The Convolution of the Authority Angle

[Sweettre15]

I was going over the angle in my brain from everything that has happened since last year with this authority angle and how little continuity seems to matter in this angle...Let's take a good look at how this story has "developed"

- This angle was originally built as a tyrannical dictatorship by using intimidation to shut up anyone that opposed their decisions while HHH and Stephanie would gradually show their true selfish colors: Torturing the Rhodes Family, Bullying Big Show, Miz and Dolph Ziggler alongside making Bryan's life a living hell.

- After Edge's visit, Bryan stands up strong on Orton by beating him at NOC and then once he gets the title stripped from him the locker room decides to finally help Bryan.

- HHH "punishes" the Shield to try to avoid a full on revolt while also giving Orton a chance to revive his "true" sadistic ways.

- Locker Room Rebellion arc gets aborted for the sake of focusing on Big Show's lawsuit against The Authority and The Rhodes Bros revenge against The Authority. The push for Ziggler and Miz gets aborted as well

- Randy Orton becoming a true sadistic viper again gets aborted so Orton can try and harass Brie Bella into falling in love with him so he can get on Bryan's bad side and that arc also gets aborted.

- Rhodes Bros gets their jobs back and Big Show becomes a bigger presence after interfering in Bryan vs Orton at Battleground

- Somehow Bryan gets downplayed for more Big Show/HHH focus along with The Rhodes Bros feud. HHH also decides that "the gloves are coming off" and it's no more Mr. Nice Guy by going full heel.

- Now HHH is in burial mode and buries Bryan, RVD, Edge, Jericho and indirectly Orton in one sentence on the go-home RAW for HIAC.

- HHH stays in full heel mode during Big Show feud with the Authority while all the other story arcs in this feud have gotten aborted but we also see the early stages of HHH's "uncertainty" about Orton.

- Big Show gets punted back to the midcard and HHH's "No More Mr.Nice Guy" act gets aborted and Orton's manhood goes along with it so we can have both Trips, Stephanie, AND John Cena rail on Orton constantly while Orton acts like a whiny coward that begs to be pampered.

- HHH and Steph go back to flip-flopping between heel, face, and tweener on a weekly basis and Punk's feud with The Authority starts brewing.

- The Authority continues to emasculate Orton, show favoritism towards Batista and Lesnar while being heelish to Daniel Bryan who has just gotten back into the fray.

How does no one in the back not see why this angle has no real heat behind it anymore? I just gave a full rundown of the Authority angle up till now, hardly any of it makes sense and WWE wonders why buys and ratings were taking a hit in the fall post N.O.C?

Is HHH and Steph that afraid of having to get comeuppance that they make the story a clusterf---ck intentionally to avoid it? If they were smart this story would have gradually added in more involvement on the card like the Original McMahon-Helmsley regime story did in 2000 or like the 4 Horseman story did but no they ruined continuity to feed their egos. Not to mention this angle would have more heat going into Mania if the Authority and Orton were both in full heel mode with no emascultion involved.

What do you guys think?

 

[ASKane]

Bad Writing = Bad Ratings whoever the superstars are and unfortunately it is the hottest star in the company who WWE put all blame on the failure of this angle on. Fans wanted to watch Bryan in a good chase for the title however they did not want HHH, Stephanie, Orton and a crying Big Show. They are the reason ratings and PPV buys were down not Bryan. There was only 2 good things about this entire angle Bryan's popularity rose and the Shield regained relevance. If it was Cena instead of Bryan and a different group except the Wyatt's instead of the Shield they probably would have had boycotts by now

 

[Logisticalbooker86]

The convoluted nature of the authority angle has been the most frustrating aspect of WWE television since the night after Summerslam. Meaningless dance offs are (sadly) the nature of the three hour beast, but the Authority angle turned from intriguing into a mess very quickly.

Take tonight as an example, in what is billed as an "epic battle" we are getting Cena versus Orton again. If this match is the main event, I will be going to bed when the bell rings.

