dive through four tables in the main event of the PPV.
Try to imagine a scenario prior to the PPV where a few guys like Hawkins and Ryder declined to take bumps through tables because they didn't want to risk their health. Imagine the probable result of them becoming the least-respected men in the locker room despite taking a stand for what no one was going to take a stand for on this PPV.
The pressure to put the body on the line was very high on last night's show. Saying "no" to a dangerous bump was not the order of the day and certainly would have been frowned upon when everyone was expected to participate in the bump-fest.
Some wrestlers probably didn't feel any more pain than they usually feel after a night of wrestling, but others will be hurting later this week. Maybe it won't be realized until after this week's TV taping when a wrestler struggles to grab the remote on Wednesday afternoon or forgets a doctor's appointment on Thursday morning.
Maybe it won't be as obvious as Randy Orton's apparent injury, with the irony that Orton's injury was the result of a relatively tame spot compared to the rest of the high-risk moves on the PPV.
But, an injury was destined to happen on this PPV. WWE decided to cast aside medical consideration, just like John Cena symbolically tossed aside the physician in the trainer's room. It was a PPV that started off with the message that there is a time for rules, moderation, and restraint, but "tonight is not that night."
The PPV was a night for clean chair shots to the head, dives off 18-wheelers, a chain being wrapped around a man's throat, dives onto ladders, falls through tables, Singapore Cane shots to the head, and severe lacerations to Big Show and Undertaker.
All of this was in the name of booking an "ECW-style" PPV based on WWE's narrow-view idea of what ECW represents. Two weeks after their last PPV, WWE tried to separate this as a unique event based on the all-gimmicks format that tried to make up for the company's lack of ability to rotate new wrestlers into new main event situations.
The irony is that it wasn't until WWE had people's money on Sunday night that WWE created the feeling that this PPV had a unique theme. WWE had that opportunity on Raw this past Monday, but Vince McMahon's $1.0 million giveaway announcement to drum up interest in the TV product distracted from giving this PPV a unique feel that was worth $40 and three hours.
In the end, though, WWE wrestlers put their bodies on the line in more high-risk situations than on your run-of-the-mill PPV. It was expected from management, it was enhanced by the top-line wrestlers adding to that expectation, and the environment was created due to WWE's lack of discipline in creating new stars to rotate into the top slots.
If there were fresh match-ups WWE had been cultivating for this very PPV, then a dangerous, high-risk, all-gimmicks PPV would not have been necessary to entice viewers to order a PPV two weeks after spending $40 on the previous event. And, preferably, there wouldn't have been an obvious and expected compromise of wrestler health from the top to the bottom of the card.
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