WWE App voting debacle caused chaos on Monday Night Raw

WWE's latest shiny new technological toy that they're trying to push down their fans' throats is their free to download WWE App for the iPad, iPhone and Android. Tout is now yesterday's news!

The Feb. 4th episode of Monday Night Raw had an opening segment designed to drive viewers into obtaining the app en masse, but it may have been a little too successful.

In a confrontation with CM Punk, Smackdown GM Booker T, who had been given the privilege of picking Punk's opponent for the main event by Vickie Guerrero, announced that he would leave it to the great WWE Universe to decide from three options, The Straight Edge Superstar's former WrestleMania opponents Rey Mysterio, Randy Orton and Chris Jericho. All they had to do was get on the WWE App and vote for their favourite.

Sounds simple, right Cagesiders? So what on earth could have gone wrong?

The demand to smack down votes was so great that the system became overloaded and their app crashed, the last thing you need when you are trying to put over your new product. Polling had to be opened up on WWE.com so the vote could continue, which probably should have been done in the first place.

The problems didn't end there though. According to Dave Meltzer in his latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, WWE was so confident that Orton would win the genuine poll that they didn't even bother to lead people in that direction, but unfortunately Jericho stole his planned spot by cutting the best promo of the trio:

"The show was actually scripted for [Rey] Mysterio vs. [Daniel] Bryan, as you could tell since they had a video building the match up produced. When I first saw that I was sure it was a work, because how could they have the video produced for a match if Mysterio was up for a different match. Then I found out that the show was fully scripted and Mysterio vs. Bryan was always planned. However, they also had booked a [Chris] Jericho vs. [Wade] Barrett match where Jericho was going over and a [CM] Punk vs. [Randy] Orton match with Punk going over.... Jericho and Barrett had completely worked out their match when in mid-show, they found out they were getting new opponents. Jericho and Punk had to put that match together in the short time between the announcement live on the air that Jericho got the match, and them actually having to go out later in the show."

Thus, when Y2J legitimately won the vote by 57% to The Viper's 30% and The Masked Maestro's 13%, instead of lying and making up new figures in their favour, WWE decided to go with their audience's desire and switched Jericho and Orton’s planned opponents.

Clearly, for this week at least, since WWE is believed to have rigged online voting before, Vince McMahon must have decided on a whim that the credibility of their WWE App poll was more important than sticking to his logical booking plans. Not that it matters much in the grand scheme of things, but it would have been better if Jericho hadn't lost his first singles match back and Barrett had faced someone else for a change.

Worst of all, the constant plugs for the WWE App and praise for those that used it to vote in the poll by Michael Cole and Jerry "The King" Lawler pissed off our usually mild mannered 'The General' Geno Mrosko. I don't know about you Cagesiders, but I for one can't stand for that!