WWE Raw Boycott (Revised)

Over the past few years, many Internet wrestling fans have noticed a
steep decline in the quality of the current product of the only major
wrestling promotion, World Wrestling Entertainment). We have voiced our
displeasure repeatedly with the current product of the former World
Wrestling Federation, only to be largely ignored by those in positions of
power, again and again, over the past three years. We are dismissed as
people who will never be happy with the product when all we want to
see is an enjoyable product which will make money for the company, its
shareholders, and all wrestlers involved therein.

We are certainly not alone in our increasing disinterest, disheartenment,
and disgust with the current product. Ratings for the WWEs flagship
program, Raw have plummeted from a peak of 7.4 on May 1, 2000 to a low
of 3.4 on April 14, 2003. More shocking indeed, is that the former
number was when the WWE was in competition with WCW Nitro. During the
heyday of the wrestling boom, both shows would combine for a rating well
over 10.0, while in head-to-head competition with each other. The WWE,
despite now having nearly all the major stars of Nitro and Raw at their
peaks under contract, barely clings to a fourth of that audience.

In fact the amount of talent on the roster has never been greater.
The only logical conclusion one can make is that the creative direction
of the WWE is causing the company to suffer a slow, painful death.
Weve been through this experience before, with WCW and other promotions
in the past and the same fatal mistakes of WCW are being repeated by WWE

We are particularly opposed to the following poor creative directions
taken by the staff of World Wrestling Entertaining, Inc. We feel that
the combination of these business decisions will result in the slow,
inevitable death of the company unless changes occur:

- The glass ceiling effect where many potential main event stars (such
as, but not limited to: Chris Jericho, Rob Van Dam, Booker T, Chris
Benoit, Rhyno, Edge, Christian, Eddy Guerrero, Jeff Hardy, Matt Hardy,
Shane The Hurricane Helms, and Rey Misterio, Jr.) are cut off from
being the focus of the program. The above list of wrestlers rarely or
never get clean singles wins over established stars such as Hulk Hogan,
Triple H, The Rock, Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels, Kevin Nash, or The
Undertaker. On these most rare of occasions when a wrestler does get a
win, it is either via DQ, via interference, or is in a gimmick or tag
team match.

The wrestlers that are being held down, additionally, never
receive the same opportunities for mic time or multiple, consistent
pushes that the established main event stars or the big guys like
Scott Steiner, Big Show, Kane, Albert, and Test receive. In many cases,
they are shoved to the background, becoming pawns in a game between
the main event players instead of having the spotlight shone on them.
Instead of using these newer talents to ignite a new
wrestling boom, the WWE continues to focus on the same stale stars that
have been on top (Triple H, The Undertaker) during the recent massive
ratings decline. The others on the roster are left to jockey amongst
themselves in a holding pattern that has been going on for over three
years now.

- The opinion among higher-ups in the company that nostalgia, not
creating new stars is the way of reviving the company. Signing
washed-up wrestlers that were responsible for the death of WCW is not
the way to turn your companys fortunes around. Using old men is
nothing more than a quick fix and a delay of the inevitable; furthermore
nearly all the old stars that might have any effect on the ratings are
already signed by this point.

- Poor Hollywood writing from Brian Gewirtz (among others) that forces
bad skits and dialogue onto performers whose strength is wrestling, not
comedy. Additionally many wrestlers have been pigeonholed as comedy
characters when they have the ability to be pushed as serious
competitors.

- Tasteless exploitation of current events such as 9/11 and the Second
Gulf War for WWEs financial gain, in segments like The Great Debate
between Chris Nowinski and Scott Steiner, or bringing in Quebecers
masquerading as Frenchmen to capitalize on nationalism.

- Stereotypical racist, sexist, or homophobic angles, such as Eddy and
Chavo Guerrero being thieves because of their Hispanic heritage, Teddy
Long hating white men and playing the race card just because he is black,
Rico being unpopular because hes portrayed as possibly being homosexual, or
WWE Divas fighting over being in Playboy.

- Vince McMahons continued obsession with pushing big men and muscular
men, despite them generally being woefully inferior to others in his
promotion in charisma, interview ability, workrate, and wrestling
skills.

- Vince McMahons continuing loss of touch with reality which has seen him
approv or come up with disgusting angles involving necrophilia, murder, death, lesbianism, implied
white supremacy. Not only were all of these angles horribly offensive, they
drove many people away from the product.

- The continued political games and poor booking skills of Writer
Stephanie McMahon, who uses her position of power as the bosss
daughter to protect her fiancйe Triple H. She has been in charge of the
writing end of the product as the ratings have dropped by over half.
Changes must be made.

- Poor decisions with which talent is released from the show, where wrestlers such as D'Lo Brown, Raven, Saturn, Justin Credible as well as others are cut despite having great potential.

- The continued presence of current wrestlers and on-air personalities
on the booking and writing teams where it is impossible for them to be
objective about which wrestlers to push and which not to. Over
wrestlings history, active wrestlers on booking teams such as Ric
Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, and Triple H have used
positions on booking teams to avoid losing matches and to promote their
individual interests and not the company's best interests.

- The continued focus of Vince McMahon on humiliation of former stars
that have left or wrestlers who are coming in from WCW or ECW, such as
Kiss My *ss segments

- The continued use of Vince and Stephanie McMahon as major characters
on their TV show, and the continued reworking, recycling, and rehashing
of the incredibly stale Owner v.s. Wrestler angle that has been
repeated ad nauseum since 1997.

- The continued lack of focus on any sort of long term vision or plan as
to which people are to get pushes and which matches to build towards.
Additionally, there is a lack of any vision at all when it comes to
producing feuds involving those lower on the card.


Therefore, we the Internet Wrestling Community hope to make our
statements heard by WWE by engaging in a Boycott of WWE Raw on June 9th,
in the hopes that WWE will act our suggestions and improve the product,
for the benefit of themselves, the wrestlers in the company, and all
fans of professional wrestling.

On this day, we will not watch or tape Raw, not buy any WWE merchandise,
and not attend either the live Raw event or any other house shows taking
place on that night. Online newsites will act as if the event never
took place.

Those who boycott Raw are encouraged to explore other alternatives to
the product during the week, such as NWA-TNA (Wednesday Nights at 8 p.m.
on PPV), Major League Wrestling (Monday Night at 11 p.m. on the Sunshine
Network), CMLL/EMLL (on Galavision), Ring of Honor (www.rfvideo.com, and
Ohio Valley Wrestling (www.ovwrestling.com), as well as any local
promotions in your area. A Yahoo Group has been setup to discuss the boycott
at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rawboycott/.

This boycott is only intended to last for one day; however a continued
decline in the product or an attempt to blame the low ratings of the
boycott on wrestlers under the main event level may result in a longer
boycott of the product to be announced at a later date. At that point,
advertising sponsors of the show will be notified of the audience that
is turning out, week by week, and why.

This petition is not intended as an attempt to undermine or to put World
Wrestling Entertainment out of business, but is an attempt to implore
that WWE undertakes a full reengineering of their creative processes.
We want to keep WWE from putting itself out of business.