THTRobtaylor
Once & Future Wrestlezone Columnist
By now the dust is settling somewhat on what arguably could be called “Black Sunday” for WWE. So much happened over the course of 24 hours and so many threads on the forums have opened, I figured if I was ever going to resurrect “The Hot Topic”, then this is the time.
This will dovetail in and out of many threads so hopefully the mods don’t infract... and who knows maybe some of the higher-ups might want to put this on the site as a one off edition of a classic WZ column.
We all know what happened, as of this moment Roman Reigns v Brock Lesnar is our Mania main event, the fans hated it with a passion, to the level that even Dwayne Johnson...yes, THAT Dwayne Johnson got booed out of a WWE arena for the first time legit in nearly 20 years.
First let’s deal with some of the misconceptions around what happened and why it did.
“The Philly crowd and IWC only wanted Bryan to win, and were going to shit on anything else, especially Reigns.”
This is dangerous to assume for us as fans and certainly for WWE as a business. Unless they are heavily papering their shows, ala WCW, then everyone in that crowd paid to get in to the Rumble. An area does not make a crowd a certain way, smart fans don’t “own” cities as is commonly claimed. Some areas may have larger, more sophisticated fans but the reality is that a bad match or show is bad in Philadelphia, Chicago, Montreal or MSG. Fans from all walks of life have attended the last 2 Royal Rumble shows and left, not only upset with the outcome but at how they feel treated. This has then been amplified by the inevitable online backlash from those watching at home.
ANY crowd reacting that way to the finale and planned booking of your biggest show of the year is a red flag moment. It wasn’t “Punk fans” or Daniel Bryan fans. This was swathes of paying WWE customers telling WWE in no uncertain terms that this is NOT what they want. That is not best for business anywhere.
“Reigns is not ready to headline Mania and Bryan is.”
The most tragic part of all of this is like the classic break up with a girlfriend who just isn’t “doing it for you”. The reaction has nothing to do with Roman Reigns. “It’s NOT you...It’s ME” is a cliché but it really does apply here.
It’s not Roman’s fault that he is being put into this position, that his mic skills haven’t caught up to others in his “NXT Class” or that he is Vince’s template for success. He’s doing his job, with what he’s given and often that is enough for success, if it’s right for the fans.
Reigns is in exactly the same position both Kevin Nash and Lex Luger found themselves in, the machine is willing, the fans like them but just not enough compared to the other option, in this case Daniel Bryan rather than Bret Hart. It’s ironic that The Rock was the guy sent out there last night and that it’s he who is related to Reigns. Imagine if Rocky Maivia had been shotgunned into the WM13 World title match instead of Undertaker or Sid, or even a year later instead of Austin. The same thing was already happening with him, the fans rejecting him outright and the extra 2 years allowed him to grow to be a much bigger star than Vince’s machine could ever have made him. Had they held off on Lex and Nash in the same way, again both could have been HUGE stars but impatience and Vince’s insistence on “his way” stopped that, and it is doing so again for Reigns. If anyone can help Reigns through this, it’s The Rock, after last night few would blame him if he didn’t. But he is family, so he very likely will.
Remember too that both guys have come off career threatening injuries in the last year; it’s easy to argue that NEITHER guy is ready to headline Wrestlemania this year. WWE has some blame here in how they portrayed both situations. Bryan’s was played out partly as the drama of the show, he was stripped of the title, it was shown on Total Divas and was shown every much as a life and death situation in terms of his career. Bryan’s life wasn’t in danger but his career was.
Reigns situation was far more serious in reality, he could literally have died had he not got attention when he did. Strangulated hernias can kill/mess up your body for life. WWE played it down however, they made it seem like a semi serious thing, but then played it like it was “just another surgery” rather than the life threatening issue it had been and with the odd interview. That puts the fans in a difficult situation, do they want to see the guy who fought the odds to keep his career or the guy who “had a surgery”, it’s always going to be Bryan. If WWE had been straight with Reigns and worried less about “keeping him strong” then fans would arguably be more invested in him now, if he’d conquered death so to speak.
