High Road/Low Road 06.29.07: Night of Champions

The Results for the King of the Mountain Match:

High Road: 59%
Low Road: 30%
Both Roads: 11%

E-Mails:

These are all of the e-mails that we received this week. We do not respond to the actual e-mail, but the reply to your e-mail will be below.

P Garnher Writes

Sat: McMahon/Austin worked at the time because McMahon wasn’t on all the time. When McMahon makes an extended stay that when things go downhill. For example, Trump versus McMahon was good. After that, it was boring. And your point about the Pay per view quality match is probably directed at Uncle Trunx, but here’s my take on that. You can give pay per view quality matches on TV, but there has to be some interference. We saw that with Joe/Sting and Foley/Rock. Angle/Lesnar worked because they had already main evented numerous pay per views before that match.

Uncle Trunx: I’m not so worried about the giving away of PPV quality matches; rather, I see no sense in giving away free what could be built up and used more productively down the line, as I feel the Sting / Joe match could. Why throw it away too early when keeping them apart would create a better build and longer term interest?

Jarkota Writes:

Sat: You did a good job in describing the rules in three lines. I was surprised to hear that people have been telling Csonka that the King of the Mountain match is too complicated. This is a very easy match to understand and I think that people just want to bitch. Awesome job in explaining the rules. We will probably be doing a column on the match of champions at Victory Road.

Uncle Trunx: I understand the rules, I just see no need for anything so complicated. And yes, I bitch. It’s my job!

Dan Rogers Writes:

Sat: This e-mail is directed to Uncle Trunx, so I’ll let him reply. Thanks for writing.

Uncle Trunx: Sorry to hear about the motorcycle accident; I hope you’re healed up soonest. I would take you up on the offer of proofreading but I usually write the thing so close to deadline that you’d have to be able to read it over my shoulder as I type to get it proofed! Thanks for the offer though; on the off chance I get a column written in good time, I’ll post it over. Or ask Sat to post it over, more likely.

This week’s High Road/Low Road featuring…

Vengeance: Night of Champions

High Road:
I have written this numerous times, but it needs to be stated again. The WWE needs to give each of their pay per view a unique feel. We have been seeing the WWE do this for a few pay per views and the Night of Champions has to be one of the better one. The only problem that I have is that I feel that Vengeance should not be the Night of Champions. I would have preferred to see the Great American Bash as the Night of Champion. This is a minor complaint, but I appreciate the effort by the WWE.

Low Road:
The idea of a night of champions is a good one, but it sadly shows up a weakness in the current WWE setup; too many titles. You have 3 world titles, 2 sets of tag belts, the Intercontinental belt, the US title, the Womens title and the cruiserweight title. Throwing them all into one event only serves to show how oversaturated the WWE is with titles. In order to make them mean something, you’d have to get rid of more than half of them and that would make such a concept unworkable as a PPV event.

High Road:
My initial fear about the Vengeance: Night of the Champion was that one of the titles was not going to be defended. Thankfully, all of the matches have been announced and every title will be defended. You shouldn’t have to give a high road for delivering on your own stipulation, but we have seen the WWE not deliver on their own stipulations.

Low Road:
This low road was going to be about the ECW title match and the lack of build to it. I have to retract that, under the circumstances and concede the point; there wasn’t much else that they could do. However, I don’t think that actually delivering on what you say you’ll do deserves to be a high road; it ought to happen anyway.

High Road:
One of things that I have noticed since the tri-branded pay per views is that some of the titles have not been defended. The WWE tag team titles, the WWE Cruiserweight title, and the WWE Intercontinental title have not been defended since the WWE went to a tri-branded format. It is nice to see the WWE trying to bring some focus to these titles. Hopefully, these titles will start to make some appearances on some of other pay per views.

Low Road:
This further backs up my point about too many titles. If several of them are not getting any PPV time, how much are they really worth?

High Road:
One of the things that always help the buy rate is when something is done for the first time ever and Vengeance: the Night of the Champions is the first time ever that all of the titles will be defended on one pay per views.

Low Road:
How much are those titles worth is my question? Will people pay especially to see the Cruiserweight title defended, or the Smackdown tag belts? I think not. They’ll pay to see the major titles, the WWE title and World Heavyweight title defended and that’s about it. Even the ECW title (promoted as a world title) is pretty much worthless. In order to make this work, it would need all the titles to mean something and sadly, they don’t.

High Road:
I think that the Night of Champions is a good concept because it some people on the pay per view card would most likely not make the card. The cruiserweights are very rarely going to make it to a pay per view match. I would be shocked if we see Deuce and Domino on the pay per view card following this pay per view because they have no opponents. If anything, the Night of Champions has gotten some wrestlers on the pay per view that would not have made it otherwise.

Low Road:
Is that a good thing? If these guys have no opponents, no build and no meaning to the match other than that it’s for an almost redundant title, why put it on the show? Why dilute the show for the sake of a gimmick? I agree that this is a great concept on paper but when you get guys on the PPV who truly have no business being on PPV and only get on because of the stipulation for the evening, I have to question the decision to do the thing this way.

High Road:
Another fear that I had about the Night of Champions was that the WWE was going to throw in a match that contain no champions. Thankfully, they did not do this and because they didn’t it makes this pay per view that much better.

Low Road:
No, it makes this pay per view true to its gimmick. “Better” would be a PPV where all the matches had a decent build and meant something. Can you honestly tell me that you think D+D vs the old timers was an enhancement to this event?

Had the titles all been built up as meaningful and decent matches built up around them, this could’ve been great. Sadly, I feel WWE has far too many titles and this PPV simply highlighted that fact.

Are you taking the High Road or the Low Road?