Vengeance

This Sunday, World Wrestling Entertainment presents Vengeance, a "Night of Champions." The hype for this show has been on the back-burner thanks to the continuing fake news coverage over the death of Mr. McMahon (which CNBC claims could make WWE vulnerable to lawsuits over the fact that they are a publicly traded company and have issued press releases in an attempt to blur the lines between fiction and real life). Also add to the fact that Vengeance is right on the heels of One Night Stand and the recent news that Backlash did a poor buyrate, this show appears to be doomed. So what exactly is going wrong in WWE land with this show and what could have been done to fix this?

1) Mick Foley is stepping out of retirement (again) and is main eventing his first pay-per-view since Wrestlemania 16 (back in April 2000). This is a stunt clearly designed to boost the buyrate, but is this really an effective plan in the year 2007? WWE needs to realize that Foley has been an inactive talent for seven years now. In perspective, seven years before 2000 was 1993, where Yokozuna and Lex Luger were headlining for the World Wrestling Federation. That's an awful long time in the wrestling world, and the fanbase has clearly shifted. When Foley came out on the draft episode of Raw and announced that he was accepting the open challenge for Vengeance, you could practically hear crickets in the audience. No one really seemed to care, and I think Foley noticed it. I am a huge Foley mark, but it is time to face reality now.

You may have noticed that in the past two years, Raw (as well as Smackdown) has been enjoying larger attendance at shows. However, these are not the same fans who were turned off by the product in 2002 and 2003 and have magically returned. These are new fans, who have been sucked in by the buzz coming from the current stars, most notably John Cena and Edge. When they see Foley on Raw, they are all aware that he used to be a big star, but to them he is just an out of shape retiree with a bad hair cut. They are also conditioned to seeing Foley show up mainly to put people over. That is admirable on Foley's behalf, but a lot of the newer fans unfortunately see him as a loser in the process.

2) Stephanie McMahon on Raw. With less than a week before a pay-per-view, you know, the shows that cost viewers 40 bucks a pop to witness, Stephanie comes out and makes a big announcement about the NEXT episode of Raw. Yeah, it's going to be three hours and have all three brands (two weeks after the last three hour episode and draft that was supposedly going to reestablish the lines between brands) so the show is going to be a big deal. However, it makes a state of mind in the fans that they have something big to look forward to next Monday, on free television, so they can skip paying $40 for Vengeance on Sunday, and maybe they'll pick it up later for $16 at Wal-Mart or watch it on WWE 24/7.

Stephanie also faces the same challenge that Foley does. The current fanbase isn't that familiar wtih her. Some longterm fans will remember her as the helpless victim of The Undertaker in 1999, or Triple H's scheming wife in 2000, and maybe some of the newer fans can remember when she was the sympathetic general manager of Smackdown in 2002 and 2003. But most of the new fans, who jumped on board in the past two years, only know her as Vince's daughter, and might even remember her as the obnoxious loud-mouth who tried getting herself over again when Raw returned to USA. But based on her nonexistant crowd reaction on the last Raw, it is clear to me that the fans don't remember her or just don't care about her anymore, or a mixture of both.

3) The "Night of Champions" concept is a pretty cool idea, but it also exposes how poorly the WWE has been booking the championship belts. The issue is that many of the titles have been booked into oblivion or are being held by superstars who aren't really being pushed. Let's take a look at the titles.

WWE Champion: John Cena. This is the best booked title in the WWE today, which is a good thing because the title dates back to 1963. Cena has been a great champion during his third reign, and I don't see any reason why he should drop it at Vengeance. The match itself, with a collection of former champions just thrown in there, screams "fantasy booking," and has the potential to be a real cluster-fuck. However, there is a strong chance that Cena's reign could be up this time, and that gives the match a much needed injection of excitement. This match will probably be the main draw for this show, for obvious reasons.

World Heavyweight Champion: Edge. The rumors have been that Edge is going to be a longterm champion, which many have assumed this means that he'll be holding the belt until Wrestlemania time. Edge was a great choice to hold this belt when Undertaker got hurt, because he brings a fresh touch to Smackdown and it gives him an opportunity to run with the ball, something that wasn't going to happen for him on Raw. My only issue with the match on Sunday is that Edge has been feuding with Batista for months now, and they have not produced anything memorable as far as storytelling goes and reactions to their pay-per-view bouts have been lukewarm at best. I'm eager for Edge to retain the title and feud with a returning Rey Mysterio later this year, while Batista finally gets his feud with Mark Henry off the ground (assuming that Henry doesn't go down with ANOTHER injury).

