Legends? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Legends

Stone Cold wasn't walking through that door, and that's okay
Photo Credit: WWE.com

RAW’s 20th Anniversary show was a lot of things. It was infuriating, entertaining, whimsical, packed with wrestling, and polarizing, at least from where I sit. I had a lot of things to say about it both on social media and on here (as did Danielle Matheson, who again, wrote a fantastic article yesterday that you people, yes YOU PEOPLE should read if you haven’t already). One of the criticisms I read on the blogs and Twitters after the show ended was that there weren’t enough cameos from legends. Obviously, WWE has a habit of bringing back anyone they can out of mothballs during these milestone shows, so it was surprising at least seeing a show where the only real “legends” to appear were Mick Foley, Ric Flair, and I guess The Rock.

Personally though, I didn’t see this as a fault of the show. It would be one thing if WWE promised a bunch of returns by name and didn’t deliver. But if anything, they promised “returns” in the most general sense. Are those complaining annoyed because we didn’t get Slick, Roddy Piper, or any of the other people who usually come back for these things? Don’t get me wrong, I like to see the old guys come back too, but it’s not make or break.

Actually, if I had to make a guess as to whom they were referring, it was guys like Shawn Michaels, Steve Austin, and The Undertaker. In fact, those were names I saw mentioned specifically on Twitter and here by my boss at Cageside Seats, Geno Mrosko. Those are names I can really understand, because they’re in the backbone of what the flagship brand was all about. Without Michaels, Austin, Taker, Bret Hart, The Rock, Foley, and now John Cena, RAW isn’t the gloriously rambling wreck that it is right now.

At the same time though, I think it speaks volumes as to the restraint WWE showed in putting the hands of the show in their current guys for the most part. Wanting to see the old guys come back is great for a middle-of-summer show between Over the Limit and Wrestling Match where nothing is really going on, or for a Christmas Eve show where no one is expected to watch. However, when you have most of your attention on the show in the run up to the three most important pay-per-views of the year (and with all apologies to SummerSlam and Survivor Series, Elimination Chamber is definitely more important than those two shows at least now), don’t you want to be highlighting the people who are going to be taking part in it?

I think that wanting to have the old guys come back is a self-defeating attitude. We clamor for WWE to build new stars all the time, but constantly making flagship shows revolve around the stars of the past detriments the stars of today. If Dolph Ziggler, CM Punk, or Alberto del Rio aren’t ready to anchor an important show now without the help of Austin or Michaels, when will they? At some point, you have to sink or swim with the guys you have, especially when you’re on the path to trying to follow up the biggest flagship event in your company’s history. Of course, it would have helped if John Cena didn’t figuratively shit all over Ziggler two weeks in a row after literally dumping feces on him New Year’s Eve, but I think I already got that bile out of my system last night.

So yeah, maybe it’s a good thing WWE didn’t lean on its past for an important anniversary. Of course, it doesn’t help that they prop up milestones so often that the meaning becomes so hollow, but still, if you treat the guys you have as important, then what do you know, the fans will eventually start doing the same.