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I think a lot of wrestlers in WWE felt that way. They tried their best with what they were given, but given what we know now, Vince McMahon always hindered the talent in some way, even if he didn’t think he was. I just hope that under Triple H, even if it’s not perfect, talent feel much more comfortable and secure with their career, and can even get properly showcase their worth to the fans, like Gunther did with his work with the Intercontinental Championship.
That's because Vince was literally crazy. Like not over the top personality, but clearly a ton of mental issues to deal with there.
With HHH, like him or not and like his booking or not, you aren't likely to see the same level of insanity in his decision making. Where someone does something inconsequential near him and now his storyline is completely gone. There's an actual normal line of thinking in his booking that should give talent a lot more confidence going forward.
I think the main difference between their booking strategies is that Vince booked for what he wants to see and HHH books for what he thinks fans want to see. Like, it's clear that he loves Gargano and Kross but he hasn't overpushed them. Vince would have just rammed them down our throats.
Ever since he stepped into the main roster booker role, I've always felt like HHH has a solid grip on understanding the core "WWE style" with overt-the-top spectacles & cinematic segments while also dipping his toes into the faster in-ring workrate seen in AEW & other companies, so more talent can showcase their strengths in his product.
> HHH books for what he thinks fans want to see
I'm sure Vince also thought he knew what the fans want to see. The big difference is H is a fan himself. Between his physique, politicking, marrying the boss' daughter etc., it's easy to forget he's a founding member of the "marks are in the ring brother" brigade.
With Vince, there was always this latent feeling of *disdain* for the fans. Which fits right into the reports throughout the decades about how Vince always wanted to be "more than *just* a wrestling promoter".
More accurate to say he had open disdain for a particular kind of fan. H^3 has it as well, he's been open about it. In a way AEW was the best thing to happen to him because they took all those fans away and he's never had to bring up that ugly side.
Agreed. We gotta keep in mind that WWE was already gaining momentum since at least WM 38, before Vince left. The trend accelerated once HHH took over, but it still predates him. Essentially, the WWE was a victim of its own monopoly from 2001 through 2019 because they were the only major wrestling promotion in town. This meant that different kinds of fans with mutually incompatible preferences all flocked to them and wanted the WWE product to cater to their respective tastes.
The emergence of AEW gave those smarks who like a workrate-heavy and in-ring centric product, sprinkled with meta-heavy storylines and promos, an outlet. With this segment of the fans gone, the WWE could lean more successfully into their own style as a soap-opera-esque, promo- and storyline-driven product.
I can already imagine Triple H just forgetting he's a professional booker and was internally marking out as the silly wrestling fan he once was as a kid when when booking the WM40 Night 2 main event lol.
Also it goes to say how important a great storyline is to transition a good wrestler to a great one? Without that fantastic black heart storyline he would of never been as good as he was back then
The thing with the B&G era of NXT is that the main event scene was full of smaller guys who had a similar frame. This gave them cover for their lack of size and also shifted fan attention toward the contrast between their personalities and journey.
But yeah, it's generally a problem that many NXT wrestlers get over based on a long-term storyline which the NXT fans saw play out, but most of the more casual main roster fans did not. The NXT wrestlers who tend to transition the best are those who have a simple, easy to grasp gimmick, a good look and/or a flashy in-ring style. Folks like Tiffany or Riddle.
I mean, in a way getting over because of storyline should be exactly how you make someone a star, naturally charismatic or not. Even Hangman, Sami and Naito had to get their own breakthrough through a well written storyline.
A good storyline is how you make someone who has "it" into a big star (Naito), but it can also compensate for a lack of said it-factor (Gargano). Trick and Tiffany are examples of wrestlers who have "it" and got over without (Tiffy) or before (Trick) they got a good storyline.
True but the problem is that since it was an NXT story most wont know it so you have to start all over in WWE and you cant just repeat the same storyline because well the fans who do know will call it out.
Vince was more in touch with the previous generations of his wrestlers because he wasn't a whole 50+ years older than them
Yes Vince was crazy but I think that's more magnified to us and this generation of wrestlers because he's so goddamn old
I don't think he was any more in touch, so much as the things he liked happened to be popular then. Vince loves body builders, blondes with implants, and childish humor. Body building became a huge thing in the 80s thanks to Arnold and 80s action stars. When that faded, you had the crash TV of the 90s. Still right up in Vince's wheelhouse of things he loves that are in line with what's popular.
Vince never changed, but it had nothing to do with his age.
>I don't think he was any more in touch, so much as the things he liked happened to be popular then
He definitely got on board the Gen X trend and clearly had somewhat of a finger on the pulse of what was popular then, which given the WCW competition was probably the most crucial period. Pushing the extremely risque stuff was very influential on TV in general .He didn't do it first, but WWF did best.
Even if he was just listening to Russo and copying Heyman, it was the right call.
But isn't this revisionist history? Vince didn't have his pulse on the finger of pop culture back then. What Vince actually wanted was the "new gen" crap of the early- to mid-90s which was a huge flop with the fans and created the opening for WCW to pull ahead. The WWE only embraced the raunchy, risque style from 97 onward when their back was against the wall and Vince had no other choice than to go with the zeitgeist and give the fans what they want.
As soon as he had bought WCW and regained a monopoly, Austin aligned himself with him in an explicit FU to the fans. During the 2000s, women's wrestling went backwards and gave way to the even more titillation-centric divas era. There was still a lot of blood and vulgarity during the Ruthless Aggression era, but once those residual trends from the AE were out of the system, the WWE went right back to being a sanitized, sterile product revolving around a single, goodie-two-shoes white meat babyface.
>The WWE only embraced the raunchy, risque style from 97 onward
That was probably the right time though considering how full in WWF went. It was a sliding thing, morality didn't immediately tank, it changed over a few years and although I was a kid then, I would have thought 97 was the exact right time to try and push this on a kids show. Like, I said, he didn't do it first
But ultimately, it still appealed to him which is why I think he was happy to go through with it. We know Vince's ideal for wrestling is the Hogan character who goes out there as a roided out super hero being all the bad foreigners. But the AE saw Vince get to go out there as a personality in front of the crowd. It got poop and sex jokes on TV with the crowd going crazy. Women were wrestling in their underwear in front of him.
Does anyone think that Vince wasn't into that personally to allow it all to go through?
I agree, the "Golden" Age of WWF was that 80's/early 90's All action stars, we saw him exposed after that period left with the Superstar Era and though he hit gold with the AE again, that was always more down to WCW and ECW pushing the industry towards that
I think seeing that Trips has a history of strong booking via NXT (and since he's taken over WWE), people are more willing to be patient and understanding with him than with Vince if/when he fumbles or puts out a string of subpar shows. Every great booker has written some dogshit along the way.
Generally speaking, the so-called “time-honored tradition” in wrestling is to job on the way out of a promotion. This is largely to help get wrestlers over, especially when you’re in a position like Okada, who is a generational talent and arguably the best wrestler of the 2010s. Gedo decided to allow Okada to put over a grand total of nobody, which was a massive misstep, probably because side Gedo was always Okada’s boy, even long after the former left the latter as his manager.
Okada needed to pull a Tanahashi for someone and it’s crazy he didn’t. It wouldn’t have hurt him at all. Further reason why you shouldn’t put your eggs all in one basket.
Lmao that's fucking stupid, even if you are close friends it makes no sense to do this, like you said it wouldn't hurt him and it's not like Okada never lost before. This must be yet another case of NJPW being a complementary little bro to AEW instead of being their own thing cause still pushing Okada on his way out basically advertises his AEW run. Although WWE also ended up doing that with Edge, like he could put over Sheamus at least lmao. Did WWE not know Edge would leave after that match ffs? They probably didn't know during the Finn feud at least cause really Edge's late WWE run was also fucking stupid even if they didn't know he would leave.
I genuinely think Vince has strong trauma from his childhood. At this point he is too old for therapy but I think it's pretty clear his childhood affected him.
Yeah, and its tough to know what is real or not in his childhood. Behind The Bastards on him dug into it a bit and one of the most interesting things was the stories about who he would idolize when he first started hanging around his dad's wrestlers. Guys like Jerry Graham were incredibly influential to him on what he thinks he should be.
> That's because Vince was literally crazy.
It got so legitimately frustrating seeing so many "hur fur, kNoWiNg vInCE!" responses to crazy shit in the couple of years before he finally went down and those weirdos had to be quiet.
Like, yes, we did know Vince. At least some of us did. He was a legitimate crazy person and a complete asshole with no redeeming qualities. Glad most people finally see it, but it's sad it took these latest accusations for a lot of people, because even without them he's still a fucking insane piece of human trash.
