This is a post from Caegside seats written by Biff Kensington. It's a long read, but i love the points that are made. This is abosultely the best summary of why Vince is out of touch with the times, and is to damn stubborn to understand what is wrong.
"Wrestling is defined by eras, whose names have become synonymous with the various epochs in the modern history of WWE. Names that resonate as cultural capstones in the grand history of sports entertainment: Golden Age, New Generation, Attitude, Ruthless Aggression, PG. For the last three years or so, wrestling fans have found themselves smack in the middle of the WWEs latest period, the so-called Reality Era. And yet, despite operating under a changed paradigm from the heady days of Hulkamania, when fans seemingly consumed whatever Vince McMahon fed them, the nature of todays fan base is immeasurably different. The WWE portrays itself as the fusion of sports and entertainment, reality television mixed with soap opera and gladiatorial combat as the zenith of its genre. All the while, the fans grow more and more vitriolic over this new method of operating, providing a distressing dichotomy between WWEs version of reality, and the reality as experienced by the fans.
A Season to Remember
"Since when do the fans dictate the policies of the WWF?"
These words, spoken by Jesse Ventura during WrestleMania VI, were largely forgotten about immediately after the fact. At that time, it was simply a throwaway line without any bearing on the reality of the then-WWFs programming. In hindsight, however, one could see this random musing as the very antithesis of what was soon to come. Whereas Vince McMahon had long held sway over his audience, lording over WWF programming as the god of Titan Sports throughout much of the 1980s to incredible returns, by 1990 the first chinks in the armor began to appear, as the fans slowly began dwindling away. The casual fan base that had powered Vinces company through the Age of Hulkamania began to fade; those that remained had a harder time supporting some of Hogans successors. By the mid-1990s, the WWF had fallen so far out of touch not only with the desire of the fan base, but with the very talent pool itself, it opened the door for a rival company in Atlanta to nearly put them out of business.
Of course, the WWF never went extinct (unless you count the name change to WWE, which is another story for another time); Vince finally decided to tap into the angst of the late-1990s and go edgy, ushering in the Attitude Era. At no other point in its history did the fans have so much power; programming had never before been so heavily influenced by the will of the people. Archetypes for superstars were cast aside, and the characteristics of protagonists and antagonists were turned upside down. It was an age of wanton violence, sexual innuendo and more middle fingers and crotch chops than you could count. It was a glorious time for the fans who came of age in that era. Despite its shortcomings in terms of in-ring quality, the Attitude Era remains a fondly-remembered period in wrestling history, and for good reason.
By 2002 however, times were changing. A combination of injuries, departures, and the relatively tired nature of the stories being toldcoupled with a disastrous Austin heel turn and the badly-mismanaged InVasion angle in 2001signified the end of the Attitude Era. From 2002 onward, the newly-christened WWE would cycle through a number of different eras and a host of talent in an attempt to recapture the business that had propelled them to a virtual monopoly in North America professional wrestling during the late-1990s. Men like Triple H, Brock Lesnar, Eddie Guerrero, Batista, Randy Orton, Edge and John Cena (the poster child for the post-Attitude Era WWE) all took their turn trying to reignite the brand and usher in a new age of prosperity.
In trying to turn back the clock, Vince seemed to run the gambit of brand identities for the WWE. From the utter-tastelessness of the shock TV period of 2002 to the ridiculously cheesy PG-qualities of the Guest Host streak on Raw between 2009 and 2012, the WWE tried every imaginable tactic to quash the malaise that had settled over the company in the wake of WCWs closure and ECWs bankruptcy. His latest attempt, the so-called Reality Era of WWE programming, purports to combine the broad-tent atmosphere of reaching multiple demographics while once more shedding the traditional narratives endemic to the previous decade of programming. In an age when fans have the ability to peek behind the curtain both metaphorically and literally through the IWC, the Reality Era is designed to emphasis the fans more than at any point in the companys history.
