The Vince McMahon death storyline

[WWEvsJosh]

Every now and then i wonder what would have happen if this storyline got played out all the way. Part of me after first loved the idea only because it could have made for some really good tv. Faces and Heels all being questioned and all trying to find out who did it. I would think part of the storyline would be Vince saying he faked his death, but then the question that would be answered during the storyline would be why did he do it.

I have 3 questions to ask. You dont have to answer all of them.
1. Did you even like the idea?
2. If you did like it what did you hope could have came out of it?
3. Do you think they should try this storyline again later?

 

[I Heart Cena]

1)I hated the idea. It was a slap in the face to all of us.

It was total desperation. Out of ideas? Let's kill VKM! derp

3)Yes they should, just to mess with us and take focus off cena

 

[Papa Pillman]

They dropped the storyline because one of their wrestler's became "not fake dead" and took his family with him.

In light of that, and combined with how much pro wrestling and untimely death go hand-in-hand, I doubt you will see the WWE go back to this well of "killing off" one of its wrestlers in kayfabe storyline. It is in bad taste. Wrestling is not like other scripted tv or film mediums, people get invested in what they believe to be "real life" characters even its only in a suspended-belief fashion.

I agree with "I Hate Cena"(I just shuttered typing that), this was a desperation move.

As for the what-if game? It would have been interesting to see where this would have potentially taken Paul London's career.

 

[gasM]

1) I didn't really have time to cast judgement on it. It was so out of left field and mind blowing, and then a few days later it was over. With hindsight it was a bit out of place, as it was a crash TV style angle better suited to the Attitude Era when people were more desensitised to controversy in wrestling. I suppose it had legs and could have been kind of interesting.

2) Really you couldn't have a heel be guilty of it because unless they were arrested for murder it would be too unrealistic to handle, and if Vince came back unharmed for revenge then you would expect the heel to be fired after the angle was over. Probably the best outcome would have been for Vince to return as a heel with some rationale behind faking his own death to screw somebody, leading to a new babyface opposing Vince for playing peoples' emotions in that way.

3) They really shouldn't try it again. It was already about 10 years too late to pull off, and factoring in the social networking society we have it just wouldn't work. Redoing the Vince injured by a falling sign angle though...

 

[kcoe24]

I actually looked this up today after thinking about what was going to happen. The report said the plan was for Vince to be behind this with a top heel helping him out it says Mr. Kennedy was the top choice.

As for the questions.
1. i liked it. It was different and i was looking forward to the memorial special as i wanted the first big clue in the case to be reveled.

2. honestly not sure what would have come of it. They probably planed some power struggle thing and vince did it to gain more power not really sure how this would work but its something they could do. Maybe him and his son Mr. Kennedy (yeah i combined the two stories) run some power stable and it leads to Mr. Kennedy vs HHH for control of the wwe for Vince and Steph. This was the best part of the story as I had no clue where they were going to take it. I was upset that they pulled the story though it was the right choice.

3. No this is one of the stories that should only happen once and never again.

 

[EastCoastFan]

1) I thought the Vince Is Dead storyline had potential. When Vince's limo blew up, it made me wonder where it was going to go from there.

2) From what I've read online, if the Benoit tragedy hadn't happened, that night's Raw would have been Vince's funeral (the superstars were all told to wear black suits, Ted DiBiase was brought in to give the eulogy, ...) and the show would have ended with Linda McMahon being taken into police custody as a suspect. From there, who knows? Hopefully, it would have had a better ending than the "Who ran over Steve Austin?" angle (Rikishi?!)

I remember reading something on tvtropes.org (consider the source) that this whole thing came about because USA Network wanted WWE to do a murder mystery storyline. They went with Vince as the victim because he wanted to retire the Mr. McMahon character. How much truth there is to this, I don't know.

3) I think after how poorly received the angle was (I recall the IWC hated it a lot and thought it was tasteless), they won't try to do anything like it again.