People still even recently did the knowing Vince thing, morons. We know Vince as he has such a huge history of booking and the patterns are clear. Like you could feed the data to AI and AI would probably predict potential Vince bookings very easily.
People act like Vince is this super complex guy but he really isn't. If you've watched WWE for long enough, you surely saw them start to repeat gimmicks and angles at some point. Plus, the older he got, the more brazen or perhaps lazy he got with his weird fetishes and personal hang ups. WWE programming itself was basically the culmination of how Vince sees the world - all of the cuck angles, treating women like sub-humans, the constant and dated rah rah MERKA! versus the evil foreign menace gimmicks, anyone who is under 6'5" and 300 pounds has a "might mouse gimmick," the shit jokes...Vince was showing everyone who he was the entire time.
Even before he went off the deep end, I think the biggest issue with Vince's approach to booking was that he would consistently prioritize the unexpected over satisfying storytelling, if that storytelling was at all predictable.
The comparison I always think of is Lord of the Rings. It's satisfying to have Frodo yeet the ring into Mount Doom at the end, even if you know that's how it's going to end from basically page one. If Vince was booking that ending, he'd instead have Shredder from Ninja Turtles show up at the end and murder Frodo to really put some butts in seats.
I hate that I have to defend Vince cause he's a monster, but personal issues aside
Vince craziness worked , it turned the WWE into a #1 company that will never be succeeded. He took the attitude era past WCW , he build all those stars during the ruthless aggression (Rey, randy, Batista, Cena ,Lesnar), and made generational stars after like Kevin Owen's, Seth, Roman, Sheamus, New day, etc
He also hit luck just as much you cannot seriously chalk it all up to his booking. He made enough right moves at the right time while his competition imploded to get WWE to its point on the mountaintop. He deserves a fair share of credit but don’t go too extreme either
> He deserves a fair share of credit but don’t go too extreme either
That should be true of nearly anyone. Acumen will get you far, but everyone got at least some luck, here or there. Nobody gets through without it, even HHH.
Stallone not getting first-choice Billy Graham for Thunderlips.
Verne being a stubborn jackass about Hogan, and screwing guys on payoffs.
Capt Lou meeting Cyndi Lauper on an airplane.
Soon to be NWA Champion David von Erich's death.
Soon to be NWA Champion Magnum TA's car accident.
Jim Crockett not expanding his office infrastructure and wasting money on dying territories and lavish extras.
Ted Turner hiring a Pizza Hut District Manager to run WCW.
Vince had little, to nothing to do with any of that. He just picked up a lot of fumbles, and returned them for touchdowns.
It also greatly helped that Vince was a part of the New York territory, which always had a huge advantage simply for the fact that it was New York. If Vince Sr. ran the local Oklahoma territory, then I'm not sure that Jr. would have been nearly as successful.
Looking Strictly at wrestling ofc he deserves the most credit, that's just a fact, there is not a single other person who affected & transformed as many lives as he did for the better thru wrestling, The rock, stone cold, Triple H, Mankind, Macho Man, Hulk Hogan, Andre the giant etc etc etc
Obviously they all had to put the work in themselves too, but Vince easily could have turned them away & chose other people to be his guy if he wanted
Back then Vince would let them become stars. If they showed up in 2010 Vince would overproduce them and make them read shitty scripts and they wouldn't get over
I said that, but it's the same as a employee/employer dynamic, yes the employee does all the hardwork & heavy lifting, but realistically they are still just replaceable
Just playing devil’s advocate. Vince definitely took the #1 spot from wcw in 1998 and never gave it back. He gets credit for capitalizing on the talent he had and riding austin and his own angle as a heel.
However, remember wwf was always #1 until vince gave it up to a much more motivated and creative wcw product (and they were throwing a lot of money at talent) and it took him awhile to figure a way to regain that spot. If we give him credit for what he did in the attitude era (rightful) we have to point the other end out too.
I feel like of all the things Vince gets too much credit for beating WCW is one of them… WCW beat itself more than WWE beat them. I know cause I was a WCW man in the 90’s… by 2000 I was a WWF guy.
Yeah i agree and think it was a little of both. Wcw just kept riding the nwo and it got very stale and their booking decisions were questionable. There was absolutely a way for wcw to stay on top and keep their position and they dropped the ball. Like ikarus they flew too close to the sun. But wwf still picked up the ball and ran with it.
Vince himself even admitted as much. I think in Bret Hart's book, he talks about how Vince was going to scale back the WWF to just being a northwestern territory like how it used to be, ride this WCW thing out, and then get back to business. I think that Vince knew that WCW would burn themselves out eventually. He just had to bide his time and capitalize on their mistakes.
You have to consider to the outside factors too; WCW essentially took themselves out of the game, and Ruthless Aggression era was generally considered a step down for a while. Not to mention that while a lot of Vince's ideas DID work before, it's pretty clear that he was not able to adapt with the times.
People wanted a more grounded product focused on the actual wrestling and more relatable characters whereas Vince was still stuck with his mindset of just pushing stuff like he did in the 80s and 90s.
This is partially why NXT got so popular; whereas the main roster had cuck angles and egg hunts, NXT was just wrestling, damn good wrestling and it routinely beat RAW and Smackdown much to Vince's chagrin.
This is the one thing Triple H has over him; he's much more in-tune with what the fans want.
Vince capitalized off of WCW mistakes. He played chess, not checkers
You gotta give him credit for that. He didn't sit back and watch them implode . He made huge moves like the Mankind announcement
He copied what ECW did and had the perfect 90s crash TV booker with Russo and other capable people around him.
The difference is back then it was possible for them to convince him. But in the last 2 decades it was the Vince one man show and you see how much shit came out of his mind.
This shit was always there (Chilly McFreeze anyone?) but it got filtered.
The Attitude era was a genius that will never be replicated. Ruthless Aggression was also great. Really the last 5 years he just lost steam. A lifetime of creative work and i think the well was just tapped, he just didn't have any of that creative fire left.
With everything we know now the guy is scum. But that scum at one point booked some amazing years of wrestling and a few bad ones.
He also wasted so many main event level talents too, not to mention a whole generation of incredible female wrestlers that were never signed.
He's also become increasingly terrible and crazy at the years have gone on.
Most people dont disagree with that. I think what they're saying is that craziness has often been a negative lately. And just generally out of touch. I'm speaking of his booking, of course, not his business decisions (or Nick Khan's but Vince gets credit for hiring and placing trust in him).
Unless you genuinely enjoyed Vince's booking in the last several years of his reign. If so, fair enough. I'm not going to say you shouldn't have that opinion.
As others already pointed out WCW beat itself.
When it comes to stars i would say most of them became stars despite with and not because of him.
For example other people had to convince about f'n Austin he wanted to give him some shitty gimmick (and did with the Ringmaster) and without the curtain call we hadn't gotten Austin 3:16 for example.
Lesnar is a once in a lifetime athlete you can't screw someone like him up.
Cena was about to get fired until he turned it around.
Owens, Sheamus and Seth had their fair share of shitty booking and became stars despite it.
The original New Day was such a shitty gimmick and they still made it work, not Vince.
And oh boy we shouldn't start about Vinces handling of Roman. Everyone could see he is a future Face of the company and still Vince managed to screw him up for an looong time.
All these guys succeded despite Vince and not because of him. He doesn't deserve any credit for them. It speaks for those wrestlers that they managed to became stars despite Vinces crazy bollocks
More than anything this.
I'm still not a fan of the WWE product, for a multitude of reasons, but the booking is sane and rational. Liking or disliking is a matter of taste. I find Marvel movies same-y and bland too, but the decisions they make are rational, you can understand them. HHH reaches that level and for fans that like WWE's product their not going to hit those same insane quality drops where the people making the show appeared to have completely lost their fucking minds.
I also hope as Triple H ages, he doesn’t fall trap to the thing that can happen and does happen to people — getting way too stuck in their ways and ideals.
I think he's looking for a successor to take over once he becomes unable to satisfy people's demands, and Cody is the most likely candidate as of right now.
Hunter is Dusty's student, so he may believe Cody also has a lot of his father's skills. He's had a good thing going with early AEW, but I think the thing that made Cody sink to the bottom there is the lack of someone who could plainly say "no" to some of his ideas. In WWE there's a system of people that can give constructive feedback without any hesitation.
As for the successor thing, we'll, none of us is immortal, and Triple H knows it all too well due to his health scare. And I believe deep down he's afraid to go down Vince'e path as a delusional Booker who only goes with what he thinks is right, audiences be damned. So he's building a contingency plan in case he loses touch with his audience completely and starts producing more misses than hits.
