It hasn’t surprised me that the column writers on this site have opted not to write about the world of pro wrestling as much as they used to. There’s nothing interesting to talk about. WWE has tried with the new guest host every Raw idea and it hasn’t helped ratings all that much. The show is still in the low to mid 3.0. I’m sure this is a great rating for a show on cable, but for the most part in 2001 the ratings were just about 4.0 to the 5.0’s-there were even some upper 5.0’s as well. When the WCW was in business, it wasn’t out of the ordinary to have a rating of 6.8 or even 7.1. That tells me the WWE needs to have some competition to jump start the writer’s to have better ideas for storylines and maybe to find some superstars that have charisma in the ring.

Some of the wrestler's promos right now are, to say the least, horrible. It seems as if they memorized their promo and are just reciting them word for word to the fans when they come to the ring, or when they are in the back getting interviewed. Gone are the days where there are just bullet points to go off of and just wing it (or would seem to the average fan out there to wing it) and throw in an independent thought or two of their own. There’s just no originality anymore in the classic promos of years past.

I was also thinking of the classic bad guy in pro wrestling, we have one main guy right now: Randy Orton, the legend killer. Beyond him I can’t think of anyone that I could truly hate. Batista isn’t there yet for me cause he has been a fan favorite, heel, fan favorite, etc. so many times I can’t keep track of whether I should hate him or like him. I know that Orton has gone back and forth as a heel and fan favorite as well, but it seems he is much better at his “heel” persona then he will ever be for his “face” persona I don’t see him turning face anytime soon (I hope anyways). This brings me to Muhammad Hassan back in 2005, he was getting over as a classic heel that the WWE had to drop his character for fear of the sponsors pulling their ads from the show. It was a shame to see him go cause I was really getting into the whole thing myself. Everyone should realize his real name was Mark Caponi and with his in ring character Hassan, he got over more so then most of the yahoos that are on the show right now. If it weren’t for the sponsors, I gotta believe he would have become the World Heavyweight Champion. The WWE needs a heel such as that again, but it probably won’t happen. That kinda thing would set up too much of a controversy that the WWE wouldn’t want to deal with.

This type of controversy didn’t stop the federation from turning our beloved Sgt. Slaughter into an American hater who joined forces with Colonel Mustafa (the Iron Sheik) at the height of the first Gulf War in 1991. He feuded with Hogan for a few months and made the federation a lot of money during the feud and they moved on to something different, not because the sponsors told them to, but because they finished the storyline on their own. The sponsors of the WWE are what is killing the possible ideas we fans might even like today. Hence the reason this fan has no real interest in what is going to happen at the Survivor Series this Sunday.

That’s my 3 cents worth, til next time…..