“Other guys deserve it more than either guy.”
Get over it guys, Punk is NEVER coming back. A lot of the problem with last night started a year ago today when Punk when home. Few could argue he didn’t deserve to headline Mania last or this year more than Reigns does now, but that’s not how it worked out.
Dolph Ziggler does NOT deserve to go to the main event as the Rumble winner, he got 2 minutes. Why? Didn’t he have another “comedy club” snafu a week or two ago? It’s clear he’s not committed and he’s also a 3rd strike concussion risk. Dean Ambrose, sure he is over enough but he can do it next year and not lose too much from doing so and same for Bray Wyatt, even Barrett is being punished a little bit for his use of the DDP catchphrase on his return, perhaps cos it nearly scuppered a DDP appearance/HOF induction? Nah, that’s not Page, he’d have loved it, but if Vince thought it, off, it explains a loss to Sin Cara.
This was no different ten or twenty years ago. In 1995 and 1996 Davey deserved to win, he was over, was in shape and was putting on great matches but he got strong showings instead. In 1992 you could say 5 guys deserved the win and the title, but you knew Flair was getting it regardless. Hunter was gonna win KOTR but got depushed for a faux pas just like Ziggler.
In 1999 when Vince won it, people didn’t act like this, cos they got it was leading somewhere and Vince worked in the match.
Some guys aren’t going to join that Mania headliner club and we and they would benefit if we accept that. The newer guys today have time on their side, if Ambrose ends up headlining 32 does it matter he didn’t this year? Not at all, just like it didn’t hurt Triple H that Rock and Austin headlined in ’99.
“Vince is out of touch”
After that reaction, between the hashtags and the live crowds, there is no way Vince is unaware of the situation. He heard those boos the same as Dwayne and Roman did, and at some point today would have probably have had an awkward conversation with someone telling him how many actual cancellations there were. If it’s over 10,000 there is a MAJOR problem.
Vince was aware of all this before the red light went on the PPV, he knew there would be backlash live, it’s why Rock was booked as he was as a “balm”, Dwayne might have been told “It’ll be rough, but nothing you haven’t seen before” except it was worse than anything he’d ever seen.
At worst Vince totally botched it, misjudged it all or even worse forced it through in a conscious decision. At best, he genuinely didn’t expect the reaction. While “out of touch” is harsh on him, from today, here on for the rest of WWE’s life he knows his fan base have spoken. If he decides to “press on” then he is making that call and will be forced to stand whatever business fallout there is, be it reduced live crowds, subscriptions or more likely, pressure at board level to step aside from those pesky investors he wanted so much when he went public. Maybe it was a pragmatic approach with “we can fix it later”, after all they did that last year. But the problem here is that whatever the reason, for the 2nd year running, the fanbase have left the Rumble with a bloody nose so to speak.
A famous man was once ridiculed for botching the phrase “Fool me once...” and lost what credibility he had left in doing so. Vince is in the exact same position now, having fooled his fanbase twice now. Dubya was President, he was guaranteed 4 years... Vince isn’t.
So what can WWE do now? Why has this whole thing happened and what can they do to solve it.
I am a firm believer that the biggest “matchup” WWE ever has seen is about to take place, and it’ll be in the Boardroom in Stamford.
There is clearly a fundamental divide in WWE and it’s product, in one corner we have Vince McMahon, the man who created the genre, has had more success than anyone in it and has 50 years of experience. He also has a seeming obsession with WWE being “more than wrestling” he wants it to be Disney, with movies and toys and theme parks. Vince would appear to be pathologically averse to being labelled “a wrestling promoter” and that has driven his business model for over 30 years. It has worked in the main, but we have been here before, 20 years ago when the WWF was in major trouble, losing stars left and right and struggling to replace them. Then, they had major competition who took them to the edge.
