The Walter Rant - The “New” RAW
The New Monday Night RAW kicked off tonight, and it came off pretty impressive given that they needed to use tonight to show that they had to shake things up. They accomplished that tonight.
First off, the braintrust came up with the "WWE Universal" Championship to give RAW its own champion. Somewhere in purgatory, former WBC President For Life, Jose Suliaman, Sr. applauded that decision and is trying to find a way to get a message to his son to get a sanctioning fee from them. Boxing people will get that joke. It's lame but I guess we're going to have to get used to it. As I've talked about on the podcast, it'd be cool to have one traveling champion on both brands like the old NWA territorial days. But here we go again with two world champions. Don't like it but we're just going to have to live with it.
The brand new look of the set with the broadcast booth now returning to the side of the Titantron to give the show a more "sport" feel. Not seeing the tables at ringside though kinda made it look video game-like and that's a good thing! Corey Graves fight right in with Michael Cole and Byron Saxton and did well tonight.
Going all in with Finn Balor on his first night on Monday Night RAW is another big positive. It gives us a huge matchup with Seth Rollins for the title that we didn't think we'd see right away but RAW is now starting to put their best foot forward as the Road to SummerSlam officially kicked off the "New Era" in the WWE. And we have a helluva main event for SummerSlam.
The WWE Women's Title match that many expected to happen at SummerSlam took place tonight and despite it's rough spots in the beginning and the scary bump Sasha took on that dive to the outside, they delivered a classic match full of great spots, notably Sasha's ode to her favorite wrestler, the late Eddie Guerrero. In the end, the WWE Universe erupted when Charlotte tapped out and we had crowned a new Women's champion. More on this later.
As we have always known about Vince McMahon, he loves to thrive on competition. 15 years after he bought the last of his competition, he once again tries to reinvent the wheel and create competition from within. Now that he has two live shows that could legitimately compete against each other, he now has the opportunity to really change things up, especially now that he has the backing of legitimate sports sites ESPN and FOX Sports covering them, successfully crossing over "Sports Entertainment" into the mainstream media world.
Which brings me to the Rant.
Definition of Sports - "An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment."
People who complain about ESPN and FOX Sports covering the WWE not being a sport since it's predetermined mistakenly go by this meaning which is the informal definition of "Sports" - "A person who behaves in a good or specified way in response to teasing, defeat, or a similarly trying situation."
Example - "Go on, be a sport!"
I've been a fan of sports as long as I can remember. I've been a professional wrestling fan for the past 32 years thanks to my next door neighbor. Seeing it evolve from being cast out of mainstream sports because of the exposure of its predetermined results to once again becoming accepted as sports but moreso in the "entertainment" part of its meaning, hence now the name "Sports Entertainment" when ESPN and FOX Sports covers the WWE.
But back to the word "Sports". The key word in that definition is what sports is for, "For Entertainment". Wrestling is a sport, we all know that. Professional Wrestling is a sport but predetermined. What do both have in common? They're there to entertain you. So what if the result is predetermined and that it's scripted? We know and we still watch it anyway. Why? Just like sports in general, we like being entertained. We don't care at all that is scripted. We already know that it is. What keeps us watching is that we want to see how it all unfolds. We go there to see some great athletes do their thing in the ring with some great athletic feats while telling a story from start to finish. Sometimes we have a definitive finish and sometimes we're left with a cliffhanger that'll try to drum up interest to get the audience to tune in next time.
Sports "purists" point out that the keyword of the definition of sports is "compete". Compete means to strive to gain or win something by defeating or establishing superiority over others who are trying to do the same. Fair enough, but here's a question. Where in that definition does it say that the result can't be predetermined? We don't care that it is. We watch it the same reason why you watch football, basketball, baseball, etc., to be entertained.
To those complaining about it being scripted, here's a challenge. Watch a show and try to correctly guess the result of every match exactly how it's supposed to happen. If you correctly guess everything that happened at the show, congratulations, you're smarter than the average wrestling fan. If you don't, egg on your face because it didn't go exactly as you thought it'd go, just like, oh, what happens in the NFL, NBA, etc.
I hate to break it to you but there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. The world of sports has evolved and has accepted professional wrestling as the "Entertainment" aspect of sports. Today's professional athletes who compete in the NFL, NBA, MLB, etc., and sports journalists grew up as fans of this sports and have been very instrumental in its crossover and it looks like it's here to stay. To go purposely go out of your way to whine and complain about it is pretty funny yet pretty sad that you have tell us what we already know. Do you have the exact script to actually know what's going to happen on one of those shows of who wins or loses? Last I checked, I don't get an email of the script and the crowd sure as hell doesn't get a script, especially who they're supposed to cheer and jeer at. Ask Roman Reigns.
At the end of the WWE Women's Championship, with the new champion, Sasha Banks, standing tall, the crowd gave both women their due with a standing ovation. And as Sasha was being interviewed, visibly holding back from completely breaking down and crying, the crowd chanted "You deserve it!" The crowd wasn't "scripted" to chant that. That was pure and genuine from the fans that paid their hard earned money to buy a ticket to see these amazing athletes entertain them and that match was more than worth the price of admission. You can't script genuine emotion. Or as Enzo Amore would say, "You can't, teach, that!"
Enjoy the ride because there's still more to come.
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