Thats the idea, anyway. In execution? Well
Perception is Not Reality
As with most things in life, trying to define a definitive starting-and-finishing point to events can be tricky. However, many people trace the start of the current era of WWE programming back to Summer of Punk in 2011. There had been flashes of changing times before that, most notably during the initial Nexus Invasion in 2010. Yet it was the interaction between CM Punk and Vince McMahon following his famous pipe bomb promo in Las Vegas that really began to change the landscape in the WWE. It was the Punk angle in 2011 that actually sowed the seeds for the Authority angle that we see playing out today, bringing Triple Hs executive role in the company to the forefront for the first time.
Though the ultimate success of the Summer of Punk angle can be debated, it is absolutely fair to say that the storyline introduced a unique dynamic into the WWEs storytelling that had really never existed before. There were traces of it present in the original Austin vs. McMahon storyline in 1997 and 1998, but not to extent reached in 2011. For the first time since the Attitude Era, storylines regarding the inner-workings of the company became front and center. The curtain was pulled back so to speak thanks to the likes of CM Punk and Daniel Bryan, perhaps two of the three major names that have highlighted this new era of WWE programming. Both Punk and Bryan became superstars by fighting against the system in their own way. Traditional archetypes were to be discarded in favor of more realistic shades of gray, from the central themes of storylines all the way down to how referees called matches. Most importantly of all, the fans were going to be positioned front and center, making them the key element in the WWEs creative direction.
Enter Roman Reigns.
If CM Punk could be seen as the face of the Reality Era from 2011 to 2013, and Daniel Bryan from 2013 through 2014, Roman Reigns would have to be seen as the focal point from the 2015 Royal Rumble on through the present. Yes, other stars have elevated their game in that period, such as Seth Rollins and Kevin Owens. But Roman Reigns has become the guy as far as the WWE is concerned. Regardless of his placement on the card, whether in the main event of WrestleMania or wrestling in the midcard at SummerSlam, the announcers on TV would never let you forget how awesome and wonderful Roman Reigns was, and that we as fans were privy to the future of sports entertainment. If that were what the fans wanted, there would be no problem there. Unfortunately, reality has been less than kind to Vince and his Reality Era.
From the moment Roman Reigns stepped into the area at the 2015 Royal Rumble in Philadelphia, a backlash began that has waxed and waned over the months, but has never truly dissipated. Despite being presented as a virtuous babyface worthy of our respect and admiration, fans have largely rejected Reigns in said-role, only lessening their rejection as he fell down the card after an aborted WrestleMania triumph in California. Following Seth Rollinss injury in November, Roman Reigns has once again begun to climb back up the card. Despite some early successes, the backlash has once again returned in full force, this time even more virulent than the year previous. The most realistic thing about Raw Monday night was the nigh-cathartic joy the bloodthirsty Detroit crowd took from seeing Triple Hthe supposed heel in their storylinebeat the ever-loving piss out of the supposed heroic babyface Roman Reigns.
On a microlevel, fans have had trouble identifying with Roman Reigns for a number of reasons. His promos are less than stellar, his ring work is inferior to many of his contemporaries in the upper card, and his charisma seems to vanish at random times, making him appear wooden on TV, as though he were battling through a case of stage fright. These flaws in the Reigns character are both valid and real, and contribute to the fans rejection of Roman as the new face of the WWE, itself a role invented by the Reality Era. On a macrolevel however, Romans problems are even more pronounced: fans have a difficult time buying into the idea that Roman Reigns is the antithesis of what Vince McMahon is looking for in a top star.
There is a stereotype, perpetuated online for years, that a top star in the WWE has to be a tall, muscular, and handsome. Roman Reigns is almost a caricature of the Vince fetish, right down to the flowing locks of hair and the immaculate smile. With CM Punk, you could buy that Vince might have a problem supporting an opinionated malcontent with a tattooed, less-than-chiseled physique. You could buy that Vince and the Authority would have an issue with Daniel Bryan, whose short stature and scruffy appearance contrasted wildly to the Cena-mold of company ambassadors. That paradigm simply doesnt play with Roman, who by all accounts is a mild, inoffensive, uncontroversial presence behind the scenes.