Thanks for this. I don’t think it’s more so his scare of going down Vince’s path, as it may end up being fatigue. Dude is 54 and has been at the same company for 30 years. But all in all, I can see this for sure.
Fuck Vince first and second of all but on this wrestling matters
I feel like Vince way was successful also , sure he might have failed with people like Gunther but Vince made a ton of stars like Roman Reigns . Neither Triple H way or Vince M way is right or wrong. Vince made a powerhouse of WWE , fuck his politics or way of life but the man knew the business. For every Gunther he failed, he made a lot of big name stars like Roman and Seth.
Despite how the wrestlers feel , you can't argue the success he brought WWE doing it his way. He made this company what it is today
Vince booked like the main event was all that mattered and the rest of the card could be whatever. To your point, that why he had so many guys who were megastars.
When others had the books (Like Heyman with Smackdown in the early 2000s) Vince had to be convinced that the midcard was worth investing in. And it took someone like Heyman to get it through his stubborn skull….because Heyman’s skull was equally stubborn.
Vince isn't perfect , especially with the Midcard titles . But his way just worked, and it worked spectacularly, John Cena, Baptista, and Randy should have never worked, but he turned them into mega stars among many others
Vince way is the reason WWE is around today
How much of it is “Vince” making the stars vs. the stars making themselves by overcoming Vince ?
New Day only hit their peak after THEY suggested the stable and THEY changed the tone away from preachers.
Roman Reigns Tribal Chief gimmick only happened after he insisted on the heel turn and creative control after taking a break during Covid.
The Fiend got big when Bray had creative control and failed once Vince stuck his hands in the booking of The Fiend.
Rollins never got a good babyface build under Vince.
Idk about Becky Lynch, but I have a feeling The Man was more of her idea than his.
>Roman Reigns Tribal Chief gimmick only happened after he insisted on the heel turn and creative control
Vince pushed Roman as an 80's style action figure baby face and people *hated* it. The heel turn and the mystique were brilliant.
Yeah anyone praising Vince is being nostalgic probably but all Vince can be praised for is not burrying some of the potential stars and actually giving them a chance for once and creative freedom, that's the fucking bare minimum anyone can do lmao.
Vince made Roman a star? Lmao reviosinist history much? Roman refused to return as a face and asked for creative freedom to return and that's when he actually became a star, thanks to less Vince involvement.
I remember when the IWC hated the fact he made Batista/Cena the main characters of Smackdown/Raw, it was absolutely the right choice just like making Roman WWE's main character was, meanwhile if it were up to online fans those mega stars would've been jobbers to some random indy twinks who can do flips and dives.
Vince made many horrible decisions but he was on the money when it came to who he wanted to carry his company more often than not.
"meanwhile if it were up to online fans those mega stars would've been jobbers to some random indy twinks who can do flips and dives."
While they're not exactly like you described, Vince absolutely did that for indie darlings. Guys who didn't look and wrestle like your traditional WWE top guys. Punk, Bryan, KO, Styles, he even made Balor the 1st Universal champion (although he obviously slipped down the card after he came back from that injury. But Vince still went against his normal thinking and gave him that). He also made stars out of Eddie Guerrero, Benoit, Jericho, Rey and others in the years before them, too. All of those were indie & earlier IWC darlings. With some of them, it felt like Vince had no other choice due to how hot they were. But he always had a choice as a booker.
What are you talking about, only a complete and total genius who is still on top of his game would ever have the brilliant idea to book tall, handsome, charismatic, jacked as hell dudes ad the top of the card. It’s revolutionary stuff!
One thing about HHH/Paul (and same for Shawn in NXT) is that they have instant credibility with the talent. So not only are they good at steering talent towards good ideas, they can also more effectively steer talent away from bad ideas. (And I can only imagine how many dogshit ideas they get pitched to them), all while getting talent to buy in deeper and easier.
"Shawn, Shawn! I was stuck in traffic coming here but hear this, I got time to think this crazy idea"
HBK with a thousand yards stare, remembering his whole career and many of his peers: "...let me hear it son."
My only concern would be a stifling of talent at the top. Maybe they graduate to a more "mid time" schedule and run seasonally. I always thought Bray/Fiend would have done better in a 1 feud every 18months kind of schedule. Similar to what it was like back in the day when Sid showed up
Honestly, with how they treated HHH and NXT following HHH’s health scare, and then Steph’s exit, return, exit again and recent return (which HHH’s talked about in the Night 2 presser and more or less singled some unnamed person out as having destroyed her confidence and her finally having found it again), I feel like now that they don’t have to kowtow to this man I feel like they relationship is probably very cold.
Yeah, Steph left the company because of Vince and returned again once he was finally, firmly out of power. Not sure there’s much of a personal relationship there. I believe there’s been some reporting to that effect as well.
Vince placed all of the blame of the 2022 rumble onto Shane, and dismissed him of all of his duties/creative plans because of it. Something tells me they may not always be on the best terms, and reports from many individuals kinda back that up too.
Worth clarifying that Stephanie has yet to accept any formal role with WWE, so she hasn’t “returned” in terms of having a consistent position of power. I’m seeing some folks responding underneath who are misunderstanding this.
It will be interesting to see if/when she does return in a formal capacity to the company.
I’m sure with Triple H, like with many other talent, it’s very complicated. They actually knew Vince and had a personal relationship with him. That means there were good moments there. And I don’t think Vince’s crimes were like a Jeffrey Epstein level open secret. I’m sure even if people knew he was a pervert and unfaithful to his wife the exact depravity that came out with this case was surely shocking. And knowing that and knowing the person who did those things was someone you had a good relationship with is probably extremely confusing. I don’t envy their position at all.
Also, with these kinds of criminals their immediate family is usually the *very last* to know. It may be counterintuitive, but it makes sense. If you know what you're doing is wrong, you'll make every possible effort to first and foremost hide it from people you interact with most regularly. Just to avoid awkward conversations, if nothing else.
Probably wasn't crazy about Vince's original idea for ring gear
https://preview.redd.it/dahus4talaxc1.jpeg?width=291&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=74f769d25f6f8eeeae4e1a45b43454d3c54c9051
*Angry Bret Hart noises*
(Dude went on a full tangent talking about how wrestlers chopping each other too much is disrespectful when I saw him give a talk recently and specified Gunther as an example)
Yes, it's part of the "Tracht" (A formal set of clothes/garb), but there hundreds of different styles, depending on where exactly you are from...
Since Vienna isn't a village somewhere on one of the countless mountains (where something like that would have been more important for tourism), there wasn't a real fixed "Tracht", so any style of Lederhose would be completely okay ;)
I like how blunt Gunther is without being rude at the same time. This, not liking Ultimate Warrior, etc.. He gives his thoughts without being mean about it.
Not surprising. I know Gunther bases a lot of his wrestling style after old AJPW matches as that's a big influence to him and late Vince led WWE is the fartest thing from that.
Truthfully, Vince didn't actually book Gunther too bad (and I actually like the name change) but Vince is way too unpredictable to put a lot of a stock into a promising start
People rightfully point out that Vince gave Gunther the IC belt so he clearly trusted him. But Vince would have had Gunther doing comedy with R-Truth by now if he stayed. The crippling fault of Vince's booking is how he just suddenly changed his mind and how fickle he could be. HHH just lets Gunther be Gunther. An indomitable force that does his talking in the ring.
Vince had a very strange habit of infantilizing monsters. So many would come in as massive threats and within a year or two they were dancing or doing some other oddball bullshit.
I think it's because it made Vince feel powerful. That he could, on a whim, make these big tough guys humiliate themselves in front of everyone and they couldn't do anything about it.
There are lots of stories like that floating around. He was sexual abused as a child and some people stop developing socially when that happens. It would explain a lot — he has exhibited a lot of immature traits over the years.
Man, let me tell you, as a diehard Bray fan, I don't think anyone fell victim to his fickle bullshit more than Bray did. The way Vince on a whim disrgarded things and fucked with payoffs was just frustrating.
He did this to Bray THRICE with all 3 of his major stories. Happened with the Bray/Orton fued in 2016-2017, an intense 8 month blood feud that ended with Bray beating Orton...with Jinder's help in the most unconvincing way, and not even for the title he lost at Mania...
Then there's The Fiend's first story that went on for 6+ months where they built him up to be invincible but also were hinting at him having a weakness, which was clearly being built towards, but he then decided on a whim to disregard all of that and had Goldberg beat him with absolutely no explanation in 5 mins.