I could post a very lengthy diatribe, but instead I will cut to the endgame. Reform Evolution and put some baby faces over. Batista is not being well received as the top face so call the audible that must be called.

Does the Authority even have much heat anymore? HHH only gets booed when he puts Daniel Bryan down, then he gets cheered when he insults Randy Orton.

 

[born_of_fire]

Personally I thought the idea of HHH and Stephanie wanting to bring back the old Orton, the one that DDT'ed and rape-kissed Stephanie, was laughably horrendous to begin with. And now they punish him for attacking Cena's dad? No sense whatsoever.

 

[Sweettre15]

Personally I thought the idea of HHH and Stephanie wanting to bring back the old Orton, the one that DDT'ed and rape-kissed Stephanie, was laughably horrendous to begin with. And now they punish him for attacking Cena's dad? No sense whatsoever.

Thanks, I forgot about that laughable inconsistency. WWE wants to be seen as a TV drama yet they lack the will or competence to write storylines that are atleast coherent and don't insult their audience's intelligence.

 

[Wald]

I get the feeling they went half assed on it because they felt they couldn't present Triple H and Stephanie as onscreen evil authority figures without hurting their stocks. Sounds weird I know but it came from an interview with Linda McMahon in the Thy Kingdom Come DVD where she talks about how they would have to explain to investors that Stephanie and Triple H weren't divorced, that they were just characters playing with it on screen.

Blurring the lines with them holding back fan favourites might have caused them to think twice and unfortunately has ruined what could have been a great angle

 

[THTRobtaylor]

I get the feeling they went half assed on it because they felt they couldn't present Triple H and Stephanie as onscreen evil authority figures without hurting their stocks. Sounds weird I know but it came from an interview with Linda McMahon in the Thy Kingdom Come DVD where she talks about how they would have to explain to investors that Stephanie and Triple H weren't divorced, that they were just characters playing with it on screen.

Blurring the lines with them holding back fan favourites might have caused them to think twice and unfortunately has ruined what could have been a great angle

In a nutshell that is why any McMahon as an onscreen authority figure is a failiure. Under public ownership (even if they do have majority shares) they are inherently battling the "real vs fake" aspect of their roles.

On one hand for example - They can say what is not "best for business" in the story, hold people back, until it starts to impact the share price through either people not buying the PPV's, not attending shows or not signing up for the Network.

Recently, since this whole Trips reign, for the first time live crowds have really begun to turn... not behaving as they once would, not accepting what's being presented. Last time they had "the board" remove Triple H for far less than what has gone on this time...

While the company is public the whole idea of McMahons is shot... I am sure at some point they plan to take it back into their own hands... but while there is a need to point out to the Nasdaq etc that the onscreen antics are seperate from the boardroom it's pointless and simply pissing off fans, which eventually will affect the bottom line.

Best solution right now is Steve Borden... bring him in as WWE president, not as Sting the character... give him 9 months as the board appointed "Neutral" president, he has all the power, Vince, Trips and Steph can't even mess with him. He acts as a "new broom" swiping away the old way of doing it and plays it "down the line" with edicts that upset heels and faces alike... slowly have him build an issue with Taker that leads him to declare the return of Sting with his final act.

 

[laodaron]

This thread is built upon a false premise. The Authority angle is the best writing in the WWE in years, probably since the late 90s.

 

[Sweettre15]

This thread is built upon a false premise. The Authority angle is the best writing in the WWE in years, probably since the late 90s.

Do you mind expanding on why you feel this is the case since I've pretty much given a walkthrough of what's happening in the storyline up until this point?

 

[laodaron]

Your walkthrough is disingenuous at best.

When you try and break the macro angle down to a micro level, every single angle in the history of pro-wrestling seems silly.

If you only discuss the fact that Stone Cold sprayed beer on Mr. McMahon from a truck and then Mr. McMahon flopped around like a dying fish without understanding or trying to understand the overall arc of that storyline, it looks like a failure and just silly TV.

