Terry Taylor's Perspective 9/26/02

Hello and welcome to The Terry Taylor Perspective for 9/26/02.

When we last visited, we talked about the bizarre world of Hollywood and the headaches involved in trying to get a project started. I wrote that the article would be continued, but sadly not today.

Today, I’d like to talk briefly about this past weekend. As most of you know, I was working as an agent for WWE at their PPV Unforgiven and the subsequent Raw and Smackdown tapings. Now, before all of you send me your résumés, I am not a salaried employee. I worked as an independent contractor and was glad to do it. I was very happy with what I saw behind the scenes.

We look from the outside in and don’t see what’s going on behind the scenes. The people working in WWE have acknowledged there is a need to rebuild and have made huge strides to make that happen. There are two ways to do this:

1. Hotshot – which means throw everything that you have out there and hope something sticks. This means putting top players against each other as a short-term fix.  In wrestling history, this has been shown to burn out a product even worse that when the ‘hot shotting’ began.
2. 2. Rebuild – Rebuilding takes time and a huge financial investment. The company accepts short term loses to allow time for the new fresh talent and stories to develop. As you can imagine, this takes patience as we watch profits wane and tensions mount.

 They’ve taken a long-term approach to building their ratings. While you and I only see small changes right now – the wheels have begun to spin positioning players and stories where they need to be to make the most impact in the future.

Our society is geared toward “instant gratification.” That means we want it all and want it now, but in an entertainment business  -- that doesn’t work. If we gave the audience everything they want when they want it – there’d be nothing to left for the future. That’s the fine balance needed to keep the audience interested while teasing them to want more. I say “balance’ because if done incorrectly, the audience gets disgusted. For example, the creative team for WWE has acknowledged the mistake made in the PPV main event finish. The biggest hurdle in repairing something is - admitting there’s something that needs fixing. 

Well, the WWE creative staff knows something needs to be done and I think the solution they have is the correct one. We’ll all have to wait to see what the main event is for “No Mercy.” Do you have an idea what it should be? If you do, please email it to me at the Smarks.tv address and if your answer is good – I’ll forward it to Vince McMahon. You never know, your PPV main event suggestion could be the one used in the WWE October PPV ‘No Mercy.’

My last piece of business is a Godsend to true wrestling fans. I do not have a contract with WWE and have no ulterior motive, so if you watch ANY wrestling on television this year please, please, Please watch Smackdown – TONIGHT!

The Edge-Eddy Guerrero no DQ match is a once in a lifetime effort that every wrestling fan would kick themselves for missing. I don’t have any more to say about it. It’s that good. The bonus is – the whole show has good wrestling and entertainment.

If you don’t watch tonight – you’ll be one of the wrestling fans that are scrambling to find a tape because I assure you – EVERYBODY will be talking about it tomorrow.

Until next week,
Terry Taylor