Mailbag question: Ruining the surprise?
By Scott Keith on January 11, 2013
Scott,
Long time reader, first time emailer. One thing that really grinds my gears is when the WWE will announce a returning superstar, before their entrance music. The old "Please welcome back blah blah blah blah…." To me, that defeats the purpose of entrance music entirely and really robs the crowd of a great shocking moment. Tonight was a perfect example with The New Age Outlaws and Flair returning and presenting Slammy's, but it seems to happen all the time even with guys who haven't been gone that long. Are they just afraid the crowd won't react "properly"? I realize their audience has a large demographic of kids… but yeesh.
Yeah, I've long been a fan of the surprise run-in return, rather than WWE's ratings-focused "We'll surprise you but make sure we build it up BEFORE the commercial break" approach. The worst was Eric Bischoff's debut in 2002, where they spoiled their own surprise before the break when it should have been one of the biggest moments in wrestling history. People still remember Warrior running down at Wrestlemania 8 even after the shitty match.
The irony here is that they're obsessed with swerving and surprising us for the sake of it, but they spoil their own surprises by putting pictures of title changes on WWE.com in advance and announcing big returns in advance so they don't risk losing the ratings. It's a weird contradiction in philosophy.
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