The Authority line is trying out subtle changes, to see what really resonates. The false premise is that it's convoluted because you, or someone else doesn't like a piece of it, or doesn't understand a piece of it.

Overall, in the whole scheme, the Authority line has now gotten Daniel Bryan to be one of the most over Superstars in decades. It has kept HHH relevant. It has given Stephanie some of her best work to date. Really, this is the worst time possible to complain about WWE writing.

 

[Sweettre15]

Your walkthrough is disingenuous at best.

When you try and break the macro angle down to a micro level, every single angle in the history of pro-wrestling seems silly.

If you only discuss the fact that Stone Cold sprayed beer on Mr. McMahon from a truck and then Mr. McMahon flopped around like a dying fish without understanding or trying to understand the overall arc of that storyline, it looks like a failure and just silly TV.

The Authority line is trying out subtle changes, to see what really resonates. The false premise is that it's convoluted because you, or someone else doesn't like a piece of it, or doesn't understand a piece of it.

Overall, in the whole scheme, the Authority line has now gotten Daniel Bryan to be one of the most over Superstars in decades. It has kept HHH relevant. It has given Stephanie some of her best work to date. Really, this is the worst time possible to complain about WWE writing.

Yes that is one good thing about the Authority angle(the Daniel Bryan part) but the storyline in its entirety has become a clusterfuck. This isnt me necessarily dissecting to the bone but noticing the inconsistencies that are BLATANT as hell. The Golden rule of Television is to avoid insulting your audience's intelligence and in this day and age of quality Television, retcons and plot holes dont go over the audience's head that easily.

Name one quality dictatorship storyline in ANY medium/art form where the "Dictators" get to flip-flop constantly without getting called on it?

 

[laodaron]

I don't understand quite what you mean as flipflop? I think they do a great job of playing off of not having faith in Orton anymore, causing him to become paranoid. I think they do a nearly perfect job of getting the smarks to think they are breaking kayfabe to hold Daniel Bryan down and promote Batista over him. And I still hold out that CM Punk's deal is a work.

 

[Sweettre15]

I don't understand quite what you mean as flipflop? I think they do a great job of playing off of not having faith in Orton anymore, causing him to become paranoid. I think they do a nearly perfect job of getting the smarks to think they are breaking kayfabe to hold Daniel Bryan down and promote Batista over him. And I still hold out that CM Punk's deal is a work.

What I'm saying is they are supposed to be TYRANTS not guys who one minute is acting like faces, next minute are doing heel shit, and other times are being tweeners. FIND A FUCKING ALIGNMENT AND STICK WITH IT so the audience knows whose side they are supposed to be taking and so the angle itself can have heat. Orton's been made to look like he lacks balls, a backbone, and needs a bottle of milk so he can stop crying while Stephanie and HHH come off as having multi-personality disorder of some kind. Their is a difference between a layered storyline and a convoluted storyline. The Mcmahon-Helmsley regime story from 2000 is the former and this subpar clusterfuck known as the Authority angle is the latter.

An example, as posted above, HHH going all "The Gloves are coming off!" and then later reverted to complete fence straddling. Normally, When someone makes that kind of comment, they go full heel and adhere to that until they either get comeuppance but that whole Character arc is no more. I thought it was called Character Progression not Character REGRESSION.


Look, I might not be a booker for Wrestling but I not only am taking classes to get my Bachelor's in Mass Media Production/Convergence Media but I also understand the basics of storytelling and I as well as others can tell that this storyline has become a huge mess with no form of consistency.

 

[dman1373]

Your walkthrough is disingenuous at best.

When you try and break the macro angle down to a micro level, every single angle in the history of pro-wrestling seems silly.

If you only discuss the fact that Stone Cold sprayed beer on Mr. McMahon from a truck and then Mr. McMahon flopped around like a dying fish without understanding or trying to understand the overall arc of that storyline, it looks like a failure and just silly TV.

