Last Monday night on Raw, the world witnessed an event of epic proportions. That event was the Johnny Nitro and Melina press conference promo.
The promo reminded me of that infamous Jackie Gayda & Chris Nowinski vs. Bradshaw & Trish Stratus. Watching both, I felt a sense of amazement. I could not believe my senses. I was truly witnessing history. This could be the worst promo I have ever seen in my years of watching professional wrestling.
At first, I was intrigued with the idea of a press conference segment. Hey, that’s new – maybe WWE Creative saw that podium sitting in the truck and thought, “Hey! Let’s mix the paparazzi with the podium. It’s a (dramatic pause) press (pause) conference! Yes!”
Then Nitro started talking. I couldn’t tell if what he was saying was scripted or not. I hope to all that is good that the promo was not scripted. Perhaps the WWE sent young Johnny out there with some bullet points. He rambled on without direction for a while. I sat there confused. What exactly was the point of this promo?
Then Melina got on the mic. Melina can talk – she just sounds like a snotty cheerleader. Then it happened. Nitro sucked the promo-power right from Melina. Melina was also without direction, babbling, rambling, stumbling, bumbling, and other words.
The announcers even were questioning the promo – but not in that storyline kind of “What is going on here?” – way. JR wondered aloud. What was the point of this “press conference?”
Eventually, the promo was over and the world continued. Since even JR was trashing the thing, maybe the WWE will actually figure out some things from the greatest promo ever.
Promo-time is a good thing. It gives the wrestlers time to create a character. Promos by people who need practice are best left for the studio or house shows (hey, the wrestlers practice matches there. Why let them try out material on the road?). Studio promos benefit from editing magic. And if a guy can’t really talk – do one of two things. Approach One: Get them an old-school manager. Johnny can’t talk? Set him up with Armando. Approach Two: nWo editing. The nWo promos were cutting edge with weird camera angles, etc. Just cut together a bunch of clips of scripted lines as a single promo (maybe a voice over of training or action clips) and the wrestler gets over without looking like a fool.
The NM press conference could have been a nice little video segment. Here’s how I would re-tool it. They could take questions from the press or fans – fake e-mails or something. Hell, if the WWE is smart, they could spin this into some kind of rambling podcast or video segment that airs on WWE.com, iTunes and Raw.
Truly, this was the greatest promo ever. And by great, I don’t mean good – great also means: “being such in an extreme or notable degree.” Thanks, dictionary.com.
State of Wrestling 