 

[Richard]

1. I thought it was interesting purely to see what they were going to do with it but I also thought that for professional wrestling, it was obviously way too unrealistic of a storyline to actually believe in. I just prefer storylines which would be more realistic.

2. I am pretty sure I read somewhere after the whole Chris Benoit situation that what the storyline was going to amount to was Vince McMahon faking his death in order to see who cared about him. I could be completely wrong on that one but that's just what I remember hearing about.

3. I don't think it should be attempted again. Especially if it's Vince McMahon too, but then again they like to leave stuff out and hope people don't remember. I think it's better if they don't just in case they get into trouble again with a real life situation. Not necessarily within WWE but they might get a lot of criticism if someone can mirror the storyline with a real life situation.

 

[justtxyank]

It was a stupid storyline that was designed to stroke Vince's ego. You'd get a memorial service, praises about him, video packages, etc. Then he would swoop back in at some point and become the star of the show again, either as a heel or a face, it doesn't matter.

There's no bigger ego stroker than Vince.

 

[Jerichoholic8894]

Paul London apparently was supposed to sky rockect to a WWE title run with that storyline.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/80243-the-huge-paul-london-storyline-that-never-happened

Doubt it's true, but you never know

 

[The Eighties]

That Paul London article seems like total bullshit, I didn't know he'd been on creative though. All I recall about him as regards the angle was the rumour him smiling got him put firmly in the dog house.

This, along with the illegitimate son angle just seemed like Vince vanity projects, this particular one being Vince's version of "Who shot JR?"

 

[James]

One thing I remember is that a lot of people took it so serious that the stock just dropped. I honestly wondered what would've happened. Then again, I guess it wasn't meant to having considering the events that happened not too long after.

 

[TheHitMark-SirJoseOle]

People tend to forget that Sensational Sherri passed away during the time this stupid storyline was occurring. Her death was very downplayed and demphasized to perpetuate this nonsense. Don't get me wrong I have been a fan of WWE for years, more so when they were the WWF. But it's instances like these that people who rip on other wrestling promotions like TNA for their tastelessness conveniently forget about some of the nonsense that WWE has done. It's unfortunate that it took the Benoit murder suicide to end this storyline. In the first place, it just never should have happened.

 

[Waylon Mercy]

I remember that episode where he stepped into the limousine and it blew up supposedly with him in it. The whole thing seemed pretty awkward and forced, and stood out like a sore thumb as to where the product was at during that time. I think for the previous months Vince was doing those stupid million dollar giveaways via live telephone calls. Naturally, those segments were terrible, with technical difficulties and the ambient noise of the crowds drowning out the segments. The death of Vince McMahon just seemed like another in a long line of desperate attempts to rejuvenate interest in the WWE. then of course the very next week after the explosion, we got the terrible news of Chris Benoit. The whole story hadn't yet come out, so a memorial was planned for that Raw. Vince was forced to step out of character and be there to pay tribute to his fallen employee. From there, and the subsequent details of the murder/suicide story behind Chris Benoit, Vince had to drop the angle completely.

 

[Dagger Dias]

1. Did you even like the idea?

I thought it was a storyline that could have gotten very interesting very quickly. Whichever wrestler was the one who was behind the limo explosion would have gotten a huge push and Vince would have seen who cared about him (kayfabe or not). It was a win/win situation and honestly should have worked out well. They just had horrible timing with it starting the same week as Benoit's death. At the time I wanted to have seen it play out, and to this day I still am curious as to what would have happened during the angle.

2. If you did like it what did you hope could have came out of it?

I recall hearing rumors back then about both Kennedy and London being considered as the wrestlers that caused the limo explosion. I believed more in the Kennedy rumor. This was before Edge took his Money In the Bank briefcase. The Vince's son angle and the limo explosion could have been linked angles, centered around Kennedy giving him the push of a lifetime. Obviously due to Benoit's death and Kennedy's own mistakes neither happened. Whoever was involved would have gotten a huge push and it's a shame we will never know what the end result would have been.