The Authority line is trying out subtle changes, to see what really resonates. The false premise is that it's convoluted because you, or someone else doesn't like a piece of it, or doesn't understand a piece of it.

Overall, in the whole scheme, the Authority line has now gotten Daniel Bryan to be one of the most over Superstars in decades. It has kept HHH relevant. It has given Stephanie some of her best work to date. Really, this is the worst time possible to complain about WWE writing.

This is some of the shittiest writing I have seen in a long time. They push a guy to go against the authority and they will drop it the next week. They cut promos saying how shitty a talent is, and never let them get there heat back by winning. They have their top face look like an idiot (bryan), by getting left lying every week and then going up to triple h the next week like he didn't fuck him over.

This coupled with the fact that every raw in the last good while has been terrible and the ppvs have sucked, you cant say this has been great writing.

 

[HeymanHustler]

Don't forget how the night The Authority debuted as a unit, they established dominance by brutally beating Daniel Bryan to make an example, and then like 5 months later they berate Orton for beating up Cena's dad because that's "too far".

It doesn't make sense that they start off like heels and then unbiased tweeners. The only reason I can think of for them doing this is because apparently Vince doesn't believe in heels and faces anymore, which in itself doesn't make any sense. I get fans will cheer who they want to cheer, not every superstar gets a split reaction. The crowds need a guy to root for and another guy to boo. It's basic wrestling logic.

 

[Sweettre15]

Don't forget how the night The Authority debuted as a unit, they established dominance by brutally beating Daniel Bryan to make an example, and then like 5 months later they berate Orton for beating up Cena's dad because that's "too far".

It doesn't make sense that they start off like heels and then unbiased tweeners. The only reason I can think of for them doing this is because apparently Vince doesn't believe in heels and faces anymore, which in itself doesn't make any sense. I get fans will cheer who they want to cheer, not every superstar gets a split reaction. The crowds need a guy to root for and another guy to boo. It's basic wrestling logic.

Which is funny because everyone else on the roster seems to still have feuds built on the face vs heel concept except for The Authority. Makes no fucking sense at all if ya ask me. Any heat this storyline could have had on it's own has been destroyed because of the inconsistencies.

 

[occ2]

Your walkthrough is disingenuous at best.

When you try and break the macro angle down to a micro level, every single angle in the history of pro-wrestling seems silly.

If you only discuss the fact that Stone Cold sprayed beer on Mr. McMahon from a truck and then Mr. McMahon flopped around like a dying fish without understanding or trying to understand the overall arc of that storyline, it looks like a failure and just silly TV.

The Authority line is trying out subtle changes, to see what really resonates. The false premise is that it's convoluted because you, or someone else doesn't like a piece of it, or doesn't understand a piece of it.

The "pieces" need to be a part of a whole. If nobody knows what the whole is supposed to be because the pieces don't fit together, then it seems like pretty poor storytelling to me.

Of course most wrestling angles would sound contrived and ridiculous if taken out of the context of the story they are a part of. You've said yourself, however, that as a part of the Austin/McMahon story, the beer bath angle was a satisfying and fun moment for fans of the product. People were invested in the stories and the characters. It made sense.

The problem with the "pieces" of the Authority story are that even when viewed in the context of the 10 months it's been taking place, they are illogical and confusing. There isn't a clear motive, the protagonist switches constantly and the ambiguity of the characters isn't engaging or mysterious, it's just confusing and unsatisfying. It doesn't make sense.

Daniel Bryan isn't over because of the Authority angle. The Authority angle STARTED after Daniel Bryan blew the roof off of SummerSlam when he beat John Cena. There was a massive story arc that could have spanned most of 2013 and culminated at WrestleMania right in front of them, and they watered it down by being wishy-washy.

Original post was a great analysis.

