August 2, 2016
Welcome to another edition of “Book It” I’m your friendly neighborhood writer man, Kyle Robinson and after last weeks’ sad and somewhat somber edition on Owen Heart, I thought we’d change gears and go into a happier, I’ll be it more confusing realm this week as we talk about the failed “Anonymous Raw General Manager Angle” from a couple of years ago.
It did two things: It gave Michael Cole a chance to flex his muscles as an on-air character (spoiler: he wasn't great but people hated him due to his overbearing nature AND lack of skill) and it gave raw an interesting character in the general manager itself. But in true WWE fashion they blew the outcome of the storyline when they ran out of options for revealing who the GM was.
It was revealed by “accident” that the anonymous GM was Hornswoggle, a small wrestler who at one point was also introduced as Mr. McMahon illegitimate child. Kinda seems to me like Hornswoggle is WWEs’ version of a cop out but I digress.
Throughout the course of the storyline the GM seemed like someone who was able to handle themselves in a tense situation should they need to. However, that's obviously not the case with thr chosen person they went with. But, that's not the only problem that I saw with them casting Hornswoggle as the GM.
The biggest issue was how anti-climatic the entire reveal was and how it all happened with everything. But, if your going to re-book that angle, who do you cast in his place? There are a few people that come to mind but the first two that I can think of would be 1. Eric Bischoff and 2. Paul Hayman. Both men weren't with the company at the time. So let me explain how each man would have worked.
Eric Bischoff would have been a natural fit due to his nature as a heel. I don't remember a time when Bischoff was a face and the shock factor of Eric coming back to WWE after some years away would have been a badass moment in wrestling history. It would have also worked out great for the culmination of a storyline.
Second, was Paul Hayman. Now this particular choice was weird because the question would be how do you do it? Or why? Because we all know how outspoken Paul is and I'm sure most would find it hard to believe he'd hide behind a computer. While both of those are excellent points, this would be a time Hayman could claim it was easier to house his agendas behind the computer instead of the open. Plus, he'd always thought of Cole as his bitch and he finally got to use him in that regard.
Now granted, I’ll admit that both of these ideas are quite far fetched and obviously neither of them happened, I have to admit that I think either of these gentlemen would have made a much better choice then the outcome that we got. Hell, I think that just about any choice that you could have made would have made more sense, and been better to watch play out on TV, then what we got.
Who do you think would have made a better Anonymous GM of Raw? Sound off in the comments section. Also, be sure to give me your topic ideas for future editions of “Book It” either in the comments section. Next week, we play a bit of a game of What If and talk about What If Eric Bischoff would have bought WCW in 2001?
Be sure to give me a follow on Twitter, a like on Facebook, join my mailing list, and finally share your thoughts on this post. Until next time, This is Kyle Robinson putting the pen down and turning the page on this edition of “Book It”