The continued push of Roman Reigns to the top of the card, despite the vast opposition from the fan base, is indicative of the inherent flaw in the Reality Era. Despite presenting the company in a light that indicates a greater degree of fan participation than ever before, the company has in reality insulated itself into a bizarre bubble, doing everything in its power to control the narrative. This problem isnt solely confined to the inexplicable push of Roman Reigns, either: from the bizarre buzzwords and catchphrases that have found themselves extricated from WWE programming to the obvious manipulation of facts to portray the company in a glowing light, the WWE has devolved into an almost-Orwellian style of dystopia, offering the illusion of participation while in actuality attempting to control every single aspect of the companys fortunes, all the way down to randomly crushing talents (both on-screen and off) for seemingly arbitrary reasons.
Hello, Zack Ryder. And Titus ONeil. And perhaps a dozen other men and women in their employ.
Vince McMahon is trying to have things both ways. He wants the fans to have the illusion of making a difference in the product, while still holding godlike control over who gets cheered and how. The problem with operating this way in 2016 is that the fans are privy to this faux-reality. Fans saw the unique burial of Zach Ryder, and read up on the over-the-top punishment for Titus ONeil. They listened to CM Punks grievances with the company on Colt Cabanas podcast, and they were privy to Daniel Bryans discontent with his station in the company after the 2014 Rumble on social media. In an age when the proportion of smart fans compared to casual fans has never been larger, to assume that the inner-workings of the company could be obscured from an increasingly smartened fan base is naïve. The reality of the WWEs Reality Era is that theres no reality involved at all.
It is, instead, a fiction crafted by a man who is desperate to pass his product off as fact. In doing so, he created a dangerous wedge between the WWE and the fans. Truthfully speaking, the biggest heel in the WWE right now isnt the Authority, or Vince McMahon, or even faux-face Roman Reigns. The biggest heel in the WWE right now IS the WWE, and the fans have come to see themselves as the babyfaces. For Vince, the position is untenable in the long haul. Because whether the fans ultimately change the course of storylines and the men and women who portray them, or they elect to quit watching and do something else, the good guys in this story will inevitably win. And the reality is, Vince has no one to blame but himself."
Thoughts?
"Wrestling is defined by eras, whose names have become synonymous with the various epochs in the modern history of WWE. Names that resonate as cultural capstones in the grand history of sports entertainment: Golden Age, New Generation, Attitude, Ruthless Aggression, PG. For the last three years or so, wrestling fans have found themselves smack in the middle of the WWEs latest period, the so-called Reality Era. And yet, despite operating under a changed paradigm from the heady days of Hulkamania, when fans seemingly consumed whatever Vince McMahon fed them, the nature of todays fan base is immeasurably different. The WWE portrays itself as the fusion of sports and entertainment, reality television mixed with soap opera and gladiatorial combat as the zenith of its genre. All the while, the fans grow more and more vitriolic over this new method of operating, providing a distressing dichotomy between WWEs version of reality, and the reality as experienced by the fans.
A Season to Remember
"Since when do the fans dictate the policies of the WWF?"
These words, spoken by Jesse Ventura during WrestleMania VI, were largely forgotten about immediately after the fact. At that time, it was simply a throwaway line without any bearing on the reality of the then-WWFs programming. In hindsight, however, one could see this random musing as the very antithesis of what was soon to come. Whereas Vince McMahon had long held sway over his audience, lording over WWF programming as the god of Titan Sports throughout much of the 1980s to incredible returns, by 1990 the first chinks in the armor began to appear, as the fans slowly began dwindling away. The casual fan base that had powered Vinces company through the Age of Hulkamania began to fade; those that remained had a harder time supporting some of Hogans successors. By the mid-1990s, the WWF had fallen so far out of touch not only with the desire of the fan base, but with the very talent pool itself, it opened the door for a rival company in Atlanta to nearly put them out of business.