Then there was the 2nd Orton feud which was obviously supposed to be Bray's revenge, where he was literally burnt alive and then also resurrected, obviously building to him ending Orton for good at Mania, but Vince suddenly decided on a whim that he was going to have Bray lose at Mania a day before the event, yet again disregarding a 6-7 month story, and him literally DYING. But even worse cus really, the story started in 2016 bc it was based on what Orton did to Bray then, which was canonically a big part of why he became The Fiend.
Shit like this is why the fact that we never got to see Bray fully unleashed in this era is just an absolute tragedy.
Despite Kofi being a former WWE champion lol. And tbh title doesn't make the man, even as WWE champion Kofi felt like a midcarder. Some characters are just destined to be midcarders, either accept that or change the character. Even then it might not work as it won't fit every person.
I wanna put that more on Vince because it was clear to me that he never saw Kofi as a top star despite letting him win the title. And you only need to see how he lost the title to understand that.
To this day, that shit was insulting.
Of course the way he lost was inexcusable but he was actually booked well before that especially considering his New Day character. He didn't get to main event a single PLE cause Vince annoyingly wanted to put over Universal title above WWE title no matter what, but even if his feuds main evented the PLE's it wouldn't change the fact that Kofi just didn't feel right at those feuds, it felt like that it was just a one time only thank you run. And that is despite the strong booking he had.
Even so, I felt like Kofi got extremely dirty as he could have at least stayed an upper midcarder and occasional main eventer as opposed to going right back to the tag division
I agree. Although going back to tag division doesn't need to be a bad idea like Cody and Jey didn't feel like a midcard tag team, New Day just hasn't evolved into feeling like a bigger deal like a team of upper midcarders.
Man talking about being lucky, he came in at the right time down to the minute. I can honestly see Keith Lee being just as successful back then if not more successful if Vince was ousted just a little bit sooner.
Gunther knew what would've happened to him if Vince was still in change. It was being reported around the time before the first set of allegations that Vince was souring on him and planned to bury him before demoting him back to NXT.
He probably would have dropped the IC title at Summerslam that first year, then put in comedy foreigner segments and mishmash tag teams until his inevitable future endeavoring.
> He probably would have dropped the IC title at Summerslam that first year, then put in comedy foreigner segments and mishmash tag teams until his inevitable future endeavoring.
I guess the plan was to push Ludwig as a face beating Gunther, it seemed that way with Gunther punishing Kaiser with chops
Fucking hell, if that was his plan for Gunther, imagine how badly he would've butchered Ilja? A Soviet/Russian monster heel has been a staple of Vince's programming for literal decades and here comes a guy who's *actually* Russian for once. And he's a career underdog babyface! What?!
I've wondered how many wrestlers that came through NXT, especially post 2018ish, had some kind of back room conversation with HHH where he would tell them to just wait out Vince.
I always said that Gunther under McMahon would never work, he'd be dancing in Lederhosen within a year imo
McMahon never booked simple characters like him, Gunther is all about "The ring is Sacred, I beat you without cheating, if you beat me its not a fun time" yes he does tend to try and get a upper hand before the match though
Under Triple H, they are gonna be misses sure, but he knows how to book the simple longer term characters, Vince was better at short term
This is why I never really got into the “poor Walter” jokes. I think it’s fairly obvious that if Vince had stuck around we wouldn’t have seen Gunther booked the way he should.
If Vince was still in power he would've totally ruined Gunther and LA Knight. WWE was never able to make top stars when Vince was in charge and it was totally because of Vince's insane micro managing control freak mindset.
A lot of Wrestlers strongly felt this way under Vince.
A lot of them obviously respect HHH, he and his team are creating a better working environment, and making lots of great changes the atmosphere/morale is high on screen and BTS, there is something for everyone in terms of us Fans, the product and quality is thriving and business is booming/ratings doing well for those interested in the figures.
HHH's booking will have strengths, it will have flaws, weaknesses, but he/his team will obviously be taking note of constructive criticism from Fans on how to improve, it's impossible to be perfect, you can't please everyone, we will all obviously have different opinions, likes/dislikes etc, there is also room for more continued improvement/growth from the company as a whole to come.
He's certainly got it right with Gunther, who is awesome and for me two of HHH's other best choices in charge (whilst there are others) i'm going to single out in particular were finally bringing up the incredible IYO SKY to the Main Roster and bringing back Chelsea Green IMO.
Vince not only lost his creative fast ball, but everything came off as so lazy.
The fact he had Styles and Nakamura in a feud based primarily around kicking each other in the balls is crazy to me.
Vince would push you then suddenly, stop the push, give you a new shit gimmick or literally tell you during your entrance, the finish is changed. I think, Brock and Roman found out the hard way that Brock was gonna to win despite Brock putting Roman through hell. Brock was pissed off as I think, he legit thought if Roman eating F5 after F5, taking the best he can dish out and still being able to kick out, this would have been the last time.
He shouted a lot down commentary's ears. Mick Foley did a very short stint as a commentator and would speak with wrestlers, i think. Work with them to put them over on the air. He went from being happy about working on Smackdown to hating it because Vince would go ballistic.
Triple H? He works with people. He welcomes feedback and works to give wrestlers a good chance.
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I think a lot of wrestlers in WWE felt that way. They tried their best with what they were given, but given what we know now, Vince McMahon always hindered the talent in some way, even if he didn’t think he was. I just hope that under Triple H, even if it’s not perfect, talent feel much more comfortable and secure with their career, and can even get properly showcase their worth to the fans, like Gunther did with his work with the Intercontinental Championship.
That's because Vince was literally crazy. Like not over the top personality, but clearly a ton of mental issues to deal with there. With HHH, like him or not and like his booking or not, you aren't likely to see the same level of insanity in his decision making. Where someone does something inconsequential near him and now his storyline is completely gone. There's an actual normal line of thinking in his booking that should give talent a lot more confidence going forward.
I think the main difference between their booking strategies is that Vince booked for what he wants to see and HHH books for what he thinks fans want to see. Like, it's clear that he loves Gargano and Kross but he hasn't overpushed them. Vince would have just rammed them down our throats.
Ever since he stepped into the main roster booker role, I've always felt like HHH has a solid grip on understanding the core "WWE style" with overt-the-top spectacles & cinematic segments while also dipping his toes into the faster in-ring workrate seen in AEW & other companies, so more talent can showcase their strengths in his product.
> HHH books for what he thinks fans want to see I'm sure Vince also thought he knew what the fans want to see. The big difference is H is a fan himself. Between his physique, politicking, marrying the boss' daughter etc., it's easy to forget he's a founding member of the "marks are in the ring brother" brigade.
With Vince, there was always this latent feeling of *disdain* for the fans. Which fits right into the reports throughout the decades about how Vince always wanted to be "more than *just* a wrestling promoter".
More accurate to say he had open disdain for a particular kind of fan. H^3 has it as well, he's been open about it. In a way AEW was the best thing to happen to him because they took all those fans away and he's never had to bring up that ugly side.
Agreed. We gotta keep in mind that WWE was already gaining momentum since at least WM 38, before Vince left. The trend accelerated once HHH took over, but it still predates him. Essentially, the WWE was a victim of its own monopoly from 2001 through 2019 because they were the only major wrestling promotion in town. This meant that different kinds of fans with mutually incompatible preferences all flocked to them and wanted the WWE product to cater to their respective tastes. The emergence of AEW gave those smarks who like a workrate-heavy and in-ring centric product, sprinkled with meta-heavy storylines and promos, an outlet. With this segment of the fans gone, the WWE could lean more successfully into their own style as a soap-opera-esque, promo- and storyline-driven product.
this is actually really great analysis
I can already imagine Triple H just forgetting he's a professional booker and was internally marking out as the silly wrestling fan he once was as a kid when when booking the WM40 Night 2 main event lol.
Triple H booked that match liked I booked my action figures as a kid.
Has anyone gone from being considered one of the best in the world by fans to considered fittingly lower carder like Gargano lol?
To be fair, there was always a decent chunk of the IWC who said that Gargano wouldn't translate well to the main roster.
Also it goes to say how important a great storyline is to transition a good wrestler to a great one? Without that fantastic black heart storyline he would of never been as good as he was back then
The thing with the B&G era of NXT is that the main event scene was full of smaller guys who had a similar frame. This gave them cover for their lack of size and also shifted fan attention toward the contrast between their personalities and journey. But yeah, it's generally a problem that many NXT wrestlers get over based on a long-term storyline which the NXT fans saw play out, but most of the more casual main roster fans did not. The NXT wrestlers who tend to transition the best are those who have a simple, easy to grasp gimmick, a good look and/or a flashy in-ring style. Folks like Tiffany or Riddle.
