What some may call last week's snoozer of a column, it really hit home for Monday's Raw. Every site was saying that Christian was at RAW and/or Jeff Hardy was going to appear at RAW. As it turns out, neither of which were true. Although, if it were true, IWC'ers would've hailed it as the second coming of Christ (although some dispute the FIRST coming of Christ, so that point is moot). Actually, the IWC would be happy for the first time since Jericho showed up 14 months ago. So lets get to the short and skinny of it. Christian is not the answer to the WWE's ratings problem. The same as Kurt Angle and Mick Foley were not the answer to TNA's problems.

Ratings are NOT in the crapper. Sure they may be around 3.0 (rarely lower) but they are far off from the days of 1995, when Nitro was beating them.

Christian will not pop the rating above 3.7 just for showing up. The WWE needs SOLID storylines, something that has been almost non-existent for the last 6 years. Baring some notable exceptions (HBK vs Jericho based on HBK being a sell out to the fans) and Foley return in 2004 vs Orton, there have been very few commercial storylines. Commercial in the grand sense of "I Hate My Boss" (which really can be done only once, before its a rehash) and Faction that are jerks and cause trouble. Everything since 2002 has been wrestling centered. Which, for purists, can be an okay thing. I mean, you watch Wrestling for wrestling. And to a degree, good or bad, you're getting storylines based AROUND wrestling. Example: Brock vs Rock, ones gonna over take the other in the wrestling world; Brock vs anyone cuz of wrestling (or wrestling revenge for cheating him out of a win). Or Will Benoit FINALLY win a World Title. Or Will HHH, a wrestling traditionalist beat Cena the not technically sound wrestler.

None of these themes uses a real life story line that people can relate to and then use wrestling as its vehicle. Now some will be quick to point out (quick as in emailing me without reading the rest of this column) that WCW tried to do this but ruined everything. Well, agree to disagree, young lads. WCW used Sting as its tool of a 14 month buildup because of NOT wrestling. In the greatest sense that you have a fighter like Rocky, NOT fight. And you just want Rocky to fight and win. After that, WCW had lame gimmicks like Glacier, which didn't draw and wasn't real, the regurgitated Horsemen stable, which was best left in the 80's. Or at least 1995.You had Cruiserweights which put on amazing matches but long term, did not draw any RATINGS. They drew interest for having terrific matches from the purists (there's that word again). Jericho's humorous segments gained ratings due to charisma, but the support from management (even by Jericho and Bischoff's own admissions in their books) couldn't help the WCW product.

And now we arrive at the original ECW, which gained oh so much, but lets face it, they were a drop in the pond. 5500 people was their top attendance, when WWE were pulling in 20,000 seaters. There are purists (and blood-thirsty fans who by the majority would call for tables 30 seconds into a Dudleyz match), so the travelling freak show theory doesn't relate to this theory.

The absurdity of HLA, Who Killed McMahon, his stupid son angle, Eddie vs Rey for Dominic, ad nauseum. Hell, don't be afraid dear reader to email me if you can remember a commercial storyline, which didn't center around wrestling, but used it as a tool. The last time WWE was above 5.0 in ratings was March 25th, 2002, after Hogan just turned face. Within 7 weeks (May 20, 2002), the rating was down 1.7 and floated around 3.7. At that time, Hogan went on to win (and lose) the world title in a wrestling based story line. It is beyond me how the booking committee can not realize that it has nothing to do with Crash TV and everything to do with using wrestling as a vehicle.

One last point. Rock and Wrestling. Cindy Lauper used it as a tool to get over with fans, she rarely wrestled, only when in dire need. Look at the nWo from 1996. They barely wrestled. All they did was talk and refuse to fight for 8 weeks, which brought everyone's interest to the angle and made it look real, but they rarely fought (at first). When the wrestling ANGLES increased, so did WCW's ratings fell (they even got the ball rolling faster by having terrible, confusing, messy finishes, but thats another story for another day).

Don't expect things to turn around soon. With interest dwindling, its hard to have hope for a quick turn around. This is not a death sentence for the industry. Good things come to those who wait, however, sometimes it takes a little longer than we want. Life will go on, the industry will keep running the hardcore fans through the machine, however, something will kick it back into gear. The only way you can truly voice your opinion is turning off the TV. If the industry is so focused on ratings, perhaps this will help change the course of direction.