 

[lil steroid meat]

It doesn't make sense but the main goal I'm presuming is to make Daniel Bryan "the guy".

If they do that at Wrestlemania, mission accomplished.

Although HHH as the heel authority figure had so much potential, especially in the last few weeks with the real life drama of Bryan not being in the Rumble, Punk leaving, etc.

But oh well, in this "era" (2008 - now) I've gotten used to storylines and gimmicks with crazy untapped potential.

 

[Kidpolean]

This is funny to me..

People on here dont ever know what they want. You dont want entertainers, you want real wrestlers...but the AE that was dominated by entertainers is the best era in wrestling lol

Now we complain about a storyline not making sense. So please OP do an analysis of any 5 month stretch of the AE and see how much it made sense. The AE was the most random era EVER. Every night there was a twist that didn't make sense, attacks that didn't make sense, and alliances that didn't make sense. Every WWE title match had a crazy finish with ref bumps and multiple interferences, which people complain about if it happens in the current era.

My point is that, people like to complain just for the hell of it and thats what the OP has done here. Seriously, if you have a problem with the authority angle not making sense, than you must have been pulling your hair out during the AE.

 

[Sweettre15]

Kidpolean, cling to that copout rhetoric about the Attitude Era all you want but with their power struggle angles they made it CLEAR who the faces and heels were.

In the Corporation angle, Vince wasn't emasculating Rock week in and week in or flip-flopping by being heel one day and being face another with no explanation....Swerve or no Swerve

In the McMahon-Helmsley storyline that Chris Kreski excellently developed, you didn't have HHH flip-flopping on face and heel roles and the times he tried burying The New Age Outlaws and X-PAC they retaliated not too long after by ditching him during a tag match and leaving him alone with his opponents. Which lead to Trips and Steph apologizing to them.

Both of those angles had a major sense of continuity to them unlike this Authority angle that had so promise in the beginning.

 

[laodaron]

Really honestly, if you thought that AE writing made more sense back then than the current booking and writing does in the WWE, then you are fully unqualified to comment on either era. The AE was great, but the writing was just dick and fart jokes or fight your boss jokes. Now, at least there's a theme. HHH is a smarky COO/Authority. Bryan is the perpetual underdog. Orton is going to snap, and lose his shit, really soon (he's also going to go over clean at EC, which is why he's losing clean on Raws). For the first time since 2001-ish, I watched Raw last night Live. I didn't watch with the DVR, I didn't want to wait to see the whole show as it was happening. That's a testament to how good the writing is.

 

[ProWrestlingFan]

Triple H /Stephanie McMahon or "The Authority" is not supposed to be heel or face. In storyline, they are neutral authority figures who do whats "best for business". They bring back guys who are big names, ratings draws and PPV sellers and want Randy Orton as their champion and the "Face of the WWE" but on the other hand they don't like Daniel Bryan and don't want him to win the WWE World title but now they are starting to doubt Orton as their champion and starting to think if Daniel Bryan would have been the right choice to be the "Face of the WWE". Thats the whole "Authority" storyline.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

Your walkthrough is disingenuous at best.

When you try and break the macro angle down to a micro level, every single angle in the history of pro-wrestling seems silly.

If you only discuss the fact that Stone Cold sprayed beer on Mr. McMahon from a truck and then Mr. McMahon flopped around like a dying fish without understanding or trying to understand the overall arc of that storyline, it looks like a failure and just silly TV.

The Authority line is trying out subtle changes, to see what really resonates. The false premise is that it's convoluted because you, or someone else doesn't like a piece of it, or doesn't understand a piece of it.

Overall, in the whole scheme, the Authority line has now gotten Daniel Bryan to be one of the most over Superstars in decades. It has kept HHH relevant. It has given Stephanie some of her best work to date. Really, this is the worst time possible to complain about WWE writing.

It isn't a false premise to call it over complicated, as all authority angles are these days. The best periods of WWE/F storyline wise had one man in charge who either played it down the middle, or who was exclusively heel.