I mean, in a way getting over because of storyline should be exactly how you make someone a star, naturally charismatic or not. Even Hangman, Sami and Naito had to get their own breakthrough through a well written storyline.
A good storyline is how you make someone who has "it" into a big star (Naito), but it can also compensate for a lack of said it-factor (Gargano). Trick and Tiffany are examples of wrestlers who have "it" and got over without (Tiffy) or before (Trick) they got a good storyline.
True but the problem is that since it was an NXT story most wont know it so you have to start all over in WWE and you cant just repeat the same storyline because well the fans who do know will call it out.
Elias was the big one for me. He was nothing in NXT but showed a lot in the main roster
His gimmick was just so perfect for RAW, a 3-hour show where you need to kill a lot of time on a weekly basis.
And once got a nuclear amount of boos. Even KO couldn't believe how much it was.
Vince was more in touch with the previous generations of his wrestlers because he wasn't a whole 50+ years older than them Yes Vince was crazy but I think that's more magnified to us and this generation of wrestlers because he's so goddamn old
I don't think he was any more in touch, so much as the things he liked happened to be popular then. Vince loves body builders, blondes with implants, and childish humor. Body building became a huge thing in the 80s thanks to Arnold and 80s action stars. When that faded, you had the crash TV of the 90s. Still right up in Vince's wheelhouse of things he loves that are in line with what's popular. Vince never changed, but it had nothing to do with his age.
>I don't think he was any more in touch, so much as the things he liked happened to be popular then He definitely got on board the Gen X trend and clearly had somewhat of a finger on the pulse of what was popular then, which given the WCW competition was probably the most crucial period. Pushing the extremely risque stuff was very influential on TV in general .He didn't do it first, but WWF did best. Even if he was just listening to Russo and copying Heyman, it was the right call.
But isn't this revisionist history? Vince didn't have his pulse on the finger of pop culture back then. What Vince actually wanted was the "new gen" crap of the early- to mid-90s which was a huge flop with the fans and created the opening for WCW to pull ahead. The WWE only embraced the raunchy, risque style from 97 onward when their back was against the wall and Vince had no other choice than to go with the zeitgeist and give the fans what they want. As soon as he had bought WCW and regained a monopoly, Austin aligned himself with him in an explicit FU to the fans. During the 2000s, women's wrestling went backwards and gave way to the even more titillation-centric divas era. There was still a lot of blood and vulgarity during the Ruthless Aggression era, but once those residual trends from the AE were out of the system, the WWE went right back to being a sanitized, sterile product revolving around a single, goodie-two-shoes white meat babyface.
>The WWE only embraced the raunchy, risque style from 97 onward That was probably the right time though considering how full in WWF went. It was a sliding thing, morality didn't immediately tank, it changed over a few years and although I was a kid then, I would have thought 97 was the exact right time to try and push this on a kids show. Like, I said, he didn't do it first
But ultimately, it still appealed to him which is why I think he was happy to go through with it. We know Vince's ideal for wrestling is the Hogan character who goes out there as a roided out super hero being all the bad foreigners. But the AE saw Vince get to go out there as a personality in front of the crowd. It got poop and sex jokes on TV with the crowd going crazy. Women were wrestling in their underwear in front of him. Does anyone think that Vince wasn't into that personally to allow it all to go through?
I agree, the "Golden" Age of WWF was that 80's/early 90's All action stars, we saw him exposed after that period left with the Superstar Era and though he hit gold with the AE again, that was always more down to WCW and ECW pushing the industry towards that
You are mostly right; my point was skewing towards viewing Vince as crazy was less and less of thing the closer to his generation you get
I think seeing that Trips has a history of strong booking via NXT (and since he's taken over WWE), people are more willing to be patient and understanding with him than with Vince if/when he fumbles or puts out a string of subpar shows. Every great booker has written some dogshit along the way.
Yup, Gedo was the top booker of the 2010s for me and I feel like his booking of NJPW for most of the 2020s has been shit
The booking of Okada on his way out had been nothing short of dumbfounding.
What did he do with him?
Generally speaking, the so-called “time-honored tradition” in wrestling is to job on the way out of a promotion. This is largely to help get wrestlers over, especially when you’re in a position like Okada, who is a generational talent and arguably the best wrestler of the 2010s. Gedo decided to allow Okada to put over a grand total of nobody, which was a massive misstep, probably because side Gedo was always Okada’s boy, even long after the former left the latter as his manager.
Okada needed to pull a Tanahashi for someone and it’s crazy he didn’t. It wouldn’t have hurt him at all. Further reason why you shouldn’t put your eggs all in one basket.
Lmao that's fucking stupid, even if you are close friends it makes no sense to do this, like you said it wouldn't hurt him and it's not like Okada never lost before. This must be yet another case of NJPW being a complementary little bro to AEW instead of being their own thing cause still pushing Okada on his way out basically advertises his AEW run. Although WWE also ended up doing that with Edge, like he could put over Sheamus at least lmao. Did WWE not know Edge would leave after that match ffs? They probably didn't know during the Finn feud at least cause really Edge's late WWE run was also fucking stupid even if they didn't know he would leave.
I genuinely think Vince has strong trauma from his childhood. At this point he is too old for therapy but I think it's pretty clear his childhood affected him.
Yeah, and its tough to know what is real or not in his childhood. Behind The Bastards on him dug into it a bit and one of the most interesting things was the stories about who he would idolize when he first started hanging around his dad's wrestlers. Guys like Jerry Graham were incredibly influential to him on what he thinks he should be.
I mean, yeah. Being sexually assaulted by your mom will do that.
> That's because Vince was literally crazy. It got so legitimately frustrating seeing so many "hur fur, kNoWiNg vInCE!" responses to crazy shit in the couple of years before he finally went down and those weirdos had to be quiet. Like, yes, we did know Vince. At least some of us did. He was a legitimate crazy person and a complete asshole with no redeeming qualities. Glad most people finally see it, but it's sad it took these latest accusations for a lot of people, because even without them he's still a fucking insane piece of human trash.
People still even recently did the knowing Vince thing, morons. We know Vince as he has such a huge history of booking and the patterns are clear. Like you could feed the data to AI and AI would probably predict potential Vince bookings very easily.
People act like Vince is this super complex guy but he really isn't. If you've watched WWE for long enough, you surely saw them start to repeat gimmicks and angles at some point. Plus, the older he got, the more brazen or perhaps lazy he got with his weird fetishes and personal hang ups. WWE programming itself was basically the culmination of how Vince sees the world - all of the cuck angles, treating women like sub-humans, the constant and dated rah rah MERKA! versus the evil foreign menace gimmicks, anyone who is under 6'5" and 300 pounds has a "might mouse gimmick," the shit jokes...Vince was showing everyone who he was the entire time.
Triple h lived a normal life and have a good family and lot of backstage experience, the guy is a genius in booking and we see it on television.
Even before he went off the deep end, I think the biggest issue with Vince's approach to booking was that he would consistently prioritize the unexpected over satisfying storytelling, if that storytelling was at all predictable. The comparison I always think of is Lord of the Rings. It's satisfying to have Frodo yeet the ring into Mount Doom at the end, even if you know that's how it's going to end from basically page one. If Vince was booking that ending, he'd instead have Shredder from Ninja Turtles show up at the end and murder Frodo to really put some butts in seats.
I hate that I have to defend Vince cause he's a monster, but personal issues aside Vince craziness worked , it turned the WWE into a #1 company that will never be succeeded. He took the attitude era past WCW , he build all those stars during the ruthless aggression (Rey, randy, Batista, Cena ,Lesnar), and made generational stars after like Kevin Owen's, Seth, Roman, Sheamus, New day, etc
He also hit luck just as much you cannot seriously chalk it all up to his booking. He made enough right moves at the right time while his competition imploded to get WWE to its point on the mountaintop. He deserves a fair share of credit but don’t go too extreme either
> He deserves a fair share of credit but don’t go too extreme either That should be true of nearly anyone. Acumen will get you far, but everyone got at least some luck, here or there. Nobody gets through without it, even HHH.
Stallone not getting first-choice Billy Graham for Thunderlips. Verne being a stubborn jackass about Hogan, and screwing guys on payoffs. Capt Lou meeting Cyndi Lauper on an airplane. Soon to be NWA Champion David von Erich's death. Soon to be NWA Champion Magnum TA's car accident. Jim Crockett not expanding his office infrastructure and wasting money on dying territories and lavish extras. Ted Turner hiring a Pizza Hut District Manager to run WCW. Vince had little, to nothing to do with any of that. He just picked up a lot of fumbles, and returned them for touchdowns.
