Craig Wilson and Brian Damage
It’s Saturday so time for the latest instalment of ’This Week in Wrestling’. Today, in part 37, Craig talks about The Miz’s IC title reigns while Brian talks about a little bit of Attitude and shares all the best viral content he’s stumbled upon this week.
Congratulations to The Miz
Craig
This past Thursday, The Miz beat the combined IC title reign of the Honky Tonk Man, “the greatest Intercontinental Heavyweight Champion of all time”, to become the third longest reigning holder of the title in the company’s history.
It means that The Miz is now only behind Don Muraco and Pedro Morales as the man who has held that strap the longest. That means he has long surpassed some of the greatest names in the history of the business, including the likes of Randy Savage, Chris Jericho, Mr. Perfect and many, many others.
In all reality, it is quite a remarkable achievement for the Tough Enough graduate and 14-year in-ring veteran. Aged just 36 and with a combined run of 456 days and counting, it is difficult to imagine him not bettering Morales’ 619 day time with the title.
It continues the WWE’s attempts at creating modern day history makes when it comes to their champions. After all, earlier this year, New Day’s 483 day time with the Raw tag team titles meant they became the longest reigning tag team champions in the company’s history.
With New Day, it was about beating Demolition’s record, a team that is in the company’s bad books owing to adding their names to a concussion lawsuit.
However, with The Miz, I cannot help but think it is something different completely. There is no doubting that relations between the Honky Tonk Man and the WWE over the years have been, to say the least, rocky, but is The Miz’s bettering his record all about that? There is little doubt that due to the WWE’s way, that will form part of it. But I do think there’s more to it.
After all, The Miz is having the time of his life at the moment. Promo-wise he is on the top of his game and the addition of Maryse to his side has added an extra dimension and has put him at the top of his game. On Smackdown, he was one of the top names and although he hasn’t quite made the same impression since moving to Raw, it is a show with a dearth of big names, there is no denying he is still a standout.
Do not be surprised to see, in the future, The Miz post a similar screen grab from Wikipedia showing him second in the list of combined reigns.
Is it Time for the WWE to Show A Little ‘Attitude’ Again?
Brian
There is no question that the WWE is still the king of pro wrestling, errr I mean Sports Entertainment. The mighty kingdom, however, is starting to show some cracks. If you pay close attention to attendance at house show, heck even during recent television tapings, it has dropped. I, for one, am noticing a lot more empty seats during shows that should be sellouts or relatively close to that.
Instead, I am seeing a sea of empty seats and tarped off sections that even the magic of WWE TV can no longer hide. While I am certainly not predicting doom and gloom for the WWE, I am still a little concerned. Is it time for the WWE to start changing their format, perhaps get a little edgier, a little more risqué, heck, get a little more attitude? I am not talking about the WWE doing an about face and return to the Attitude era of the mid-1990s, but something a little similar.
Now there are many fans who are very fond of that time period for the company and many have clamored for its return. There are also many detractors, who look back at that era and say that the Attitude Era was garbage and highly overrated. How about a compromise and meet somewhere in the middle?
The fact is, the WWE needs some sort of boost, some sort of fire back in their programming. Could it just simply be an over saturation of their product? Yes. Could it be the lack of well-developed stars? Yes. Could it also be that the product simply doesn’t appeal to all that attend? Yes!
I know Vince McMahon wants to keep the product PG and kid-friendly. I get it, parents take their kids to these events and they are the ones who want to buy the merchandise etc. What about the parents though? What about the adults who come to be entertained? Shouldn’t there be more appeal for everyone, not just a select few?
This past week, there was a segment on Smackdown Live, where Kevin Owens headbutted Mr. McMahon and made him bleed. As minuscule as it may seem, that bloodshed made the whole segment that much more powerful. The years-long “blood ban” should finally be lifted. With Monday Night Raw a three-hour program, why not make the last hour more adult friendly. I am not saying to have Sasha Banks and Alex Bliss to start having lingerie pillow cat fights but use a little saltier language, use more blood and violence.
It is time for the WWE to start trying to reinvent itself again. If they don’t, I am afraid the WWE will continue to regress and ultimately fail. Changes, at least some tweaks, need to be made and need to start soon.
Photo Gallery
Brian
How would you like this type of Gnome in your garden?
Reunited and it feels soooo good!
This is the definition of a cool looking tattoo…
On the other hand, this is not…
Imagine getting this in the mail from ‘Mean’ Gene Okerlund…
1980s WWF style bowling pins!
Ah yes, the Attitude Era…
Video Gallery
Brian
Hulk Hogan Honey Nut Cheerios commercial
All previous ‘This Week in Wrestling’ pieces can be read here.
Ring the Damn Bell 
I agree about the reinvent. It seems, the current way of WWE creative to bring in some more “edge” into the product is to often do work-shoot promos instead (based on real incidents, or at least rumored incidents in media). Like when Cena mentioned a drug test about Reigns, or these phony twitter exchanges… But that is just cringe worthy. They turn a fictional program (with pre-determined fights) into scripted reality television. On top of that the wrestlers then in some cases have to kinda confirm the worst rumours about them thanks to creatives, even if not true (it is not like you can answer “well, that was rumoured by the media, but that is just half of the story, actually it was the case that….”). That just damages the product and the performers imho. The whole approach needs to be thought over.
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I agree an edger wwe product would be better you don’t have to go full on attitude lots of foul language ie f bombs every 5 words and tons of blood and nudity although blood in the cage matches is fine especally when its warrented such as hell in the cell the yearly special event point being wwe Doesnt have to be kiddie heck Disney has more vulgarity then the current wwe product even superstore is more vulgar and edger then wwe is currently
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