What saved the company was not McMahon’s business model but his two competitors, turned up to eleven. WCW were reality and older demographic skewed, so Vince did it better, ECW was offering violence and blood and thunder, so Vince did.
These were desperation moves, not “the plan”, these were arguably so the guy could say “I tried everything to save my business.” And history proves it worked. But as we all know winners write history, and it was thus written that Vince was a genius, he wasn’t he just had nothing left to lose by not doing it. First chance he got, he went back to his comfort zone, PG content designed to drive merch and movies rather than what had brought them out of the darkness. Political pressures such as Benoit, Eddie and the ever present drug spectre have played their part, but at heart Vince is a children’s marketeer.
In the other corner you have Paul “Triple H” LeVesque, this is the kid who grew up loving wrestling. Not Sports Entertainment but NWA style wrestling. He idolised Flair, trained with Kowalski, but was smart enough to know his true future lay in the WWE. For years he has been called their “best heel” and he truly is all told the best they ever had but with one word added... Wrestler!
Trips is the best heel wrestler they ever had, forget Bret’s bitter 4, there is no one who has come up through the ranks, studied the game of being a pro wrestler and especially a heel and been able to combine that with Vince’s vision and then translate that into the business side to his level. Ever.
Wrestling is in this guys DNA more so than even Vince’s, while he might be the “son he never had” they are polar opposites, Vince was the son of a promoter who wanted to be a wrestler but wasn’t allowed but doesn’t want to be “just a promoter”.
Trips is the guy who grew up wanting to be a wrestler, became one and now is seemingly content to be called that. NXT is blossoming because it’s wrestling, not sports entertainment. The fans are booing Reigns and wanting Bryan and his like because they WANT wrestling not sports entertainment. It is almost as if last nights card was booked half and half, the Rumble by Vince and the title match by Trips and it showed, the gulf couldn’t be wider.
The battle is going to be for which of these paths WWE takes because one has to be agreed on and followed. In the middle are investors and of course Steph and Shane who have clearly both reduced their involvement in the last 2 years or so, why? Could it be that they both saw this coming a LONG time ago and have been preparing for minimal family fallout. After all if Gramps and Daddy don’t talk any more cos of business, it’s gonna be rough on those kids...and mommy.
It’s not a foregone that Vince will win, but I can see him doing anything to prevent WWE becoming a wrestling company again, even selling to a juggernaut like Disney, becoming a real billionaire with that seat on the board/consultant position. Like Stan Lee at Marvel, I can see him “selling out” to avoid it.
The problem is that WWE could be the very best wrestling promotion in the world under Trips and still do some of what Vince wants but to think “there is no business anymore is wrong”, the wrestling business is actually the healthiest it’s been for years, smaller companies sure, none really competing with WWE directly but for the first time there are feds working together again, putting on US shows, TV and PPV’s and a potential new “NWA” body in Jarrett’s GFW. The wrestling business is actually going full circle with the territory seemingly returning. The market is clearly there, the appetite is there. So WWE has a place as the pinnacle of that business if it can be wrestling and focus on it. What has been forgotten is that WWE lost a top talent in Justin Gabriel yesterday as well, a guy who turned round and said “I am out...”
Talent is seeing this landscape and starting to think of it as a better option away from the WWE, how long till a major name does make the jump like Lex, Nash and Hall did?
Under Vince’s watch it will happen sooner rather than later, under Trip’s way, perhaps not as he will find a way to keep them sated.
Perhaps Trips has to “buy Vince out” the same way Vince bought his dad out, or even the investors have to “stage a coup” for this to happen.
Make no mistake, this battle is coming and the next conference calls could be very telling as to which way it goes.
This is a bit of a dissertation, bit I am gonna call this part one... of course we have to see what happens tonight. There’s a lot riding on it.
As ever your feedback is appreciated below, if you want to rep by all means do so but no hate please... if you like the column and want more, tell WZ about it... maybe we can have a return of The Hot Topic.