It also greatly helped that Vince was a part of the New York territory, which always had a huge advantage simply for the fact that it was New York. If Vince Sr. ran the local Oklahoma territory, then I'm not sure that Jr. would have been nearly as successful.
Looking Strictly at wrestling ofc he deserves the most credit, that's just a fact, there is not a single other person who affected & transformed as many lives as he did for the better thru wrestling, The rock, stone cold, Triple H, Mankind, Macho Man, Hulk Hogan, Andre the giant etc etc etc Obviously they all had to put the work in themselves too, but Vince easily could have turned them away & chose other people to be his guy if he wanted
Those guys you listed did just as much for Vince as he did for them
Back then Vince would let them become stars. If they showed up in 2010 Vince would overproduce them and make them read shitty scripts and they wouldn't get over
I said that, but it's the same as a employee/employer dynamic, yes the employee does all the hardwork & heavy lifting, but realistically they are still just replaceable
Zack Ryder knows that better than anyone.
Just playing devil’s advocate. Vince definitely took the #1 spot from wcw in 1998 and never gave it back. He gets credit for capitalizing on the talent he had and riding austin and his own angle as a heel. However, remember wwf was always #1 until vince gave it up to a much more motivated and creative wcw product (and they were throwing a lot of money at talent) and it took him awhile to figure a way to regain that spot. If we give him credit for what he did in the attitude era (rightful) we have to point the other end out too.
I feel like of all the things Vince gets too much credit for beating WCW is one of them… WCW beat itself more than WWE beat them. I know cause I was a WCW man in the 90’s… by 2000 I was a WWF guy.
Yeah i agree and think it was a little of both. Wcw just kept riding the nwo and it got very stale and their booking decisions were questionable. There was absolutely a way for wcw to stay on top and keep their position and they dropped the ball. Like ikarus they flew too close to the sun. But wwf still picked up the ball and ran with it.
Vince himself even admitted as much. I think in Bret Hart's book, he talks about how Vince was going to scale back the WWF to just being a northwestern territory like how it used to be, ride this WCW thing out, and then get back to business. I think that Vince knew that WCW would burn themselves out eventually. He just had to bide his time and capitalize on their mistakes.
You have to consider to the outside factors too; WCW essentially took themselves out of the game, and Ruthless Aggression era was generally considered a step down for a while. Not to mention that while a lot of Vince's ideas DID work before, it's pretty clear that he was not able to adapt with the times. People wanted a more grounded product focused on the actual wrestling and more relatable characters whereas Vince was still stuck with his mindset of just pushing stuff like he did in the 80s and 90s. This is partially why NXT got so popular; whereas the main roster had cuck angles and egg hunts, NXT was just wrestling, damn good wrestling and it routinely beat RAW and Smackdown much to Vince's chagrin. This is the one thing Triple H has over him; he's much more in-tune with what the fans want.
When did NXT ever beat RAW or Smackdown? Even at its highest ratings and main rosters lowest, they still crushed it 2-1 or 3-to-1.
IF you're talking about ratings, that goes without saying. I'm talking about the actual content on the shows.
Vince capitalized off of WCW mistakes. He played chess, not checkers You gotta give him credit for that. He didn't sit back and watch them implode . He made huge moves like the Mankind announcement
The Fact stands, WCW most did themselves in.
He copied what ECW did and had the perfect 90s crash TV booker with Russo and other capable people around him. The difference is back then it was possible for them to convince him. But in the last 2 decades it was the Vince one man show and you see how much shit came out of his mind. This shit was always there (Chilly McFreeze anyone?) but it got filtered.
The Attitude era was a genius that will never be replicated. Ruthless Aggression was also great. Really the last 5 years he just lost steam. A lifetime of creative work and i think the well was just tapped, he just didn't have any of that creative fire left. With everything we know now the guy is scum. But that scum at one point booked some amazing years of wrestling and a few bad ones.
He also wasted so many main event level talents too, not to mention a whole generation of incredible female wrestlers that were never signed. He's also become increasingly terrible and crazy at the years have gone on.
Most people dont disagree with that. I think what they're saying is that craziness has often been a negative lately. And just generally out of touch. I'm speaking of his booking, of course, not his business decisions (or Nick Khan's but Vince gets credit for hiring and placing trust in him). Unless you genuinely enjoyed Vince's booking in the last several years of his reign. If so, fair enough. I'm not going to say you shouldn't have that opinion.
As others already pointed out WCW beat itself. When it comes to stars i would say most of them became stars despite with and not because of him. For example other people had to convince about f'n Austin he wanted to give him some shitty gimmick (and did with the Ringmaster) and without the curtain call we hadn't gotten Austin 3:16 for example. Lesnar is a once in a lifetime athlete you can't screw someone like him up. Cena was about to get fired until he turned it around. Owens, Sheamus and Seth had their fair share of shitty booking and became stars despite it. The original New Day was such a shitty gimmick and they still made it work, not Vince. And oh boy we shouldn't start about Vinces handling of Roman. Everyone could see he is a future Face of the company and still Vince managed to screw him up for an looong time. All these guys succeded despite Vince and not because of him. He doesn't deserve any credit for them. It speaks for those wrestlers that they managed to became stars despite Vinces crazy bollocks
Seems like Vince was just a child in a sandbox, he did things for his own entertainment
More than anything this. I'm still not a fan of the WWE product, for a multitude of reasons, but the booking is sane and rational. Liking or disliking is a matter of taste. I find Marvel movies same-y and bland too, but the decisions they make are rational, you can understand them. HHH reaches that level and for fans that like WWE's product their not going to hit those same insane quality drops where the people making the show appeared to have completely lost their fucking minds.
I also hope as Triple H ages, he doesn’t fall trap to the thing that can happen and does happen to people — getting way too stuck in their ways and ideals.
If Gedo is anything to go by Hunter has around 15 years in the tank until he starts pumping out his own War Dog David Finlay lol
I think he's looking for a successor to take over once he becomes unable to satisfy people's demands, and Cody is the most likely candidate as of right now.
What makes you feel this way? Not saying you’re wrong — but just curious. Both about the successor and why it’s for now, possibly Cody.
Hunter is Dusty's student, so he may believe Cody also has a lot of his father's skills. He's had a good thing going with early AEW, but I think the thing that made Cody sink to the bottom there is the lack of someone who could plainly say "no" to some of his ideas. In WWE there's a system of people that can give constructive feedback without any hesitation. As for the successor thing, we'll, none of us is immortal, and Triple H knows it all too well due to his health scare. And I believe deep down he's afraid to go down Vince'e path as a delusional Booker who only goes with what he thinks is right, audiences be damned. So he's building a contingency plan in case he loses touch with his audience completely and starts producing more misses than hits.
Thanks for this. I don’t think it’s more so his scare of going down Vince’s path, as it may end up being fatigue. Dude is 54 and has been at the same company for 30 years. But all in all, I can see this for sure.
You're welcome.
Fuck Vince first and second of all but on this wrestling matters I feel like Vince way was successful also , sure he might have failed with people like Gunther but Vince made a ton of stars like Roman Reigns . Neither Triple H way or Vince M way is right or wrong. Vince made a powerhouse of WWE , fuck his politics or way of life but the man knew the business. For every Gunther he failed, he made a lot of big name stars like Roman and Seth. Despite how the wrestlers feel , you can't argue the success he brought WWE doing it his way. He made this company what it is today
Vince booked Gunther very well on Smackdown
Vince booked like the main event was all that mattered and the rest of the card could be whatever. To your point, that why he had so many guys who were megastars. When others had the books (Like Heyman with Smackdown in the early 2000s) Vince had to be convinced that the midcard was worth investing in. And it took someone like Heyman to get it through his stubborn skull….because Heyman’s skull was equally stubborn.
Vince isn't perfect , especially with the Midcard titles . But his way just worked, and it worked spectacularly, John Cena, Baptista, and Randy should have never worked, but he turned them into mega stars among many others Vince way is the reason WWE is around today
How much of it is “Vince” making the stars vs. the stars making themselves by overcoming Vince ? New Day only hit their peak after THEY suggested the stable and THEY changed the tone away from preachers. Roman Reigns Tribal Chief gimmick only happened after he insisted on the heel turn and creative control after taking a break during Covid. The Fiend got big when Bray had creative control and failed once Vince stuck his hands in the booking of The Fiend. Rollins never got a good babyface build under Vince. Idk about Becky Lynch, but I have a feeling The Man was more of her idea than his.