3. Do you think they should try this storyline again later?

Absolutely. Blow up the limo again, have Trips take over onscreen (he needs to anyhow, I'm a little tired of Vince anyway), and run the angle. The question is, who on today's roster could be behind it? Punk? Bryan? Orton? Miz? Kane? Sheamus? Or could it be the catalyst behind the highly anticipated Cena heel turn? It's more of an issue of who they would like to push with this storyline. Also if a limo explosion is too controversial for the PG rating then they could do something more realistic or less serious. There are ways to get around it and a "who killed Vince" storyline is not out of the realm of possiblity in the future. It gives someone a big push and Vince gets to see how much people care about him, kayfabe or not.

 

[MrMojoRisin]

1 - No, I hated the idea. It was just too soap opera-ish. Plus the way they were carrying it out post explosion was very disrespectful to guys who had died while working for the company previously.

3 - No they shouldn't. If they tried something like that today, they'd probably end up putting up a Youtube video a few days later with whomever they 'killed off' letting people know that he wasn't really dead, and that this was all a part of being in the entertainment business... ala Zeb Colture and Jack Swagger breaking kayfabe on Youtube to respond to Glenn Beck.

 

[MWRedskins]

I have 3 questions to ask. You dont have to answer all of them.
1. Did you even like the idea?
2. If you did like it what did you hope could have came out of it?
3. Do you think they should try this storyline again later?

1) i dont know if i liked the idea. i didnt love it as it was a story that shouldnt ever be told, BUT if the story worked, it would've maybe been ok. however, they ended it early due to Benoit.
2) the only thing i hoped would come out of it was more heat on McMahon.
3) nah, then it would be hard to believe wwe whenever McMahon does eventually pass on. they tried the story and it failed.

 

[InstantAttitude]

1. I kinda did they really went the extra mile with the storyline I FREAKING saw a news report about Vince's "Death" on WB 11 once. Seriously.
2. Some big name heel being created hopefully.
3. No, its been attempted once already no need to do it again.

 

[bioshock]

This happened right around the same time of the Sopranos season finale, they were basically ripping that off I think, don't quote me on it though. But I really think WWE had that storyline made up following how the Sopranos show ended. Of course it went south cause of Benoit.

And I hated it too.

But to keep with topic, had it played out. My bet is Vince would of returned by Wrestlemania, it had to of been some storyline they had in mind to play out for Wrestlemania.

 

[CrucifiedRaven]

They could have gone pure drama with it.

Clues. Mystery. Finally a big reveal. The character behind it gets arrested and goes to jail for a few weeks. Gets broken out of jail, or somehow manages to get out. Big match payoff. Would have been all entertainment with little sports.

If they can have buried alive matches, don't know why they couldn't do another similar 'death' angle.

 

[King Kong Bundy]

1. Did you even like the idea?

To be honest I actually did. It certainly bordered on ridiculous but wrestling is all about embracing the crazy and it opened up a lot of doors without being like anything that had been done before. I have always been a fan of mystery and it was an angle that offered just that. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for the whodunit aspect. Either way? It had potential.

2. If you did like it what did you hope could have came out of it?

I would have liked to have seen it keep people guessing. Throwing clues out there or false leads. So much of wrestling nowadays is ruined by spoilers but I would have loved to have seen something that could have even gotten the IWC on the edge of their seat. I wouldn't want it to be anybody too obvious though. Someone like Paul London would have been absolutely perfect and who knows what it could have done for the illegitimate son angle?

3. Do you think they should try this storyline again later?

Sure! They would definitely have to switch things around a little but it has been long enough that I doubt there would many complaints. Because of Benoit it never had the chance to get started and there is so much WWE writers could do with it! You have enough superstars who could believably want the boss dead (and who could seriously benefit from something so big) and it would be a nice break from the Shield versus WWE storyline we have been seeing for so long.