Edit: Moments after posting this I find RAW is cancelled... oh wow... God must be getting his receipt for the match with HBK...
This will dovetail in and out of many threads so hopefully the mods don’t infract... and who knows maybe some of the higher-ups might want to put this on the site as a one off edition of a classic WZ column.
We all know what happened, as of this moment Roman Reigns v Brock Lesnar is our Mania main event, the fans hated it with a passion, to the level that even Dwayne Johnson...yes, THAT Dwayne Johnson got booed out of a WWE arena for the first time legit in nearly 20 years.
First let’s deal with some of the misconceptions around what happened and why it did.
“The Philly crowd and IWC only wanted Bryan to win, and were going to shit on anything else, especially Reigns.”
This is dangerous to assume for us as fans and certainly for WWE as a business. Unless they are heavily papering their shows, ala WCW, then everyone in that crowd paid to get in to the Rumble. An area does not make a crowd a certain way, smart fans don’t “own” cities as is commonly claimed. Some areas may have larger, more sophisticated fans but the reality is that a bad match or show is bad in Philadelphia, Chicago, Montreal or MSG. Fans from all walks of life have attended the last 2 Royal Rumble shows and left, not only upset with the outcome but at how they feel treated. This has then been amplified by the inevitable online backlash from those watching at home.
ANY crowd reacting that way to the finale and planned booking of your biggest show of the year is a red flag moment. It wasn’t “Punk fans” or Daniel Bryan fans. This was swathes of paying WWE customers telling WWE in no uncertain terms that this is NOT what they want. That is not best for business anywhere.
“Reigns is not ready to headline Mania and Bryan is.”
The most tragic part of all of this is like the classic break up with a girlfriend who just isn’t “doing it for you”. The reaction has nothing to do with Roman Reigns. “It’s NOT you...It’s ME” is a cliché but it really does apply here.
It’s not Roman’s fault that he is being put into this position, that his mic skills haven’t caught up to others in his “NXT Class” or that he is Vince’s template for success. He’s doing his job, with what he’s given and often that is enough for success, if it’s right for the fans.
Reigns is in exactly the same position both Kevin Nash and Lex Luger found themselves in, the machine is willing, the fans like them but just not enough compared to the other option, in this case Daniel Bryan rather than Bret Hart. It’s ironic that The Rock was the guy sent out there last night and that it’s he who is related to Reigns. Imagine if Rocky Maivia had been shotgunned into the WM13 World title match instead of Undertaker or Sid, or even a year later instead of Austin. The same thing was already happening with him, the fans rejecting him outright and the extra 2 years allowed him to grow to be a much bigger star than Vince’s machine could ever have made him. Had they held off on Lex and Nash in the same way, again both could have been HUGE stars but impatience and Vince’s insistence on “his way” stopped that, and it is doing so again for Reigns. If anyone can help Reigns through this, it’s The Rock, after last night few would blame him if he didn’t. But he is family, so he very likely will.
Remember too that both guys have come off career threatening injuries in the last year; it’s easy to argue that NEITHER guy is ready to headline Wrestlemania this year. WWE has some blame here in how they portrayed both situations. Bryan’s was played out partly as the drama of the show, he was stripped of the title, it was shown on Total Divas and was shown every much as a life and death situation in terms of his career. Bryan’s life wasn’t in danger but his career was.
Reigns situation was far more serious in reality, he could literally have died had he not got attention when he did. Strangulated hernias can kill/mess up your body for life. WWE played it down however, they made it seem like a semi serious thing, but then played it like it was “just another surgery” rather than the life threatening issue it had been and with the odd interview. That puts the fans in a difficult situation, do they want to see the guy who fought the odds to keep his career or the guy who “had a surgery”, it’s always going to be Bryan. If WWE had been straight with Reigns and worried less about “keeping him strong” then fans would arguably be more invested in him now, if he’d conquered death so to speak.