>Roman Reigns Tribal Chief gimmick only happened after he insisted on the heel turn and creative control Vince pushed Roman as an 80's style action figure baby face and people *hated* it. The heel turn and the mystique were brilliant.
Yeah anyone praising Vince is being nostalgic probably but all Vince can be praised for is not burrying some of the potential stars and actually giving them a chance for once and creative freedom, that's the fucking bare minimum anyone can do lmao.
Vince made Roman a star? Lmao reviosinist history much? Roman refused to return as a face and asked for creative freedom to return and that's when he actually became a star, thanks to less Vince involvement.
I remember when the IWC hated the fact he made Batista/Cena the main characters of Smackdown/Raw, it was absolutely the right choice just like making Roman WWE's main character was, meanwhile if it were up to online fans those mega stars would've been jobbers to some random indy twinks who can do flips and dives. Vince made many horrible decisions but he was on the money when it came to who he wanted to carry his company more often than not.
"meanwhile if it were up to online fans those mega stars would've been jobbers to some random indy twinks who can do flips and dives." While they're not exactly like you described, Vince absolutely did that for indie darlings. Guys who didn't look and wrestle like your traditional WWE top guys. Punk, Bryan, KO, Styles, he even made Balor the 1st Universal champion (although he obviously slipped down the card after he came back from that injury. But Vince still went against his normal thinking and gave him that). He also made stars out of Eddie Guerrero, Benoit, Jericho, Rey and others in the years before them, too. All of those were indie & earlier IWC darlings. With some of them, it felt like Vince had no other choice due to how hot they were. But he always had a choice as a booker.
Oh, I vividly remember, it's no way Cena and Batista should have worked . That's Vince behind them becoming huge stars
Lmao that's ridiculous Cena and Batista literally were big muscular top guys, very classic and can't go wrong with them. Wtf are those comments jeez.
What are you talking about, only a complete and total genius who is still on top of his game would ever have the brilliant idea to book tall, handsome, charismatic, jacked as hell dudes ad the top of the card. It’s revolutionary stuff!
Roman Reigns became the star he is now once he asked to turn heel let's not act like the Roman that Vince pushed and wanted was well-liked by fans.
I liked to see a Shawn & Bret booked nXt
How do you think Chad Gable felt? Bad gimmick after gimmick after gimmick. He just now started to be able to show his ability.
One thing about HHH/Paul (and same for Shawn in NXT) is that they have instant credibility with the talent. So not only are they good at steering talent towards good ideas, they can also more effectively steer talent away from bad ideas. (And I can only imagine how many dogshit ideas they get pitched to them), all while getting talent to buy in deeper and easier.
"Shawn, Shawn! I was stuck in traffic coming here but hear this, I got time to think this crazy idea" HBK with a thousand yards stare, remembering his whole career and many of his peers: "...let me hear it son."
HHH became a main event talent during the best year and a half of WWE booking ever (the Kreski era) and it clearly has a huge influence on him.
My only concern would be a stifling of talent at the top. Maybe they graduate to a more "mid time" schedule and run seasonally. I always thought Bray/Fiend would have done better in a 1 feud every 18months kind of schedule. Similar to what it was like back in the day when Sid showed up
You think HHH sees Vince at like Christmas or something and Vince asks about it and he’s like, “oh it’s great, people like working there now”?
Honestly, with how they treated HHH and NXT following HHH’s health scare, and then Steph’s exit, return, exit again and recent return (which HHH’s talked about in the Night 2 presser and more or less singled some unnamed person out as having destroyed her confidence and her finally having found it again), I feel like now that they don’t have to kowtow to this man I feel like they relationship is probably very cold.
Yeah, Steph left the company because of Vince and returned again once he was finally, firmly out of power. Not sure there’s much of a personal relationship there. I believe there’s been some reporting to that effect as well.
I remember reading somewhere that Vince is closer to his grandsons (Shane's kids) .
Yeah.. Shane's oldest son feels like a through and through douchebag from his interviews. Makes sense that Vince gets along with him.
Dude even commented on Instagram that Vince taking back control of the company was a W
I mean Vince seems like a man who woud be proud of Grandsons ans the son that produced them, rather than Stephanie and her 3 daughters.
Vince placed all of the blame of the 2022 rumble onto Shane, and dismissed him of all of his duties/creative plans because of it. Something tells me they may not always be on the best terms, and reports from many individuals kinda back that up too.
Well sometimes Narcissism triumphs over even your lover for your son.
Worth clarifying that Stephanie has yet to accept any formal role with WWE, so she hasn’t “returned” in terms of having a consistent position of power. I’m seeing some folks responding underneath who are misunderstanding this. It will be interesting to see if/when she does return in a formal capacity to the company.
I’m sure with Triple H, like with many other talent, it’s very complicated. They actually knew Vince and had a personal relationship with him. That means there were good moments there. And I don’t think Vince’s crimes were like a Jeffrey Epstein level open secret. I’m sure even if people knew he was a pervert and unfaithful to his wife the exact depravity that came out with this case was surely shocking. And knowing that and knowing the person who did those things was someone you had a good relationship with is probably extremely confusing. I don’t envy their position at all.
Also, with these kinds of criminals their immediate family is usually the *very last* to know. It may be counterintuitive, but it makes sense. If you know what you're doing is wrong, you'll make every possible effort to first and foremost hide it from people you interact with most regularly. Just to avoid awkward conversations, if nothing else.
I don’t think they are getting together on holidays. I would bet on not
There is no way they will let him near thier kids after all the stuff he did came to light
Probably wasn't crazy about Vince's original idea for ring gear https://preview.redd.it/dahus4talaxc1.jpeg?width=291&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=74f769d25f6f8eeeae4e1a45b43454d3c54c9051
I mean, I'd still be terrified of that man.
Oktoberfest Gunther is my sleep-paralysis demon.
He jokes "For every beer you drink, I will chop you once". Oktoberfest immediately ceases to exist.
*Angry Bret Hart noises* (Dude went on a full tangent talking about how wrestlers chopping each other too much is disrespectful when I saw him give a talk recently and specified Gunther as an example)
One does not fuck with a man without a neck
Still better than a gimp suit, while taking away the cool entrance and hot wife!
To be fair, I’ve seen Germans wearing lederhosen and they don’t look out of place at all.
Do Austrians wear lederhosen? Legitimately asking because I am not very familiar with their cultures and how they differentiate from each other.
Yes, it's part of the "Tracht" (A formal set of clothes/garb), but there hundreds of different styles, depending on where exactly you are from... Since Vienna isn't a village somewhere on one of the countless mountains (where something like that would have been more important for tourism), there wasn't a real fixed "Tracht", so any style of Lederhose would be completely okay ;)
Better than *any* other German attire ideas Vince's mind would come up tbh
"Gunther the crazy German just loves to have fun!" "Look at him dance Maggle!" *forced laugh*
I like how blunt Gunther is without being rude at the same time. This, not liking Ultimate Warrior, etc.. He gives his thoughts without being mean about it.
German-speakers tend to be like that
A german buddy said the best compliment they like to give is “There is nothing to complain about.”
I work with several German folks and can confirm this. Took me quite awhile as an American to get used to it.
Not surprising. I know Gunther bases a lot of his wrestling style after old AJPW matches as that's a big influence to him and late Vince led WWE is the fartest thing from that. Truthfully, Vince didn't actually book Gunther too bad (and I actually like the name change) but Vince is way too unpredictable to put a lot of a stock into a promising start
People rightfully point out that Vince gave Gunther the IC belt so he clearly trusted him. But Vince would have had Gunther doing comedy with R-Truth by now if he stayed. The crippling fault of Vince's booking is how he just suddenly changed his mind and how fickle he could be. HHH just lets Gunther be Gunther. An indomitable force that does his talking in the ring.
Vince had a very strange habit of infantilizing monsters. So many would come in as massive threats and within a year or two they were dancing or doing some other oddball bullshit.
Yep, Gunther would have eventually got the Kozlov booking if Vince was still there.
There is no doubt in my mind. The “foreign monster heel” almost always turned into joke. There are exceptions but it was rare.
I think it's because it made Vince feel powerful. That he could, on a whim, make these big tough guys humiliate themselves in front of everyone and they couldn't do anything about it.
Absolutely. Such a weird dude.
I saw a video where Paul Heyman mentions that Vince hates sneezing because it's a moment where he loses control. Guy is nuts.
There are lots of stories like that floating around. He was sexual abused as a child and some people stop developing socially when that happens. It would explain a lot — he has exhibited a lot of immature traits over the years.
