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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 Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Ric Flair's return to Raw was quite the surprise. You could almost hear Vince McMahon choking on dead air earlier in the show when a McMoney contestant said Ric Flair is the most famous man from North Carolina.

It's amazing WWE held off this long - a full two and a half months - before bringing Flair back. Was the surprise cameo and subsequent dismissal by rent-a-cops worth it, though?

It started off great. Flair came out on stage with a serious look on his face. No silliness. No watered-down giggly and huggable Ric Flair we saw earlier this year prior to WWE finally figuring it out with his retirement angle with Shawn Michaels.

Back from commercial, Flair sternly approaching Jericho was still great. Doing good. We're going somewhere. Then, Flair challenged Jericho to a fight in the parking lot. All right, still good. Flair dropped an elbow on the jacket. OK, classic Flair move. A little out there, but it's Flair, so it's still good.

And then, things fell apart. Jericho slowly walking backstage with Flair leading him to the parking lot wasn't great TV. Triple H then stepping in place of Flair worked on a level of creating a fresh feud between Hunter and Jericho, but what happened to Flair? Did he not see Hunter standing there? Did he not become concerned when Jericho was no longer following him outside?

It was back to the doting, dumbed-down version of Ric Flair that was also retired with his wrestling career. Flair then half-shouting and half-hugging Triple H after the commercial break was conflicting. McMahon played his part fine, as he was the one who initiated the retirement angle for Flair to begin with.

But, here's Triple H, who emceed the retirement ceremony two and a half months ago and who heaped praise upon praise onto Flair, simply letting the rent-a-cops take Flair away like it was a WCW angle with Goldberg. Is that any way to show respect for the man who WWE christened the greatest wrestler of all-time less than three months ago?

At the end of the day, I thought it was a wasted opportunity for that first TV appearance for Ric Flair. The surprise appearance probably increased viewership for the quarter-hour with friends calling up friends, but there was only one opportunity for Flair to make his first appearance after retirement. WWE hit the right notes initially, but the ending felt like just another poor presentation of Flair as a witless old-timer from six months ago.

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Updated Monday, June 16, 2008

Week 2 of Vince McMahon's personal charity giveaway is tonight with another $1.0 million promised. For the other 4.5 million viewers who won't be getting that phone call from McMahon tonight, we can only hope the phone calls are more entertaining than last week.

Of course, McMahon being Rick rolled and Charlie Haas blankly staring at the telephone were entertaining enough to make "The Soup" on VH-1, but wasn't entertaining enough to keep viewers tuned into the program. If the TV rating drops below 3.0 for Week 2 of McMahon rotary-dialing, then it's conceivable McMahon will quietly stop at the grand total of $2.0 million given away.

Clearly, there was a problem on Raw last week with live telephone dialing producing busy numbers, no signals, ring back tones, and a lack of reaction from the winners. Viewers at least want to be able to enjoy the entertainment value of someone else making a fool of himself or herself on live air. It's why we keep the radio station locked in when they're giving away free concert tickets. The reaction of Joe Listener screaming and hollering and acting a fool is quality entertainment.

Hopefully WWE will learn from last week's mistakes and shorten the amount of time spent on McMahon dialing numbers. The idea of incorporating underutilized talent into this deal should be explored more.

For example, Haas might have been the butt of a VH-1 joke, but when in the world would he have ever been on national cable TV outside of WWE programming? In this entertainment industry, it's a matter of getting face time, even if that face time means being made mocked or made sport of.

WWE picked up a good amount of publicity in New York last week as part of their quarterly gimmick to keep the press interested in whatever WWE's latest stunt is. It will look good on a quarterly presentation and keep investors of their backs, but it shouldn't come at the expense of alienating the money-spending fanbase.

The character-development can be achieved through McMoney with more involvement of mid-card wrestlers in the giveaway, or McMahon referencing storylines that these men and women are involved in.

When the boss acknowledges an ongoing storyline, such as Murdoch's singing, it's a subtle clue to the viewer to pay attention. That's one way to make this work in the long-term. Otherwise, it will be $2.0 million poorly spent.

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