Views From The Turnbuckle: The Absurdity Of Michael Sam Coming To Raw

The opinions in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the views of WrestlingInc or its staff.

Editor's Note: This article was written on Tuesday. On Wednesday it was announced that Michael Sam signed with the Dallas Cowboys. WWE has since changed it's invite to Sam from being for this week's upcoming Raw to "any Raw in the future."

Michael Sam is coming to Monday Night Raw. Or, at least that is what WWE is hoping people will believe. Because the fact of the matter is, Michael Sam isn't going to be coming to Raw. In one of the most bizarre moments I can recall, WWE is attempting to steer people away from Monday Night Football by having Sam appear on Raw, or better yet, have people THINK that Sam is going to appear on Raw, in hopes on cashing in on Sam's notable publicity. It is one of, if not the most, absurd thing I have ever seen a major wrestling company attempt to do, and that is seriously saying something.

For those that may not be familiar with Michael Sam, he made headlines earlier this year when he announced in an interview with ESPN that he was gay. Sam had just completed a very good career playing football for the University of Missouri and looked to be taking the next step in his career, joining the NFL, thus becoming the first openly gay draft pick, and hopefully player, in the leagues history. Sam ended up being drafted by the St. Louis Rams, but after a decent pre-season, he was cut by the Rams and after clearing waivers, his current career in the NFL is up in the air. Most analysts agree that while Sam was a good player in college, his skill-set and athleticism does not necessarily lend himself useful in the professional game, making him not unlike many other players who succeeded in college but were simply not cut-out for the NFL.

Because of his status as the first gay NFL draft pick, a lot of media has surrounded Sam since he was drafted. Analysts, coaches and players believed that all this media hype could serve itself as a distraction to the team, making Sam an unnecessary risk to draft and/or sign. To his credit, Sam has done a remarkable job deflecting any potential news stories concerning him personally, despite the best efforts of ESPN and other national news outlets. During his time with the St. Louis Rams and after his release, fellow players and coaches had nothing but kind things to say about how Sam assimilated himself into the team's atmosphere. Sam was even set up to do a reality show based on his attempt to try and make the Rams for the Oprah Winfrey Network, but after it was made clear that it was going to be a distraction, Sam squashed that idea.

I say all of this because I want people to know that Michael Sam is not necessarily interested in becoming a media star. While the media loves Sam's story and assume that anything about him is going to be a popular story, Sam has given no indication that he wants all of this attention. Still, despite his best efforts, there is a certain stigma associated with Sam, and that NFL teams know that signing him is unlike signing any other typical 7th round draft pick. Sam still has to prove to teams that he isn't going to be a distraction, and that is really the only way he is going to make it in the NFL. So appearing with a live microphone on a program that many people associate with being low-brow entertainment and talking about his experiences in the NFL isn't in the playbook for Michael Sam. It simply is just not going to take place.

What this comes back to is WWE trying to do something to generate publicity for their product, to get people to tune in. To be quite honest, I don't think I have ever been more disgusted with WWE in my time as a fan. This is a shallow move, an open bait and switch to the fans, to try and get people to tune into their show. WWE has capitalized on current events plenty of times, Rusev and Lana and their gimmick being a perfect example of that. But something like that has been under the mask of professional wrestling. Yes it is a current event, but the only reason it is brought up is because it is being done by a foreign WRESTLER who bullies people and beats up other WRESTLERS in WRESTLING matches. Having Michael Sam on Raw to potentially talk about anything he wants, likely to be completely unrelated to wrestling, is an open publicity move to the public in the worst way.

It is such a pathetic move by WWE. They cannot get people to tune into the show by constructing interesting feuds and wrestling storylines, so in a desperate attempt to get people to tune in, they have to turn to a ridiculous publicity stunt that isn't even going to end up taking place on the show. Some fans have said that in the past this has been done before in wrestling, most notably at Slamboree 1998, when Eric Bischoff challenged Vince McMahon to fight on the PPV. Not only was this an incredibly dumb idea, since every fan with a brain knew that Vince would never show up (much like how everyone with a brain knows that Sam will not show up on Raw), but the ploy didn't work. Slamboree got the same exact buyrate as the PPV before it, and a lower buyrate than the PPVs following it.

And you know what? At least Eric Bichoff vs Vince McMahon had something to do with professional wrestling. At least Bischoff calling out Vince was because Eric was legitimately mad at Vince for getting back into the ratings battle. At least it involved two wrestling figures potentially having a match against each other. Other notorious publicity stunts in wrestling are similar. As stupid as it was to have David Arquette win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, at least it involved wrestling. WWE inviting Michael Sam on has nothing to do with wrestling, and his something that would happen on The Tonight Show, not Monday Night Raw.

Finally, who exactly is WWE targeting with this stunt? Certainly not wrestling fans. Well, what about football fans? After all, Michael Sam is only famous mostly because he is a football fan, and it is likely WWE is doing this in part because Monday Night Football is making its triumphant return on Monday. Well, most football fans are tired of the constant media focus on a marginal player like Sam, and even if they were not, wouldn't football fans be watching FOOTBALL Monday night? Lastly, WWE might be trying to just lure in members of the general public, who don't watch wrestling regularly and might be interested in seeing what Sam has to say. I conducted a very brief survey, just asking people who I knew did not watch wrestling what their reaction would be to Sam appearing on Raw. Their unanimous reaction was that it was stupid, what did Sam have to do with wrestling?

So, even if Sam were to show up, what would it really accomplish? Probably nothing other than some blurbs in mainstream media, which of course would all be focused on what Sam were to say and not that it was on WWE programming. But is a headline story on Yahoo or Fox News really worth insulting your fans? To WWE, that appears to be the case.