2.21.11
Give WWE credit for getting something out of Sting without hiring Sting. Or even talking to him.
Sting decided a long time ago he just wasn’t going to work for WWE. It probably started out as disdain for the R-rated style WWE once espoused. Sting is a devout Christian. By now, Sting likely just wants to be the one guy who never worked there. No way he wants to work WWE’s schedule.
But the way the 2.21.11 video was presented, it made marks think that Sting’s WWE debut was imminent. It’s going to be the return of the Undertaker, which won’t disappoint WWE fans. But the Sting tease, false as it was, created a buzz.
That’s genius: Getting something out of the guy you don’t have. And there’s still a payoff: Undertaker.
Sometimes, in some small way, in arguably the most boring wrestling climate in recent memory, creativity emerges. Just lucky, I guess, or they’d do it more often.
STILL CHECKING MY MAILBOX
Jim Ross says on his blog that former WCW employees will meet in Atlanta in late March to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the final WCW Nitro episode, which was March 26, 2001. Wow, WCW…10 years gone.
I’m sure I won’t be invited. The gathering will probably be limited to those who KILLED the company.
I worked for WCW for seven years. I still can’t believe WCW blew it. How the heck could you F that up?
Just watch TNA every week. The how-to course continues.
Seriously, Nitro beat Raw head-up 84 weeks in a row. The resources provided by Turner Broadcasting were LIMITLESS. How on earth did WCW decline so steeply and suddenly? How did such highly-rated (and, at one time, highly-regarded) programming become so poisonous to a company that once embraced it?
I can only quote Kevin Nash, who phoned me just after the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11: “This don’t change the fact that Hogan and Bischoff f***ed up WCW.”
Nash was right. Ill-timed and inappropriate, but absolutely right.
Talk about the AOL/Time-Warner merger all you want, or Jamie Kellner’s disdain for wrestling – but if Hogan and Bischoff hadn’t served agendas, gotten greedy and constantly indulged their own egomania, WCW would have remained hot enough that AOL/Time-Warner couldn’t have justified taking it off the air, and if it did anyway, another network would have bought it and televised it. Period. Analysis has caused paralysis. But that’s what really happened.
So, anyway, my address is…
Mark Madden hosts a radio show 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WXDX-FM, Pittsburgh, PA (105.9). Check out his web page at WXDX.com. Contact Mark by emailing [email protected].
