The Piledriver Report 11.07.07: The Politics of RAW vs. SmackDown’s United Locker room
Posted by Ronny Sarnecky on 11.07.2007
In a recent interview, Booker T talked about enjoying working the SmackDown! brand, as opposed to the RAW brand. This week's Piledriver Report examines why the SmackDown! locker room is the more performer friendly locker room of the two brands.
During an interview on "Between the Ropes," Booker T explained the difference between working on SmackDown as opposed to performing on RAW. "My time on SmackDown, it was a great run. It was beautiful, just pushing for whoever was the champion over there. We really didn't care who was the champion over there. There were no politics, no hassles. Then going back over to RAW, it was like a dark cloud coming over. I just knew it wasn't the place where I wanted to be. There are a whole lot of politics. You have to deal with a lot of garbage. I just knew, for my mental state, it wasn't going to be a good place."
This wasn't the first time that I have heard wrestlers not wanting to be on the WWE's flagship show. According to rumors, when Edge was moved to RAW, apparently, he was very happy going over to the SmackDown! brand. Supposedly, Edge never wanted to have a one on one feud against Triple H. This is not surprising. If you look at the history of Triple H's feuds over the last five years, you will notice a trend. Most wrestlers who go up against Trips usually end up being buried, either during the feud, after their program, or both.
Most "internet" folk blame Triple H for the backstage politics within the WWE. Whether he is to blame or not, one has to wonder why should there be a political game in the WWE. Sure, everyone believes that they should be at the top. That's understandable. The bigger question to ask is why would one brand have the political maneuvering, and the other one does not?
In order to understand this, you would need to look at the two rosters. On the RAW roster, you have mostly had a cast of veterans since the brand split. The top two veterans on the roster are Shawn Michaels and Triple H. Everybody knows about the reputation that Shawn Michaels developed during the mid-nineties. As he was once quoted in an interview, he "lays down for no man."
It does appear that Shawn Michaels isn't as consumed with having to lay his shoulders on the mat for three seconds as he once was. However, every so often, he does object, like against Hulk Hogan at Summer Slam 2005. When he couldn't get his way, and had to do the job, a little bit of the "old" Shawn Michaels came out, and he acted unprofessionally in regards to his Summer Slam match with Hogan during an in-ring interview on RAW the night after.
When the "political" Shawn was at his best, he was part of a group of wrestlers called the "Clique." The members of this group of friends included Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Sean Waltman, and a young wrestler known as Hunter Hearst Helmsley. I'm not saying that Shawn Michaels is to blame for Triple H's backstage "politicking" of today. What I am saying is that Triple H witnessed how his buddies, veterans of the sport, handled themselves backstage. Just as Shawn Michaels saw how Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and others were the main politicians of the WWF in the mid-eighties.
Really, it's nobody's fault. Professional wrestling has been built on politics. Where it is Triple H of today, Shawn Michaels in the nineties, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, and Dusty Rhodes of the eighties. Even promoters have been prone to playing the political game. During the days of when the NWA World Champion toured the different territories defending the title, each promoter tried to use their political clout with the NWA Board to try and get one of their territory's wrestlers to be named the NWA World Champion.
When Buddy Rogers was set to drop the NWA title in the early sixties, a group of promoters from the Northeastern United States wanted Bruno Sammartino to be named the new champion. However, the other members of the board decided to put the belt on Lou Thesz. Instead of accepting the board's decision, and recognizing Lou Thesz as the World Heavyweight Champion, these promoters broke away from the National Wrestling Alliance. Led by Vince McMahon Sr. and Toots Mondt, the World Wide Wrestling Federation was formed. The WWWF was the forerunner of what is now World Wrestling Entertainment.
The WWWF was built in 1963 due to a political maneuver that backfired. Over forty years have passed, and those Northeastern promoters would be happy to know that people within the company that they founded are still fighting the political game on the RAW side.
The performers on the SmackDown! side are a different breed. On occasion, the Undertaker will flex his political muscle. However, for the most part, as Booker T stated in his interview, there is no political backstabbing on the WWE's "secondary" brand. One of the reasons for the lack of a political game is that SmackDown! normally houses more younger, inexperienced wrestlers then their RAW counterparts. How can a wrestler, like Ken Kennedy (when he was on SmackDown!) push for a top spot or the World title when he is still "wet behind the ears." He hasn't earned his spot over a guy like Rey Mysterio or the Undertaker.
I look at the roster of SmackDown! sort of like a major league baseball team. You have main event players, like the Undertaker, Edge, Batista, and Rey Mysterio. Then you have solid performers like Kane and Matt Hardy. There are wrestlers that have sifted through the SmackDown! roster over the years like MVP, Carlito, John Cena, and Ken Kennedy. These are the future stars of the team. Met fans can think of role players like Carlos Gomez and Lastings Milledge. Boston Red Sox can vision players like Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury filling this role. The veterans and coaches guide these players along. The better these "future stars" do, the better it is for the veterans of the team.
While the veterans of RAW may look at these "rookies" as performers trying to steal their spot (like some veteran ball players would), and need to be kept down, the SmackDown! vets appear to have a different view. The SmackDown! veterans look at these blossoming young stars, not as a determent to their position, but as a way for them to make money. It's like on a championship baseball team. Did you hear the veteran players of the Boston Red Sox complaining because Ellsbury, Pedroia, Papelbon, Matsuzaka, and Okajima received a lot of playing time? Of course not, because they knew that these guys were performing. All the veterans wanted was a chance to win the World Series, and these players gave them that.
When people pay to see a pro wrestling event, they are paying because they want to see the match-ups. The goal of a wrestling promotion is to provide their fans with fresh match-ups that will excite their fans enough to purchase a ticket or order the latest pay per view. In order to give the fans fresh matches, it is the promotion's responsibility to try to create new stars.
The SmackDown! veterans realize this. New stars equals higher revenue. How much complaining did the fans do when RAW was the "Triple H Show" as he dominated the World title scene for years? During his stints, he fought wrestlers, who after the first match, the thrill wore off (example: Scott Steiner, Kevin Nash, Bill Goldberg). Compare that to SmackDown! How refreshing was it to see John Cena's chase to his first WWE World title? What about watching Ken Kennedy's rise from Ohio Valley call-up to the star that he is today? Seeing him, not only face Batista for the World Title at the Royal Rumble, but also carry the match, made you realize that the WWE had a new main event star on their hands.
The SmackDown! brand creates stars with the outlook being to make money, and provide entertainment. When RAW creates a new star, usually he rises only so far, and then buried. There is a glass ceiling on the RAW brand, and it is very hard to break through it. When RAW injects new talent that rises to the main event level, and stays there, most of the time, it isn't a talent that they created, but one that they "drafted" from the SmackDown! brand. That may provide RAW with the fresh match-ups that fans crave. However, the "glass ceiling" eventually hits these wrestlers, and they are brought back down to wrestling Earth.
RAW may be the WWE's flagship show at the moment. However, if I am a wrestler, who just wants to perform, and not deal in the politics of the WWE, I'd want to be booked on SmackDown. From listening to Booker's interview, I'm not alone in that thought. If more RAW wrestlers continue to feel this way, they may decide to leave the company when their contracts run out. If that happens, the WWE will not have to worry about any "politics" in their company. Instead, they will be left wondering where all of the good talent has gone. Chances are it won't be that they were switched to SmackDown!
