by Bob Morris

"We're not gonna take it.
No…we ain't gonna take it.
We're not gonna take it anymore."

Twisted Sister or Bif Naked (or whatever the hell the group is who did the remake), take your pick on the artist…and even if you don't want to hear that song again after the latest WCW fiasco, the song still fits the mood of wrestling fans.

I've been as patient as I could be with WCW. I've given them repeated chances to get things done right. I've held out a little hope for every slight flash of brilliance on WCW's part. And I've even gone out of my way to pay compliments to some things that I thought WCW was doing right in this recent era, even if other people disagreed.

But now, WCW has finally done it…they have caused me to lose that patience.

I mean, the whole idea of David Arquette as WCW champion, by itself, is bad enough, but it gets even worse when you look at the big picture.

And the big picture is this: Contrary to what they may say, Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo have not learned from any of their past mistakes.

Namely that quick fixes do not solve a promotion's woes, celebrities in wrestling do not guarantee success, particularly when they are used incorrectly, you cannot afford to piss people off when you are rebuilding a promotion, and when you talk "long-term planning," you must make it appear to the fans that you are doing just that.

The decision to put the title on Arquette, especially when you consider that Dave Meltzer reports the decision came down a mere TWO HOURS before Thunder went on the air, makes it look like NOBODY in WCW is looking at things for the long term, no matter how many times Bischoff and Russo repeat their rhetoric.

Let me start by saying that I don't have a problem with David Arquette being used by WCW as an attempt to get some mainstream attention. That, by itself, is not a bad thing. It becomes a bad thing based on how you do it.

When Arquette ran into the ring during the Thunder taping two weeks ago to try to save DDP from a beating, that was OK, and I had no problem with it. It was simple enough to understand…Arquette was DDP's friend, tried to help him out, and paid for it. Not too complicated at all, right?

But somebody had best be reminding Bischoff about what happened when he took things too far with Jay Leno. First of all, Leno viewing the whole thing as a joke didn't help matters, but regardless, while shooting a wrestling angle on the Tonight show wasn't a bad idea, having Leno wrestle in a pay per view main event was a terrible idea.

And the reason is celebrities only attract a short-term interest from casual viewers, at the expense of diehard wrestling fans who don't want to see celebrities wrestling, much less see them as wrestling champions. Turning off your hardcore viewer for the casual fan is a bad business practice in the long run, because it is much harder to get the hardcore viewer back than it is the casual viewer. And the hardcore viewers will stay to watch a program longer than the casual viewer, every single time.

If they really wanted to use Arquette to get attention for WCW, that's fine, but put him in as the guest referee at the Slamboree World title match or something else that doesn't damage your long-term planning (or what WCW claims to have, anyway) rather than hotshotting the World title around to everyone and their brother just to see what will happen in the Nielsens.

See, a problem that WCW is forgetting is that, when you are in a rebuilding process, you cannot afford to piss off the hardcore fans. Yeah, the WWF does it a lot, but the WWF also pulls in six million viewers or more every single week, so they can afford to do that. WCW does not have that option…the only option they have is to give the hardcore wrestling fan a reason to tune in, and let the casual viewers come as they may.

And what WCW also forgot is that, when you are rebuilding a promotion, you should EXPECT to see fluctuations in the ratings. There was a big panic when WCW's ratings dropped from 3.1 to 2.6 or whatever the numbers were in one week's time, but WCW should have realized that, because they were in the process of starting from scratch, that there would naturally be increased interest in the first show under the new regime. But they shouldn't have expected to keep those viewers so quickly…it takes time to get those viewers to tune in, and stay tuned in, and considering the amount of damage that has happened to WCW in the past two years, that means it will take a LOT of time (we are talking one year minimum, and likely much more than that) to get those numbers back up again.

If you take a look at the WWF during its rebuilding period in late 1996 to early 1998, the same thing happened. There would be a lot of interest in a particular show, then the ratings would taper off a bit, only to come back up again with the next show that caught the attention of fans. And each time they had one of those shows that had a spark in the ratings, the WWF kept a portion of those fans who tuned in, until they had enough fans watching to break WCW's winning streak in the Monday night wars. And all this occurred over a year's time (and bear in mind as well, that the gap between the WWF and WCW was smaller with WCW in the lead, than it is now with the WWF in the lead).

But most importantly, what got the viewers to tune in, and stay tuned was the long-term approach the company was taking, rather than the hotshotted moments. Sure, the hotshotted moments got more people to tune in for one week, but what gets the viewer to tune in EVERY WEEK is the characters and storylines, and those come through long-term planning, not hotshotting.

The recent decisions by WCW bookers to hotshot title changes on two consecutive shows disrupted what could have been an opportune moment for WCW to try a long-term approach by having Jeff Jarrett as the dominant heel World champion. Never mind the fact Arquette has won the title now…replace him with any full-time wrestler currently working for WCW, and you still have the hotshotted title change taking place. In fact, you can even delete that match ENTIRELY, and you still have the title change on Nitro when DDP won the belt.

