If you have been waiting on baited breath for this week's HOT or NOT...........keep wait. This isn't it.
It's Passover and as a fine young Jewish boy (at least that's what my grandma says about me), I have been spending my last two nights at Seders. I missed half of Raw yesterday and I haven't gotten a chance to see the entire first hour just yet. However, I did catch the infamous heel turn as I was told it was "a pretty surprising segment".
That was quite the understatement.
To start off Raw with R-Truth and John Morrison might seem incredibly weird to begin with, but to do so with the biggest angle of the show is even more surreal. By now you know that Truth turned heel after losing his #1 contendership to John Morrison. That's perfectly fine by me and most fans as Truth was a weird choice to put in there in the first place, but what happened at the end of the segment is what I'd like to address here.
At the beginning of this year I chastised TNA for using smoking to further Jeff Hardy's heel character. Oops, that guy I just mentioned doesn't exist so pretend I didn't say that! Anyway, that act was something I was steadfast against and hoped it would be the last time I'd see it in wrestling.
I was wrong, very wrong.
The heel turn was completed with R-Truth "bumming" a pack of cigarettes off a fan, lighting one up, and blowing smoke in Morrison's face. Yes, this really happened on a television program in 2011.
When I heard this news, to say I was shocked would be like saying Kim Kardashian's ass is a tad big. This was unprecedented in the PG Universe of the WWE (something I NEVER dwell on) and certainly unexpected. Normally, I'd laud the WWE for surprising the fans, but they could have done so and stopped before the actual smoking bit. While it did add drama to the scene and certainly fit into the dialogue from earlier, it's just not the right thing to show.
I know I'll get some disagreements here as people will say it enhanced the product, but I will hold steadfast on this one. My grandfather died of emphysema and even though I understand that the cigarette was used to show that "bad people" smoke, it still doesn't work for me. In the WWE world where the bad guy is often cheered, this could greatly backfire and set the wrong example for it's young, impressionable fanbase. On top of that, the WWE BROKE THE LAW! In England, you cannot smoke inside public buildings and that is exactly what happened! Not only is a bad example being set, but a law is being broken!
What amazes me is that this isn't the first questionable act from the WWE this month. Just before Wrestlemania, Michael Cole slipped a derogatory word into a tweet which was quickly removed. Many felt that this act would cause the long-time commentator to face serious repercussions and even firing, but he seems to have been rewarded with a Wrestlemania victory! Some true oddities around the company these days.....
I will close by saying this: this better be a one time thing. I cannot condone smoking being an integral part of a story on a program I enjoy. It gives off the wrong vibe for the program and there are plenty of other ways to write stories that don't use this sort of prop. I also wouldn't recommend breaking a national law to further a story ever again either! This was certainly shocking and hopefully not a trend. If it becomes one, I will crusade in my grandfather's name to end it!
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