Jack Tunney was a zero charisma guy, but when he made an edict it affected face and heel alike... For every decision such as "DiBiase can't buy the title" he would make one like "Savage cannot return as he lost a retirement match"... until the storyline made it that he had to let him. This helped the writing a lot, because decisions of the magnitude were made by one guy who had "no ego to bruise" he wasn't a wrestler, so he seemed to be making the right calls.

After him it was Monsoon, sure more face bias as a commentator but he would also make tough calls like the overtime at Mania 12... Vince was the one who made it complicated by putting a character with an agenda in charge in himself and they have never gotten away from that crutch when it comes to writing. He HAD to be the Higher Power, he HAD to win the Rumble, he HAD to be the one to go against Flair as GM...the angles would have worked equally well without a McMahon in them but ego meant it had to be Vince.

Whoever is in charge is nearly always someone with an ego and an issue with the talent from the past... Vicki had her hates in guys like Ziggler, Foley his... The nearest they got to Tunney was Regal's original run, where they could use humor to counter the machinations and Mike Adamle who they gave up on way to quick, not cos HE was terrible but cos they didn't know how to write a neutral boss anymore.

Now it's convoluted, who IS in charge? Is it Triple H? Is it Vince? Is Steph pulling Trip's strings? Is it the WWE Board or stockholders? all of those have agendas and as such make for poor writing that they can fall back on. That's why I suggested Steve Borden. Someone who comes in for a spell and has "no history" with much of the roster and those few he does are not major players right now. Get it back to that Tunney/Monsoon style of a guy who just makes the right calls and cuts ego out of it (and the McMahons) sure have them as characters, trying to get their power back and undermine him... have him slip and get into an issue that brings Sting back but they have a golden chance to do something really different with their writing for the first time in years and portray themselves as more of a "powerhouse" than a "McMahon plaything".

Stupid thing is they nearly had it with Laurinitis, except they were intent on presenting him as a heel. Had they just let him be neutral, it would have worked as the phrases were there, the charisma was there from JL (not great as a heel but as a neutral he would have been fine) and the groundswell was with the ideas, just not a heel trying to do them. The NFL commish is neutral, the NBA commish has to be neutral, Dana White is shown as neutral so why the hell do they always want the McMahon's to be portrayed as biased, flip flopping morons who don't "know" how to take themselves out of the equation? It's why WWE isn't a major stock cos it's hard to take the guys in the boardroom seriously when they are portraying themselves on TV this way.

 

[Sweettre15]

Really honestly, if you thought that AE writing made more sense back then than the current booking and writing does in the WWE, then you are fully unqualified to comment on either era. The AE was great, but the writing was just dick and fart jokes or fight your boss jokes. Now, at least there's a theme. HHH is a smarky COO/Authority. Bryan is the perpetual underdog. Orton is going to snap, and lose his shit, really soon (he's also going to go over clean at EC, which is why he's losing clean on Raws). For the first time since 2001-ish, I watched Raw last night Live. I didn't watch with the DVR, I didn't want to wait to see the whole show as it was happening. That's a testament to how good the writing is.

Bahahahahaha!!!! You're a funny guy.

The Corporate Storyline still had continuity did it not? The Corporation were complete heels and Austin was the face that opposed them.

However I'll do a bit of a breakdown of the McMahon Helmsley faction angle:

- We find out that HHH got Stephanie McMahon drunk and married her which makes it no longer possible for Test and Stephanie to get married.

- Vince McMahon is livid and infuriated along with Shane Mcmahon himself

- Vince gets decimated by HHH in a no holds barred match and Steph reveals that she's happy to be with HHH shortly after Vince Mcmahon loses the match

- Steph explains to her father why she's with HHH and it's apparently to piss him off because of the stunt he pulled by getting Taker to kidnap her that time all because he wanted the belt off of Austin

- Vince McMahon leaves WWE TV for a while out of disgust towards the new Mcmahon-Helmsley alliance.