For those who think that DDP winning the belt is going to increase interest in Slamboree, remember that Jarrett's reign lasted all of eight days, and going into Slamboree, if DDP still had the belt, his reign would be only about two weeks. So neither wrestler had a long enough title reign to get anybody interested in the match at Slamboree. While it's true Jarrett having an uninterrupted reign would result in a three-week reign, at least then you could use the old "heel champion vs. face challenger" formula to stir some interest.

WCW had the opportunity right before them to build Jarrett up as a credible heel champion, and in order to do that, he needed to hold the belt for THREE UNINTERRUPTED MONTHS MINIMUM in order to get over as that heel champion. And yet Russo turns around and makes the same mistake he made when he had HHH as the heel champion in the WWF.

Let me shift gears for a moment and bring up the big picture about HHH's infamous dropping of the WWF strap to Vince McMahon. Put the title itself aside, and put aside the fact Vince won the belt, and ask yourself this…how was the hotshotted title switch (and that is what it was, make no mistake about it) supposed to build him up as credible heel champion?

The truth about that title switch is this: It cost HHH plenty of heel heat at a time when he was just starting to get into a groove. Remember, for several shows afterward, Vince McMahon and others had to PROMPT THE CROWD to chant "asshole" at HHH. It took the wedding angle a couple months later for HHH to regain that heel heat, and it was cemented when Stephanie McMahon turned heel and sided with him. And his cause was helped when he won the World title and proceeded to beat Mick Foley in two big pay per view matches…THAT is how you build up a credible heel, folks.

I think HHH can consider himself lucky that Vince Russo left the WWF, because when Russo was there, it was the Mean Street Posse and Davey Boy Smith who were having the issues with Test, and likely would have been the ones crashing the wedding. If I'm not mistaken, Russo said on WCW Live that his plans for the wedding differed from what the WWF actually did, and that likely means HHH was going to have no part of it. Interesting how Russo's departure seemed to be, at the time, a major loss for the WWF, but turned out to be a blessing in disguise, no?

But getting back to Jarrett…the exact same thing has happened with Jarrett's title reign being interrupted for the sole purpose of hotshotting something in hopes of grabbing viewers…Jarrett's chances of becoming a credible heel have been damaged. And my God, do you even realize that Vince Russo was the one who told Jim Ross to kiss his ass because he didn't think Jarrett would be a good World champion, and then he turns around and yanks the World title off him after JUST EIGHT DAYS? Sure doesn't look like Russo has confidence in Jarrett either, does it? I can already picture JR rubbing his hands together in anticipation of what he will write about Russo in the next Ross Report.

Anyway, as it stands, if WCW decides to take the belt off Arquette and put it back on Jarrett on Nitro Monday, what they are left with is the following options:

1. Have Jarrett beat Arquette in a singles match, which would be a horrible way to rectify that situation, as Jarrett beating a non-wrestler for the title does NOTHING to give him credibility.

2. Have Arquette vacate the title, and let DDP and Jarrett fight it out for the vacant title at Slamboree (in other words, doing the exact same thing WCW did at Spring Stampede. Hey, I can understand why they did at Spring Stampede, but there is NO REASON to be doing the same thing at Slamboree).

3. Pull off the old Dusty Finish, but regardless of how you play around with it, it not only doesn't solve the problem that took place when the title was put on DDP so quickly, but also practically screams to the fans "we fucked up."

But instead, word comes from Entertainment Tonight that Arquette wrestle at Slamboree, which is such an asinine idea that I'm not even going to bother talking about it.

I want to address one other point…those who protested about how people praised the hotshotting of the WWF World title to Chris Jericho and yet bashed the one to DDP. Here's the difference: Jericho is not yet a main eventer and is still being built up to that point, while HHH is already there, so giving the belt in a hotshot moment to Jericho doesn't do as much damage, because HHH didn't lose his heat, and with Jericho, since he's still in the early stages of his build-up to main eventer, the WWF has the chance to fix things if they don't work. In the case of DDP vs. Jarrett, the title was hotshotted to the wrestler who was already established, and the one who lost it is in a building process, and the title change disrupted the building process rather than furthering it.

And that's been WCW's problem for so long…they get into the process of building somebody up, only to end up doing something that disrupts it. As long as that continues to happen, WCW is never going to turn things around.

It really pains me to have to write this. I've liked some of the things WCW has done over the past couple of weeks, but then they turn around and pull off a stunt like what happened with the World title, and I just can't understand why. Some people are saying WCW wants to make people think "anything can happen" on the shows. You would think WCW would get that across when BILLY KIDMAN PINS HULK HOGAN IN A WRESTLING MATCH, but maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about.

As for the people who are already declaring WCW dead, I'm not ready to do that just yet…but I am ready to declare that in a matter of three months, if not sooner, the Bisch and Roo era will end as they continue to drive the company further down the tubes.

But who knows…maybe I am wrong and they have something big up their sleeves that will get everybody to say "Wow" and keep tuning into Nitro every week.

For WCW's sake, I sure hope I am wrong.