“Other guys deserve it more than either guy.”
Get over it guys, Punk is NEVER coming back. A lot of the problem with last night started a year ago today when Punk when home. Few could argue he didn’t deserve to headline Mania last or this year more than Reigns does now, but that’s not how it worked out.
Dolph Ziggler does NOT deserve to go to the main event as the Rumble winner, he got 2 minutes. Why? Didn’t he have another “comedy club” snafu a week or two ago? It’s clear he’s not committed and he’s also a 3rd strike concussion risk. Dean Ambrose, sure he is over enough but he can do it next year and not lose too much from doing so and same for Bray Wyatt, even Barrett is being punished a little bit for his use of the DDP catchphrase on his return, perhaps cos it nearly scuppered a DDP appearance/HOF induction? Nah, that’s not Page, he’d have loved it, but if Vince thought it, off, it explains a loss to Sin Cara.
This was no different ten or twenty years ago. In 1995 and 1996 Davey deserved to win, he was over, was in shape and was putting on great matches but he got strong showings instead. In 1992 you could say 5 guys deserved the win and the title, but you knew Flair was getting it regardless. Hunter was gonna win KOTR but got depushed for a faux pas just like Ziggler.
In 1999 when Vince won it, people didn’t act like this, cos they got it was leading somewhere and Vince worked in the match.
Some guys aren’t going to join that Mania headliner club and we and they would benefit if we accept that. The newer guys today have time on their side, if Ambrose ends up headlining 32 does it matter he didn’t this year? Not at all, just like it didn’t hurt Triple H that Rock and Austin headlined in ’99.
“Vince is out of touch”
After that reaction, between the hashtags and the live crowds, there is no way Vince is unaware of the situation. He heard those boos the same as Dwayne and Roman did, and at some point today would have probably have had an awkward conversation with someone telling him how many actual cancellations there were. If it’s over 10,000 there is a MAJOR problem.
Vince was aware of all this before the red light went on the PPV, he knew there would be backlash live, it’s why Rock was booked as he was as a “balm”, Dwayne might have been told “It’ll be rough, but nothing you haven’t seen before” except it was worse than anything he’d ever seen.
At worst Vince totally botched it, misjudged it all or even worse forced it through in a conscious decision. At best, he genuinely didn’t expect the reaction. While “out of touch” is harsh on him, from today, here on for the rest of WWE’s life he knows his fan base have spoken. If he decides to “press on” then he is making that call and will be forced to stand whatever business fallout there is, be it reduced live crowds, subscriptions or more likely, pressure at board level to step aside from those pesky investors he wanted so much when he went public. Maybe it was a pragmatic approach with “we can fix it later”, after all they did that last year. But the problem here is that whatever the reason, for the 2nd year running, the fanbase have left the Rumble with a bloody nose so to speak.
A famous man was once ridiculed for botching the phrase “Fool me once...” and lost what credibility he had left in doing so. Vince is in the exact same position now, having fooled his fanbase twice now. Dubya was President, he was guaranteed 4 years... Vince isn’t.
So what can WWE do now? Why has this whole thing happened and what can they do to solve it.
I am a firm believer that the biggest “matchup” WWE ever has seen is about to take place, and it’ll be in the Boardroom in Stamford.
There is clearly a fundamental divide in WWE and it’s product, in one corner we have Vince McMahon, the man who created the genre, has had more success than anyone in it and has 50 years of experience. He also has a seeming obsession with WWE being “more than wrestling” he wants it to be Disney, with movies and toys and theme parks. Vince would appear to be pathologically averse to being labelled “a wrestling promoter” and that has driven his business model for over 30 years. It has worked in the main, but we have been here before, 20 years ago when the WWF was in major trouble, losing stars left and right and struggling to replace them. Then, they had major competition who took them to the edge.
What saved the company was not McMahon’s business model but his two competitors, turned up to eleven. WCW were reality and older demographic skewed, so Vince did it better, ECW was offering violence and blood and thunder, so Vince did.
