I’ve been reading Steve Austin’s book, The Stone Cold Truth, and found a chapter that was pretty interesting. The chapter – Stone Cold’s Bottom Line on the Wrestling Business – basically outlines some of the things Austin would do if he ran WWE. It’s actually a pretty decent read (along with the rest of the book, mind you)
One of the things that Austin mentions (and teases constantly throughout the book) is that he believes performers should go back to doing unscripted promos and coming up with their own ideas. Just a couple points here and there to cover, the rest is up to you, champ. That’s one of the reasons why I don’t find the current product appealing – everyone is simply following a script or regurgitating what’s been fed to them. I honestly feel that nobody in WWE, outside of the guys still around from the Attitude Era and maybe a couple other exceptions, are particularly noteworthy and can be easily interchanged at random without anyone noticing the difference.
But if you just let these guys cut their own promos – give them a couple points and go from there – they might either surprise you with a good idea or they may fade away. I’m not exactly saying that they should just say whatever they want or anything, but suffice it to say, backstage writers would have never come up with Austin 3:16… crap, they couldn’t even come up with a good name for the guy.
I liked RAW better when it was RAW. Anyone remember the original premise of RAW; uncooked, unscripted, uncensored, or whatever that dumb slogan was. And that was still during the relatively PG-esque early-1990s before the Monday Night Wars when everything turned into Crash TV. In the words of Stone Cold, “RAW is so damn slick right now, it ain’t even raw.”
I have to agree.
This mentality applies to one time Stone Cold Steve Austin’s speech on Mr McMahon Appreciation Night was completely ad-libbed by him as he rejected the script Brian Gerwitz had written for him. God forbid Austin follows a script supplied by Brian Gerwitz or anybody else. Then again, given the scripts Brian usually writes, it’s probably a good thing Stone Cold came up with his own words. Much more effective.
dtm666 