Tyson Returns but no "Cold Stone"

Ah here we go again. Another "ingenious" decision by Vince McMahon to invoke on another quest for rating dominance. This angle is brought to you by unimaginative CEO's: Where ideas are not original, they are refurbished!

Vince has made a celebrity guest host on Raw this week(surprise). It is none other than former "baddest man on the planet" Mike Tyson. This is yet again another attempt on rekindling old story lines from the glory days of WWE. This just makes you want to cry in excitement right? Well, maybe crying from yawning so hard your tears ducts fill and stream down your cheek.

For those who do not know the story behind Mike Tyson and WWE, (Since a lot of people were asking who Bret Hart was last week), Here is a summary:

At the 1998 Royal Rumble Mike Tyson was in the press box watching the match. Stone Cold Steve Austin eliminated the Rock to win his second Royal Rumble and would go on to Wrestlemania to fight for the WWE Championship. After Stone Cold won Mike Tyson was interviewed, called Stone Cold "Cold Stone", I laughed myself pink and side note, Shawn Michaels beat Undertaker for the title. The story was for Mike Tyson to be the Guest Referee at Wrestlemania fourteen and be perceived as a Member of Degeneration X. Austin went into the match a huge underdog, but in the end came out on top thanks to Mikey turning on Shawn.

It was a good storyline and it kept a lot of people interested during the time. Vince obviously feels that since Mike was seen in the big movie hit "The Hangover" he could ride the curtail of the publicity. Bringing Tyson back really isn't the issue for me and some fans, its the elongated plot of the guest host every week. Yes I admit i was excited when i saw Bret last week, but its because he is a WRESTLER. If you have Stone Cold host I'll watch. Even if The Rock hosts, if he isn't too busy retrieving teeth....Really Dwayne? "Tooth Fairy"? COME ON! The point is this, Vince needs to focus on the core values of professional wrestling otherwise his product will continue to become stale, rigid and without character.

He is pushing younger talent. That is an upside for the company. Yet the problem still remains with poor stories for talented characters. There is little to no chain wrestling and matches are no longer than 6-7 minutes! The pay per view matches are decent but even some of them run only 15 minutes long. What happened to iron man matches? Bret and Shawn were talking about their 60 minute Iron man match last Monday and you literally hear the crowd getting fired up about it. Yet instead we have Triple H playing fetch with Hornswoggle. It's not funny, it's not cute and its certainly not what DX used to be. More importantly its not what this business used to be. Vince thinks what we mean by what it "used" to be is the storylines he did back in the day. No Vince what we mean is good chain wrestling with spots that are entertaining and make the crowd pop. Undertaker and Shawn had the greatest match of all time last year at Wrestlemania and its because the two worked the spots to near perfection. McMahon needs to have all the talent watch that match over and say, "Aspire to do that every night you go out". That is what is needed on Monday's Tuesday's Thursday's and Friday's Vince. Get the young guys motivated to perform and not just sell themselves on the Microphone. Push the talent to be better wrestlers!

Bringing back Mike Tyson could be good for ratings but lets be realistic here. Mike is a product of an athletic brand that is near extinction. Many kids watching wrestling now don't even know WHO Mike Tyson is. (He had a video game for the regular Nintendo remember? Mike Tyson Punch Out thats how long ago). It is safe to say that WWE Monday night Raw has become a laughing stock of what it used to be. Unfortunately, Vince sees the cash flowing in regardless of wrestling fan pleas and that my friends means business will continue as usual.

Tyler J. Howard