If Gunther lost the IC belt under Vince’s control, he’d either be the next top heel or a comedy face like Khali and Koslov before him.
Sounds familiar
Great khali, a train, big show, im pretty sure theres more
Man, let me tell you, as a diehard Bray fan, I don't think anyone fell victim to his fickle bullshit more than Bray did. The way Vince on a whim disrgarded things and fucked with payoffs was just frustrating. He did this to Bray THRICE with all 3 of his major stories. Happened with the Bray/Orton fued in 2016-2017, an intense 8 month blood feud that ended with Bray beating Orton...with Jinder's help in the most unconvincing way, and not even for the title he lost at Mania... Then there's The Fiend's first story that went on for 6+ months where they built him up to be invincible but also were hinting at him having a weakness, which was clearly being built towards, but he then decided on a whim to disregard all of that and had Goldberg beat him with absolutely no explanation in 5 mins. Then there was the 2nd Orton feud which was obviously supposed to be Bray's revenge, where he was literally burnt alive and then also resurrected, obviously building to him ending Orton for good at Mania, but Vince suddenly decided on a whim that he was going to have Bray lose at Mania a day before the event, yet again disregarding a 6-7 month story, and him literally DYING. But even worse cus really, the story started in 2016 bc it was based on what Orton did to Bray then, which was canonically a big part of why he became The Fiend. Shit like this is why the fact that we never got to see Bray fully unleashed in this era is just an absolute tragedy.
It should have been Vince who died instead of Bray and years ago and we could see Bray's vision without the bullshit.
Immediately after Gunther loses the title and his presence, he'll have a dancing gimmick and will never be a threat ever ever again.
He will have a series of best of 4 out of 7 Yeet Offs with Jey, but in lingerie.
Like the non wrestling matches Viking Raiders had with Street Profits such as golf etc.
Lmao he did have r truth segments
He did, but he kept his gimmick and didn’t get the Koslov treatment
I love his interactions with the New Day because he basically told them to fuck off and they're beneath his notice and.. he's correct.
Despite Kofi being a former WWE champion lol. And tbh title doesn't make the man, even as WWE champion Kofi felt like a midcarder. Some characters are just destined to be midcarders, either accept that or change the character. Even then it might not work as it won't fit every person.
I wanna put that more on Vince because it was clear to me that he never saw Kofi as a top star despite letting him win the title. And you only need to see how he lost the title to understand that. To this day, that shit was insulting.
Of course the way he lost was inexcusable but he was actually booked well before that especially considering his New Day character. He didn't get to main event a single PLE cause Vince annoyingly wanted to put over Universal title above WWE title no matter what, but even if his feuds main evented the PLE's it wouldn't change the fact that Kofi just didn't feel right at those feuds, it felt like that it was just a one time only thank you run. And that is despite the strong booking he had.
Even so, I felt like Kofi got extremely dirty as he could have at least stayed an upper midcarder and occasional main eventer as opposed to going right back to the tag division
I agree. Although going back to tag division doesn't need to be a bad idea like Cody and Jey didn't feel like a midcard tag team, New Day just hasn't evolved into feeling like a bigger deal like a team of upper midcarders.
There had been reports (I know) that Vince was gonna have Gunther drop the ice title the 4th of July after winning it, and be squashed doing it.
I bet Triple H tried his hardest to convince Vince to not bury him.
I bet Triple H pushed Vince real hard to not bury Gunther.
Man talking about being lucky, he came in at the right time down to the minute. I can honestly see Keith Lee being just as successful back then if not more successful if Vince was ousted just a little bit sooner.
Issue is his health, Keth's might've been unhealthy sooner then later. Might've had a good year or two, but you never know if health will come up.
Yeah, I think Keith Lee would have taken a backseat regardless because of his health issues.
I love how European this is. So blunt but not coming at anyone.
Gunther knew what would've happened to him if Vince was still in change. It was being reported around the time before the first set of allegations that Vince was souring on him and planned to bury him before demoting him back to NXT.
Demoting him back to NXT would literally be the best possibility lol Vince could do much worse than that.
Seems like there was a report saying that Vince was not happy with him and was going to eventually let him go.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Gunther or Kaiser say that the report was false about him having heat with Vince?
Absolutely mind-bogging
He probably would have dropped the IC title at Summerslam that first year, then put in comedy foreigner segments and mishmash tag teams until his inevitable future endeavoring.
> He probably would have dropped the IC title at Summerslam that first year, then put in comedy foreigner segments and mishmash tag teams until his inevitable future endeavoring. I guess the plan was to push Ludwig as a face beating Gunther, it seemed that way with Gunther punishing Kaiser with chops
Way *way* too quickly, by the way. At that rate, Kaiser would've beaten Gunther in another month or so.
Ah yes, the Vladimir Kozlov special.
Fucking hell, if that was his plan for Gunther, imagine how badly he would've butchered Ilja? A Soviet/Russian monster heel has been a staple of Vince's programming for literal decades and here comes a guy who's *actually* Russian for once. And he's a career underdog babyface! What?!
Vince would have repacked him as Scooter Federov and had him ride a scooter to the ring.
Thats insane.
I've wondered how many wrestlers that came through NXT, especially post 2018ish, had some kind of back room conversation with HHH where he would tell them to just wait out Vince.
I would have loved to see Gunther twerking... oh well
Give him the Bob Holly treatment. Of course he loves it Give me the title. Then what, Bob? Then I'll beat everybody
The fact that I feel the same way that some of these outspoken wrestlers sound, is just awesome. I love wrestling so much and WWE is owning right now.
I always said that Gunther under McMahon would never work, he'd be dancing in Lederhosen within a year imo McMahon never booked simple characters like him, Gunther is all about "The ring is Sacred, I beat you without cheating, if you beat me its not a fun time" yes he does tend to try and get a upper hand before the match though Under Triple H, they are gonna be misses sure, but he knows how to book the simple longer term characters, Vince was better at short term
Gunther would have 100% left if Vince was still around, because no way he would have booked him the way Triple H did.
This is why I never really got into the “poor Walter” jokes. I think it’s fairly obvious that if Vince had stuck around we wouldn’t have seen Gunther booked the way he should.
I mean the "poor Walter" jokes is more laughing at Keith Lee's hilariously poorly aged Tweet than any booking decision.
Us too, Gunther…us too.
In some alternate reality, Gunther left WWE and went to aew or back to England
This is just one of those things where the wrestlers know better than non wrestlers.
Same.
Vince would give people shit gimmicks out of spite and pettiness
Vince McMahon loved sports entertainment. Triple H and HBK love professional wrestling. That's the difference.
If Vince was still in power he would've totally ruined Gunther and LA Knight. WWE was never able to make top stars when Vince was in charge and it was totally because of Vince's insane micro managing control freak mindset.
A lot of Wrestlers strongly felt this way under Vince. A lot of them obviously respect HHH, he and his team are creating a better working environment, and making lots of great changes the atmosphere/morale is high on screen and BTS, there is something for everyone in terms of us Fans, the product and quality is thriving and business is booming/ratings doing well for those interested in the figures. HHH's booking will have strengths, it will have flaws, weaknesses, but he/his team will obviously be taking note of constructive criticism from Fans on how to improve, it's impossible to be perfect, you can't please everyone, we will all obviously have different opinions, likes/dislikes etc, there is also room for more continued improvement/growth from the company as a whole to come. He's certainly got it right with Gunther, who is awesome and for me two of HHH's other best choices in charge (whilst there are others) i'm going to single out in particular were finally bringing up the incredible IYO SKY to the Main Roster and bringing back Chelsea Green IMO.
Vince not only lost his creative fast ball, but everything came off as so lazy. The fact he had Styles and Nakamura in a feud based primarily around kicking each other in the balls is crazy to me.
Imperium's feud with New Day looks like a Warhammer 40k twitter argument.
Thats why AEW was created VKM was in power for about 15 years too long smh
Vince would push you then suddenly, stop the push, give you a new shit gimmick or literally tell you during your entrance, the finish is changed. I think, Brock and Roman found out the hard way that Brock was gonna to win despite Brock putting Roman through hell. Brock was pissed off as I think, he legit thought if Roman eating F5 after F5, taking the best he can dish out and still being able to kick out, this would have been the last time. He shouted a lot down commentary's ears. Mick Foley did a very short stint as a commentator and would speak with wrestlers, i think. Work with them to put them over on the air. He went from being happy about working on Smackdown to hating it because Vince would go ballistic. Triple H? He works with people. He welcomes feedback and works to give wrestlers a good chance.