Wednesday, JUNE 17 - 5:30 PM (CT)

-So, Donald Trump is the new owner of WWE Raw. As I mentioned in yesterday's Buy or Sell column (part one), the idea that various entities within WWE can be for sale is mind boggling. Dot Net reader Iyaz Akhtar emailed me and suggested WWE's reasoning may just be that the WWE is like the NFL and Raw is like one of their teams. Raw can be sold from one owner to the next.

I guess that makes as much sense as anything, although Vince McMahon owns WWE, so all of it is his. The closest thing to an owner in the NFL is commissioner Roger Goodell and while he runs the league, he does not and cannot make personnel decisions for each team. I applaud Iyaz for seemingly putting more thought into it than anyone else did.

I want to look at the Donald Trump situation in terms of why WWE think this is a positive thing. We all know the initial reaction from most people and it has not been all that positive. WWE (or TNA and ROH too) does things that make people scratch their heads. "Why would they do that? What in the hell are they doing?" You hear (or read) that a lot.

Say what you want about WWE and Vince McMahon, but they obviously have had a lot of success over the years. I doubt they sit around the production table and say, "Let's do the most stupid thing possible and put it on television." Obviously, Vince thought this was a good idea, so he pulled the trigger on it. While I could be less than thrilled with it and most people agree with me thus far, let's try and figure out why this might actually work.

-Mainstream media attention: Vince McMahon has a love/hate relationship with the mainstream media. He loves the WWE being featured on ESPN or in other news outlets they normally would not find themselves on. He loves the publicity garnered by WWE taking an issue involving someone or something outside of the company and turning it into a television angle. Vince himself (apparently) loves to make his way onto television and go into character. Even when he tries to play the sympathetic babyface, he still comes across as arrogant and confident.

He hates the mainstream media for the same reason all wrestling fans do; the mainstream media has very little respect for professional wrestling. I cannot think of one other thing the media is allowed to report on without having their facts and information straight without being lambasted for it. The media screws up and either nobody realizes it or "it's only wrestling; who cares?" is the response. Nonetheless, while Trump to WWE has not been met with a media barrage, I suppose it still could, so I understand WWE's thinking here.

-Trump's past success in WWE: Trump was involved in the Billionaire vs. Billionaire Haircut match at WrestleMania 23, pitting his guy, Bobby Lashley against Vince's guy, Umaga. This particular WrestleMania scored the highest buyrate in WrestleMania history. I would have thought Trump's mere presence on a pay-per-view could entice that much interest, but I guess the idea of seeing him bald persuaded people to buy the show.

It would be hard to argue that Trump did not have a lot to do with said buyrate, so somebody out there enjoys seeing him in WWE. I was not that excited about that entire storyline. Of course, the Lashley vs. Umaga match did not really do it for me, especially since Hulk Hogan's name was being thrown around as a possibility. Nonetheless, it is hard to argue against Trump's potential value based on his successful past in WWE.

-WWE Raw needs a boost: This is something everyone can agree with. However, I don't think many fans were thinking, "Bring in Donald Trump" as a remedy to the problem. While many fans will argue that Raw should take a page (or more) out of the Smackdown book, WWE will argue that Raw is a more storyline/variety driven show, and Trump fits perfectly into this mix. While Smackdown has been a treat to watch with Edge, Jeff Hardy, C.M. Punk, Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio, and an emerging John Morrison dominating the show, Raw has suffered in comparison.

I have argued in the past that WWE overuses their General Manager characters and they might be better off going with the Jack Tunney-like approach of only bringing on an authority figure when a decision needs to be made. I'm guessing Trump won't appear much and rarely live on the show, so maybe this will be an opportunity for the in ring product to really shine on Raw. Of course, Raw has to give other people besides "the main event four" the chance to shine.

Personally, the issue I have here is the fact that people are going to watch and pay attention to Raw regardless of how good or bad it is. That leads to stale and perhaps lazy booking. For example, on Dot Net's own Member's Forum, Smackdown is the overwhelming choice for best wrestling show. However, last week's Raw live thread produced over 1,400 posts. To put that into perspective, the TNA section of the Forum has just over 2.000 posts total. Total!

A bad three hour Raw show did 1,400 posts and in the entire history of the Dot Net Member's Forum, the entire TNA section has done only 2,000 posts. Wow. That goes to show you; we are a small population of the wrestling audience. If there is interest there and people are watching, maybe nothing will change. Here's a fun challenge to the Dot Net family: hit 1,000 posts while watching Smackdown.

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