These were desperation moves, not “the plan”, these were arguably so the guy could say “I tried everything to save my business.” And history proves it worked. But as we all know winners write history, and it was thus written that Vince was a genius, he wasn’t he just had nothing left to lose by not doing it. First chance he got, he went back to his comfort zone, PG content designed to drive merch and movies rather than what had brought them out of the darkness. Political pressures such as Benoit, Eddie and the ever present drug spectre have played their part, but at heart Vince is a children’s marketeer.
In the other corner you have Paul “Triple H” LeVesque, this is the kid who grew up loving wrestling. Not Sports Entertainment but NWA style wrestling. He idolised Flair, trained with Kowalski, but was smart enough to know his true future lay in the WWE. For years he has been called their “best heel” and he truly is all told the best they ever had but with one word added... Wrestler!
Trips is the best heel wrestler they ever had, forget Bret’s bitter 4, there is no one who has come up through the ranks, studied the game of being a pro wrestler and especially a heel and been able to combine that with Vince’s vision and then translate that into the business side to his level. Ever.
Wrestling is in this guys DNA more so than even Vince’s, while he might be the “son he never had” they are polar opposites, Vince was the son of a promoter who wanted to be a wrestler but wasn’t allowed but doesn’t want to be “just a promoter”.
Trips is the guy who grew up wanting to be a wrestler, became one and now is seemingly content to be called that. NXT is blossoming because it’s wrestling, not sports entertainment. The fans are booing Reigns and wanting Bryan and his like because they WANT wrestling not sports entertainment. It is almost as if last nights card was booked half and half, the Rumble by Vince and the title match by Trips and it showed, the gulf couldn’t be wider.
The battle is going to be for which of these paths WWE takes because one has to be agreed on and followed. In the middle are investors and of course Steph and Shane who have clearly both reduced their involvement in the last 2 years or so, why? Could it be that they both saw this coming a LONG time ago and have been preparing for minimal family fallout. After all if Gramps and Daddy don’t talk any more cos of business, it’s gonna be rough on those kids...and mommy.
It’s not a foregone that Vince will win, but I can see him doing anything to prevent WWE becoming a wrestling company again, even selling to a juggernaut like Disney, becoming a real billionaire with that seat on the board/consultant position. Like Stan Lee at Marvel, I can see him “selling out” to avoid it.
The problem is that WWE could be the very best wrestling promotion in the world under Trips and still do some of what Vince wants but to think “there is no business anymore is wrong”, the wrestling business is actually the healthiest it’s been for years, smaller companies sure, none really competing with WWE directly but for the first time there are feds working together again, putting on US shows, TV and PPV’s and a potential new “NWA” body in Jarrett’s GFW. The wrestling business is actually going full circle with the territory seemingly returning. The market is clearly there, the appetite is there. So WWE has a place as the pinnacle of that business if it can be wrestling and focus on it. What has been forgotten is that WWE lost a top talent in Justin Gabriel yesterday as well, a guy who turned round and said “I am out...”
Talent is seeing this landscape and starting to think of it as a better option away from the WWE, how long till a major name does make the jump like Lex, Nash and Hall did?
Under Vince’s watch it will happen sooner rather than later, under Trip’s way, perhaps not as he will find a way to keep them sated.
Perhaps Trips has to “buy Vince out” the same way Vince bought his dad out, or even the investors have to “stage a coup” for this to happen.
Make no mistake, this battle is coming and the next conference calls could be very telling as to which way it goes.
This is a bit of a dissertation, bit I am gonna call this part one... of course we have to see what happens tonight. There’s a lot riding on it.
As ever your feedback is appreciated below, if you want to rep by all means do so but no hate please... if you like the column and want more, tell WZ about it... maybe we can have a return of The Hot Topic.
Edit: Moments after posting this I find RAW is cancelled... oh wow... God must be getting his receipt for the match with HBK...