Of course, the WWF never went extinct (unless you count the name change to WWE, which is another story for another time); Vince finally decided to tap into the angst of the late-1990s and go edgy, ushering in the Attitude Era. At no other point in its history did the fans have so much power; programming had never before been so heavily influenced by the will of the people. Archetypes for superstars were cast aside, and the characteristics of protagonists and antagonists were turned upside down. It was an age of wanton violence, sexual innuendo and more middle fingers and crotch chops than you could count. It was a glorious time for the fans who came of age in that era. Despite its shortcomings in terms of in-ring quality, the Attitude Era remains a fondly-remembered period in wrestling history, and for good reason.
By 2002 however, times were changing. A combination of injuries, departures, and the relatively tired nature of the stories being toldcoupled with a disastrous Austin heel turn and the badly-mismanaged InVasion angle in 2001signified the end of the Attitude Era. From 2002 onward, the newly-christened WWE would cycle through a number of different eras and a host of talent in an attempt to recapture the business that had propelled them to a virtual monopoly in North America professional wrestling during the late-1990s. Men like Triple H, Brock Lesnar, Eddie Guerrero, Batista, Randy Orton, Edge and John Cena (the poster child for the post-Attitude Era WWE) all took their turn trying to reignite the brand and usher in a new age of prosperity.
In trying to turn back the clock, Vince seemed to run the gambit of brand identities for the WWE. From the utter-tastelessness of the shock TV period of 2002 to the ridiculously cheesy PG-qualities of the Guest Host streak on Raw between 2009 and 2012, the WWE tried every imaginable tactic to quash the malaise that had settled over the company in the wake of WCWs closure and ECWs bankruptcy. His latest attempt, the so-called Reality Era of WWE programming, purports to combine the broad-tent atmosphere of reaching multiple demographics while once more shedding the traditional narratives endemic to the previous decade of programming. In an age when fans have the ability to peek behind the curtain both metaphorically and literally through the IWC, the Reality Era is designed to emphasis the fans more than at any point in the companys history.
Thats the idea, anyway. In execution? Well
Perception is Not Reality
As with most things in life, trying to define a definitive starting-and-finishing point to events can be tricky. However, many people trace the start of the current era of WWE programming back to Summer of Punk in 2011. There had been flashes of changing times before that, most notably during the initial Nexus Invasion in 2010. Yet it was the interaction between CM Punk and Vince McMahon following his famous pipe bomb promo in Las Vegas that really began to change the landscape in the WWE. It was the Punk angle in 2011 that actually sowed the seeds for the Authority angle that we see playing out today, bringing Triple Hs executive role in the company to the forefront for the first time.
Though the ultimate success of the Summer of Punk angle can be debated, it is absolutely fair to say that the storyline introduced a unique dynamic into the WWEs storytelling that had really never existed before. There were traces of it present in the original Austin vs. McMahon storyline in 1997 and 1998, but not to extent reached in 2011. For the first time since the Attitude Era, storylines regarding the inner-workings of the company became front and center. The curtain was pulled back so to speak thanks to the likes of CM Punk and Daniel Bryan, perhaps two of the three major names that have highlighted this new era of WWE programming. Both Punk and Bryan became superstars by fighting against the system in their own way. Traditional archetypes were to be discarded in favor of more realistic shades of gray, from the central themes of storylines all the way down to how referees called matches. Most importantly of all, the fans were going to be positioned front and center, making them the key element in the WWEs creative direction.
Enter Roman Reigns.
If CM Punk could be seen as the face of the Reality Era from 2011 to 2013, and Daniel Bryan from 2013 through 2014, Roman Reigns would have to be seen as the focal point from the 2015 Royal Rumble on through the present. Yes, other stars have elevated their game in that period, such as Seth Rollins and Kevin Owens. But Roman Reigns has become the guy as far as the WWE is concerned. Regardless of his placement on the card, whether in the main event of WrestleMania or wrestling in the midcard at SummerSlam, the announcers on TV would never let you forget how awesome and wonderful Roman Reigns was, and that we as fans were privy to the future of sports entertainment. If that were what the fans wanted, there would be no problem there. Unfortunately, reality has been less than kind to Vince and his Reality Era.