ECW World Championship: Vacant. Chris Benoit and CM Punk are going to wrestle at Vengeance for this title, and that is a legitimate dream match amongst the internet crowd. If this match delivers, it will be automatically worth picking up on DVD, no matter how awful the rest of the show is. The winner should be Chris Benoit at this point, mainly because he's never held the ECW title, and he would make the ECW brand seem legitimate.

Intercontinental Champion: Santino Marella. The IC title has sunken really low in 2007. It was making a comeback last year, during the great Jeff Hardy/Johnny Nitro feud, but since Umaga won the title in February (by absolutely squashing Hardy) the title has been off the radar again. Umaga barely defended the title and Marella winning it was a neat, if not completely random moment. Marella has had some okay-ish title defenses, but he isn't catching on the way WWE hoped, and it seems that his time is up on Sunday. If Umaga takes the belt, I really hope they do something with it this time, because the IC title has too much history behind it to simply be forgotten about now.

United States Champion: MVP. Smackdown has treated the U.S. title the way Raw should be treating the IC title. They aren't just using the title to get MVP over, but they are also using MVP to add to the title's prestige. That is something that WWE forgets to do with most of their championships. MVP won the title at the end of a tremendous feud with Chris Benoit, and I dearly hope he doesn't lose to Flair on Sunday.

World Tag Team Champions: Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch. This title is making a comeback of sorts, as Jeff and Matt Hardy did a lot to bring attention back to the gold. Cade and Murdoch have been booked much better now than they were during their first reign (they won the title almost immediately after debuting and lost to little fanfare against Big Show and Kane less than two months later). There is no reason for the Hardy's to take the title back on Sunday, as they are both on seperate shows and it is high time to reestablish the lines between brands.

WWE Tag Team Champions: Deuce and Domino. This belt is really hurting right now. London and Kendrick reigned for 11 months, but I can hardly remember anything they were involved in during the last five months of the reign. Deuce and Domino randomly took the titles on a throway episode of Smackdown and have done nothing of note since either. They don't even have scheduled opponents for Vengeance, with many predicting the Majors Brothers will be getting the shot. This is also only the second pay-per-view appearance by Deuce and Domino, with their first being all the way back at No Way Out in February. My question is why put the tag titles on a team that they don't even think enough of to schedule on pay-per-views on a regular basis, that it took a "Night of Champions" theme just to get them on the show?

Women's Champion: Melina. This title almost always gets included on pay-per-views, but that suggests that it is more prestigious than it really is. The Women's title match is almost always the piss break match, as it is routinely poor quality and frequently is placed on the card in between main event matches. Candice Michelle has a very real chance of taking the title on Sunday, and would be the first Diva Search contestant to win the gold. Melina has not been taking off as champion too well, but at least she is someone who WWE thinks enough of to have regularly portrayed on television, unlike former champions such as Molly Holly (she was practically invisible in her 2003 run) and Gail Kim.

Cruiserweight Champion: Chavo Guerrero. And we end here, on the most depressing championship in all of the WWE. Why is Chavo Guerrero the champ? To push him? To reward him for his hard work? No, the reason Chavo is the champ is because they had NOTHING else for him to do. His push towards the U.S. title flopped and his character was dead in the water, thanks to the tasteless feud against Rey Mysterio (even though Chavo won that feud, his character was damaged badly). So Chavo won the title at No Way Out, as the surprise entrant to a cruiserweight open, just after Jimmy Wang Yang had unceremoniously ended the year-plus reign of Gregory Helms. Since then, Chavo has been barely used on television and has been featured on ZERO pay-per-views, that is until this "Night of Champions" theme forced Smackdown to push the cruiserweight division again in recent weeks. Again, I want to ask the WWE why is it that they would put a championship on someone they did not plan on utilizing in any meaningful way.

Final Thoughts: So there you have it, this "Night of Champions" concept has exposed how poorly WWE has been booking the titles. Thanks to the theme, they are presenting a pay-per-view full of participants who are barely ever on pay-per-views, yet they are somehow the champions or the top contenders. WWE officials and writers probably don't care about this situation, but it would be my deep hope that they will learn a lesson from Vengeance and that things will improve from here.