WWE: Why Vince McMahon's Return to TV Won't Help Struggling Ratings

As of late, WWE's answer to stagnant or struggling ratings has been to trot out a star of the past. They did so with The Rock, to little or no ratings success. The company followed with Brock Lesnar, to even less success. Tonight, on a special three-hour edition of Raw, the company will once again pull a character out of the mothballs in hopes of achieving a spiked rating.

Vince McMahon will return to the air for the first time in nearly a year. Coming back to evaluate John Laurinaitis' job as general manager of Raw and Smackdown, the company is hoping that the return of the highly successful Attitude Era character will produce interest in the product that has not been there in recent weeks.

Many also expect some sort of major angle to begin tonight, as is often the case in the summer months. Two years ago, around this time, the Nexus storyline took WWE by storm. Last year, the Summer of Punk angle kicked into high gear and catapulted CM Punk to the top of the industry.

Regardless of what decision Vince makes about Laurinaitis' job or whether or not the company debuts its next big angle, the ratings will not spike and fans will not return in droves.

The fact of the matter is that fans are not emotionally invested enough to care whether Laurinaitis is fired or not. Is the "Big Johnny" character over with the people? Absolutely. But do those same people care about him, about seeing him get his comeuppance, like they cared about the evil Mr. McMahon character in the late 1990s? Absolutely not.

John Cena vs. Michael Cole is also the furthest thing from an enticing main event as possible. Having that match close out Raw one week before the much-hyped return of Vince McMahon is not going to persuade anyone to watch the show. In fact, it may prevent some from wanting to watch ever again.

The company has reportedly been booking Raw from week-to-week rather than looking at things in the long-term. Until Vince McMahon and his merry bunch of writers put together a structured, logical program that is capable of capturing the attention of a larger audience, all the Mr. McMahons, The Rocks and Brock Lesnars in the world will not help pop a television rating.

But hey, Michael Cole got covered in BBQ sauce last week. So there's that, I guess.