From the moment Roman Reigns stepped into the area at the 2015 Royal Rumble in Philadelphia, a backlash began that has waxed and waned over the months, but has never truly dissipated. Despite being presented as a virtuous babyface worthy of our respect and admiration, fans have largely rejected Reigns in said-role, only lessening their rejection as he fell down the card after an aborted WrestleMania triumph in California. Following Seth Rollinss injury in November, Roman Reigns has once again begun to climb back up the card. Despite some early successes, the backlash has once again returned in full force, this time even more virulent than the year previous. The most realistic thing about Raw Monday night was the nigh-cathartic joy the bloodthirsty Detroit crowd took from seeing Triple Hthe supposed heel in their storylinebeat the ever-loving piss out of the supposed heroic babyface Roman Reigns.
On a microlevel, fans have had trouble identifying with Roman Reigns for a number of reasons. His promos are less than stellar, his ring work is inferior to many of his contemporaries in the upper card, and his charisma seems to vanish at random times, making him appear wooden on TV, as though he were battling through a case of stage fright. These flaws in the Reigns character are both valid and real, and contribute to the fans rejection of Roman as the new face of the WWE, itself a role invented by the Reality Era. On a macrolevel however, Romans problems are even more pronounced: fans have a difficult time buying into the idea that Roman Reigns is the antithesis of what Vince McMahon is looking for in a top star.
There is a stereotype, perpetuated online for years, that a top star in the WWE has to be a tall, muscular, and handsome. Roman Reigns is almost a caricature of the Vince fetish, right down to the flowing locks of hair and the immaculate smile. With CM Punk, you could buy that Vince might have a problem supporting an opinionated malcontent with a tattooed, less-than-chiseled physique. You could buy that Vince and the Authority would have an issue with Daniel Bryan, whose short stature and scruffy appearance contrasted wildly to the Cena-mold of company ambassadors. That paradigm simply doesnt play with Roman, who by all accounts is a mild, inoffensive, uncontroversial presence behind the scenes.
The continued push of Roman Reigns to the top of the card, despite the vast opposition from the fan base, is indicative of the inherent flaw in the Reality Era. Despite presenting the company in a light that indicates a greater degree of fan participation than ever before, the company has in reality insulated itself into a bizarre bubble, doing everything in its power to control the narrative. This problem isnt solely confined to the inexplicable push of Roman Reigns, either: from the bizarre buzzwords and catchphrases that have found themselves extricated from WWE programming to the obvious manipulation of facts to portray the company in a glowing light, the WWE has devolved into an almost-Orwellian style of dystopia, offering the illusion of participation while in actuality attempting to control every single aspect of the companys fortunes, all the way down to randomly crushing talents (both on-screen and off) for seemingly arbitrary reasons.
Hello, Zack Ryder. And Titus ONeil. And perhaps a dozen other men and women in their employ.
Vince McMahon is trying to have things both ways. He wants the fans to have the illusion of making a difference in the product, while still holding godlike control over who gets cheered and how. The problem with operating this way in 2016 is that the fans are privy to this faux-reality. Fans saw the unique burial of Zach Ryder, and read up on the over-the-top punishment for Titus ONeil. They listened to CM Punks grievances with the company on Colt Cabanas podcast, and they were privy to Daniel Bryans discontent with his station in the company after the 2014 Rumble on social media. In an age when the proportion of smart fans compared to casual fans has never been larger, to assume that the inner-workings of the company could be obscured from an increasingly smartened fan base is naïve. The reality of the WWEs Reality Era is that theres no reality involved at all.
It is, instead, a fiction crafted by a man who is desperate to pass his product off as fact. In doing so, he created a dangerous wedge between the WWE and the fans. Truthfully speaking, the biggest heel in the WWE right now isnt the Authority, or Vince McMahon, or even faux-face Roman Reigns. The biggest heel in the WWE right now IS the WWE, and the fans have come to see themselves as the babyfaces. For Vince, the position is untenable in the long haul. Because whether the fans ultimately change the course of storylines and the men and women who portray them, or they elect to quit watching and do something else, the good guys in this story will inevitably win. And the reality is, Vince has no one to blame but himself."
Thoughts?
