'WWE Universe'

WWE's McMahon Million Dollar Mania competition ended up being a failure.

The idea behind this gimmick was to bring in new and bring back old viewers by having a mini game show within Monday Night Raw where Vince McMahon would call the lucky viewers who had registered with WWE.com.

The amount on offer ranged from two all the way up to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. By the end of the show the entire million had been used up in the giveaway.

There were a lot of hiccups throughout the segments. We saw Vince dial wrong numbers and have to correct himself, we heard a guy shocked that he won utter the words 'oh shit' and, the funniest of all, Vince McMahon ended up being 'Rick-rolled' live on TV not once, but twice.

I didn't know what the term 'Rick-rolled' meant until late yesterday afternoon but someone clued me in on the concept.

Apparently, to 'Rick-roll' someone you put a link into a message board thread or instant message session telling the other users that the link is something to do with the context of your discussion. The link, however, leads to the music video for Rick Astley's 'Never gonna give you up'. This prank is meant to have been going on across the Internet for years.

On Monday night, Vince called up the number and the man's answering hold service on the phone played that. He hung up and redialled only for the theme tune to be played again before the person answered.

The ratings came in last night and the show had drawn a 3.0 rating, a drop of 0.1 from last week.

I know where the company went wrong. They had one password - 'WWE Universe' - given out at the top of the show which was also available on their website. The entrants didn't even need to watch Raw to get the password.

If the WWE does decide to continue this giveaway, they should change the passwords throughout the whole show as a way to keep the people tuned in. Or, better yet, ask them a question about the match they just watched or something.

I don't even work in television and I know this idea makes the most sense!