- HHH continues his ongoing feuds with The Rock and Mankind

- Gets Mankind fired after a Pink Slip Ladder Match

- Rock starts a revolt by threatening to walk out with all of their wrestlers

- Foley gets reinstated and later becomes Cactus Jack after weeks of HHH poking fun at him while The Rock juggles a feud with Big Show while still feuding with HHH...None of it gets lost in the shuffle either

- Meanwhile Cactus Jack bring in The Radicalz and HHH gives them tryout matches. The Radicalz get cheated out of all their tryout matches and we find out that they turned against Cactus Jack shortly after because HHH gave them jobs to convince them to do so despite the fact that they lost those "tryout matches". So now Trips has a new team of people doing his bidding.

- Cactus Jack loses to HHH once despite The Rock's interference in the match and loses again in the Hell In A Cell with his job on the line


- The Rock wins The Royal Rumble and still continues to juggle his feuds with HHH and Big Show all the way to Wrestlemania 2000.

- Vince McMahon returns to stop Shane McMahon from interfering in the #1 Contendership match with Rock and Big Show.

- Vince later reveals that he's back to take back his company after watching McMahon-Helmsley reign of terror and reveals he'll be in Rock's Corner.

- After a few family scuffles, Vince McMahon promises Linda he'll "end" this family war at Wrestlemania 2000.

- Vince McMahon turns on the Rock and Linda McMahon as his way of "ending" this.

- Big Show leaves the Main event scene by "going Hollywood" and The McMahon family reveals their plans to stack the deck against The Rock at Backlash with Vince/Steph in Trips' corner and Shane as guest referee.

- Linda reveals she's putting Stone Cold Steve Austin in The Rock's corner to even things out a bit.

- Meanwhile HHH also gets embroiled in a feud over Stephanie Mcmahon's honor with Chris Jericho which Jericho takes advantage of by making it a WWF title match...and winning. HHH goes berserk retcons the match and later beats Jericho in a 6 man tag and a couple weeks before Backlash puts Jericho in a lumberjack match with The Rock. Jericho however was juggling this angle AND an IC title feud with Benoit simultaneously

- Rock wins the title with the help of Austin and Linda at Backlash

- HHH challenges Rock to an Iron Man match at Judgement Day for the title to prove once and for all who the best is. HBK later reveals he'll be refereeing that match

- Once HHH wins The Iron Man Match by Screwjob thanks to Taker returning, Taker becomes a part of the opposition

- Now HHH is juggling a feud with The Rock, Taker, Jericho and eventually Kurt Angle

All of this only takes in account of the Main event related stuff..I.E things involving HHH and The Rock in some way.

The McMahon Helmsley Saga was one of the best developed angles of the Attitude Era due to how much Chris Kreski maintains continuity during his time as a head writer with the storyboards AND a continuity chart. The current Authority angle has already devolved into a convoluted mess because Story arcs and Characters arcs get aborted with no explanation of any kind. So again, cling to that rhetoric about how crazy the AE was but atleast those stories maintained continuity and addressed things as they happened.

 

[Sweettre15]

Triple H /Stephanie McMahon or "The Authority" is not supposed to be heel or face. In storyline, they are neutral authority figures who do whats "best for business". They bring back guys who are big names, ratings draws and PPV sellers and want Randy Orton as their champion and the "Face of the WWE" but on the other hand they don't like Daniel Bryan and don't want him to win the WWE World title but now they are starting to doubt Orton as their champion and starting to think if Daniel Bryan would have been the right choice to be the "Face of the WWE". Thats the whole "Authority" storyline.

Only if you pretend the first few months of this storyline didn't happened when HHH and Steph were not only picking on Bryan but making examples of Miz, Big, Show, Ziggler, and Cody Rhodes to get the locker room to fall in-line and not show dissension. Threatening them with their jobs if they try to help etc.