by Erin Anderson
Exclusive to OnlineOnslaught.com

I've been trying to figure out exactly what's been pissing me off so much about wrestling recently. As JR likes to say, I've been acting "chronically premenstrual." And I think I've finally figured it out: I'm not so much pissed off with WWE as I am apathetic to it. A heavy work schedule prevented me from writing a column last week, but to be perfectly honest, I don't know what the hell I would have written about anyway.

There's only one angle or feud on each WWE show that's really holding my interest right now: Triple H/Goldberg on RAW, and Eddie/John Cena on Smackdown! As for the rest, I could take it or leave it: Kane's return from being "burned alive" and subsequent actions against Shane this Monday completely ruined the storyline for me. Christian and Chris Jericho looked like a one-week throwaway angle (prove me wrong, WWE), and I've completely lost my patience with the RAW tag division. La Resistance simply isn't going to get over, Rob Conway or not, and there aren't any other heel tag teams to challenge the Dudleys when they finally do take the straps. And Test and Steiner are still fighting over Stacy.

Smackdown! is faring better than RAW, but I'm still feeling a bit indifferent towards the whole show. As it seems custom with WWE lately, whenever I think I'm seeing something new, it gets swept back under the rug.

Take, for example, Angle's match with the Undertaker last night. It was pure old school, and something rather astonishing happened while I was watching it: I forgot what I had read in the spoilers. I was, quite literally, on the edge of my seat while those two fought it out. I held my breath at every near-fall, and completely bought in to the possibility that Taker could win the title. Not until Taker delivered the Last Ride did I remember that Brock would make a run-in.

That's damn good wrestling and storytelling.

But as it turned out, throwing the Undertaker into the title scene turned out to be a one-week fluke; we're back to Angle and Lesnar again. And even as good as those two are, I'm growing weary of their feud and am looking for a change of scenery. Maybe their Iron Man Match, a damn good idea for free television, can change my mind. But part of the reason I was so into the Undertaker/Angle match was that it was a change of pace in the main event.

Elsewhere on Smackdown!, Chris Benoit got stuck with A-train again last night (and really, who deserves that for two weeks in a row?), and my patience is wearing thin waiting for him to really jump-start things with Rhyno. The ultra-hot tag-team of Mysterio and Kidman dropped off the face of the earth, as did any chance for Kidman to turn on Mysterio and get something going in the cruiserweight division. Mysterio/Tajiri last night was fantastic, but WWE has been throwing random cruiserweights at Mysterio for a few weeks now, hoping that something will stick. Perhaps they can finally settle on Tajiri, and make something of it all.

Zach Gowen is essentially dead and Vince is still on the show, so the only thing left for me to give two shits about is the priceless interaction of John Cena and Eddie Guerrero. I would ordinarily have no complaints over this, but Eddie's hot streak needs to be capitalized on as quickly as possible. Instead of putting him into the somewhat stale title mix, he's still got the US Title and is feuding with Cena. Is this a good thing for Cena? Absolutely. Is it the best thing for Eddie? Probably not. Rick pointed out that Eddie may well be the next Mick Foley, but we won't see Eddie win the WWE title anytime soon if he's holding a secondary belt and starting up a feud with a promising mid-carder.

WWE isn't giving me a whole lot to care about right now, and given the level of talent on both shows, that shouldn't be happening. It's enormously frustrating to see performers that I typically love watching either being wasted or not used to their full potential. Everything has gotten very stale to me, and the writing and booking for the shows is mostly uninspired. Is the creative team as bored with wrestling as I am, or are they just severely misguided in what constitutes entertaining television?

I'm not quite sure. But WWE has let a few things that actually get a reaction out of the crowd (Lance Storm/Goldust skits, the team of Mysterio and Kidman) slip under the radar. Secondary titles aren't given any type of importance. Angles that started off promisingly (the "new" Kane) fall into stupidity (the jumper cable incident). Shane McMahon seemed to realize that -- I've never seen him awkwardly phone in his lines the way he did on RAW this week.

But that's not the biggest issue for me; the majority of my apathy stems from the brand split. I'm tired of seeing Angle and Lesnar dominate the title scene on Smackdown! I'm tired of seeing Triple H shoot down everyone who takes a shot at him. I'm tired of La Resistance and the Dudleys without a single other viable tag team on RAW. Sure, there was the Hurricane and Rosey, but they lost in a non-title match this week. I'm tired of seeing Eddie and Benoit stuck in the upper mid-card. I'm tired of the power struggle between Vince and Stephanie. I'm tired of seeing the same people fight for the same titles every damn week, with so little room for movement upward on the card. I'm tired of being bored with WWE.

Maybe I'm just cranky.

A few good things could come out of the merger of the brands: the list of contenders for any specific title (World Championship, IC, Tag Team) would instantly be twice as large. The tag team division and secondary singles titles would have a larger pool of talent to fight over them, and thus the potential for a stale product instantly drops. Viewers wouldn't be forced to watch something like the La Resistance/Dudleys feud stretch into oblivion because there were no other available competitors to fight over the belts.

But it isn't a good idea in the long run, simply because of the clusterfuck it would create. How could a guy like Matt Hardy or John Cena possibly make his way into a title match when you've got Triple H, Jericho, Kane, Brock Lesnar, Nash, HBK, Kurt Angle, Big Show, and the Undertaker at the top of the company, as well as more established (and probably more deserving) mid-to-upper-midcarders like Benoit, Eddie, Rhyno, RVD, Christian, and Booker T just waiting for a shot? Merging the brands would definitely make for a more interesting product right now, but it wouldn't do anything for the future of the company.

The brand split is not a bad idea by any means, but one of the most exciting things about it upon its inception was the instability of the brands and their performers -- seeing a wrestler jump from one show to the other not only created a Holy Shit Moment for the viewer, it opened up doors for said wrestler to feud with an entirely separate roster of performers. It ensured that the WWE product would not become stale. Now that the rosters are frozen, it has become exactly that.

Stale -- it's a word I've used several times in this piece, as well as a feeling that's been plaguing my attitude towards WWE lately. The only cure for it that I can see is an un-freezing of the talent on the RAW and Smackdown! rosters. An open season for the wrestlers and GMs to trade and jump back and forth between the shows to their hearts' content. The fans would eat it up as well, tuning in to see who, if anyone, jumped ship from one show to another.

Big Danny T suggested in his column that trading Triple H to Smackdown! would be a smart move, and I couldn't agree more. And while you're at it, send Matt Hardy, Benoit, and Angle RAW. Put all of the tag teams on one show, too! Oh… and move Christian and Kane to Smackdown! as well. That would be pretty cool.

See? I'm already getting excited again. And the possibilities for our entertainment are endless.
  

E-MAIL ERIN
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Erin Anderson is an Atlanta native and a student at Georgia State University. Since writing about wrestling didn't go over too well with her English professors, she vents here at Online Onslaught.

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