TAKE PWTORCH
WITH YOU! Get our iPhone App (FREE!): Click Here Or enter "PWTorch.com" on your Blackberry or other Smart Phone browser for mobile-version of PWTorch.
KELLER'S TAKE
KELLER: "The Internet" is not to blame for this Save Us backlash, although WWE may try to shift blame Oct 29, 2007 - 11:56:53 PM
WWE and Chris Jericho may try to cover themselves from criticism by saying they never promised anything on Raw, it was just "the Internet" that created a false buzz. Santino Marella's line to Maria about how she'll believe anything she reads on the Internet may just have been a dig at WWE's most faithful fans. You know, the ones with Internet connections who voted at Cyber Sunday and heard the unavoidable rumors that "SaveUs" referred to Chris Jericho.
The Jericho speculation was fun for a while. Jericho, in his book tour interviews, has been coy about whether he had signed with WWE. He toted WWE company line in the presence of John Cena and WWE attorney Jerry McDevitt on Larry King Live shortly after the Benoit Family Tragedy at a time when he could have really made an impact by taking a tougher stand. He could have written a "tell-all" book about WWE, but his book ends the moment he steps onto the WWE stage for the first time. He has done nothing but make it look like he's a company-man, with the company being WWE.
WWE could play innocent and blame "the Internet" for blowing things out of proportion and jumping to conclusions, except for a couple things. They added X29 to the "Save Us" videos last week. They knew fans would see that as Oct. 29. They knew the conclusion would be drawn that something regarding the "Save Us" video was going to resolve itself on that date. If it wasn't going to happen, they should have left that off the video. They also could have simply had Jericho, if he's eventually coming in, say on his latest interviews that he is not going to show up on Raw on Monday to avoid the inevitable, obvious big letdown and backlash WWE is facing right now.
If something fell through in negotiations, or if Jericho never intended to be there, or if plans were changed for some reason that was out of WWE's control, and Jericho was supposed to debut tonight, then WWE still has some goodwill to make up. But if this was a genuine coy "bait and switch" meant to teach fans not to believe everything they read on "the Internet" (which consisted of Jericho being quoted and people acknowledging the Oct. 29 clue on last week's vids), WWE will pay a big price. Their passionate fanbase and the Jericho fans seem pretty pissed off right now.
If WWE had a good show to fall back on, the blow would have been softened. But this was a crappy edition of Raw with a short, lame main event with a copout finish, coming a day after the Raw PPV main event ended with a copout non-finish. WWE had little slack with fans coming into tonight, and that slack is gone after tonight. And now, a return to 1997 (copyright TNA) with Steve Austin and DX next week is not a suitable consolation prize.
At least when WCW promised Glacier, someone showed up.
INCREDIBLE BENEFITS! Over 50 full-length audio updates per month (iPod compatible)... New weekly award-winning Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter (text and printable pdf versions) with latest exclusive insider news, new Torch Talks, great columns, Keller's cover story, much more... Hundreds of full-length back issues of PWTorch Newsletter from late-'80s to today... Ad-free access to PWTorch.com's Main Listing... VIP Forum with interaction with other subscribers and Torch staff... Torch Talk Library with text and audio of hundreds of interview installments from last 20 years... Great layout... Deepest archives on pro wrestling history anywhere... Keller's PWTorch Today PDF Bulletins with email alerts... VIP Email reports on major PPVs and TV shows... Staff Roundtable Reviews (text and audio) followiing major events... The best staff of writers and world class reporting since 1987... We'd love for you to join us and experience the most entertaining, authoritative, experienced staff of professional reporters and commentators in the business...
Compare the value of four or five months of PWTorch VIP content to the price of just one PPV. Can you cut 25 cents a day from your budget to make room for PWTorch VIP?
AND NEW FOR 2009! Monthly "Vintage Audio Torch Talks." We are releasing for the first time ever audio versions of our text Torch Talk updates, the historical first series of insider interviews ever. Wade Keller's newsmaking in-depth interviews with wrestling's biggest names are now being made available exclusively to VIP members. But you must be a member each month, as these are not archived, so they are replaced with a new one each month! This debuted in January 2009 with a 68 minute interview with the late "British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith. Who's next? Hulk Hogan? Eric Bischoff? The Rock? Goldberg? Jeff Hardy?
