When did Vince McMahon turn nutty?

[harrythem]

Way back in mid 1997 Vince McMahon called a talent meeting backstage, just after Brian Pillman died, and admitted, to the roster, that perhaps he was out of touch with what the general public wanted to see and, in future, he welcome, and wanted, a much larger input from the talent, and backstage hands, into creating the characters that we saw on TV.

Following this edict there was a noticable upswing in the WWF's popularity (taking it to the highest it's ever been) and, even though Vince's ego still went wild throughout (from featuring himself and his family at the top of the card to Trish barking like a dog) there was enough lee-way for the talent to adlib their interviews and matches.

Even when he bought all the competition there was still that level of free reign, (Paul Heyman's worked/shoot promo on Vince before Survivor Series 01 being a prime example) and this resulted in some of the most inventive matches we've ever seen.

However, as the years have gone on, promo's are scripted word for word now. Matches are planned spot for spot. Talent has to follow a dress code. Just to name a few things but there are probably loads more.

My question is two-fold really....

Firstly, when do you think that Vince decided that he was the master of what the public wanted to see again (even if ratings and buy rates say otherwise)

Secondly, what can you being the catalyst for the return of the freedom that Vince (within reason) allowed his talent to have in the past?


Me personally? I think that, if this inquest into the "Independent Contractors" situation forces WWE to admit they're employees, that could see a huge shift in how Vince deals with talent....Saving that his death (coupled with Triple H getting in Steph's ear about giving the talent more scope to work) seem to me to be the only hope we have.

 

[Dwayne_Jason]

Vinny Mac is a learner. There are two typsa people in the world those who learn and those who see the tide coming. Vunny is the latter. He needs to see the tide coming and he needs a SERIOUS wake up call. And as much as I adore Cena, Cena needs to get boo'd the FUCk out one of the Raw's like...NUMBEROUS times 'til Vince says "Shit we need some ideas." If we seen one thing in the past it's only when Vince is backed into the corner he fights back. Vince needs to be backed to the point that he can only go on the offensive. And we all know what happens when WWE goes on the offensive.

 

[boybrushedred]

Vince decided he was "master of what the public wanted to see" right about when he became a monopoly and had no competition to compete against. As long as tna continue to sucks(i like tna i can watch it, but honestly its nowhere close to the wwe, vince russo is ruining another company) vince mcmahon is going to plan everything, each and every word said and every action, so that it helps the wwe sell and continues to bring in all the money from the kids

 

[masked tex]

Vince is really not nutty, he just acts that way on TV.

Cena is the babyface of the company, but he needs to back off, like a lot of the other wrestlers, Edge, Jericho,Orton, Big Show, and let a lot of the younger wrestler's get in the spotlight for once.

He has to watch out for his Senator running wife also.

 

[Charismatic Enigma]

Desperation.

Desperation is what would cause the shift in direction you speak of. Which is why I disagree with the above poster that Vince doesn't see the tide coming. On the contrary, I think Vince DOES see the tide coming. He sees that MMA was encroaching on his business, so you know what he did? He counter balanced it by making a family friendly product. Of course, none of us appreciate the PG era, but from a business standpoint it makes perfect sense. An attitude era repeat can't occur at the moment as long as the UFC exists, because you can order a UFC PPV and see all the violence and vulgarity you want, and the best part...it's real! Vince can't compete with that and he knows it, so he did the next best thing, he put a very tight filter on what can be done in his company to make it kid friendly, and the effect? Higher sponsorship levels, cross branding with national chains, WWE films, etc.

The desperation required to cause any kind of change won't occur anytime soon, because the WWE is doing as good or better than they have in recent years, and so from a strictly money standpoint "if ain't broke, don't fix it".

 

[masked tex]

they should let the talent { wrestlers ] do their own thing, like they did with the Rock. He got to do his own promos, with all his funny thing's, on his own.

 

[Dwayne_Jason]

Desperation.

Desperation is what would cause the shift in direction you speak of. Which is why I disagree with the above poster that Vince doesn't see the tide coming. On the contrary, I think Vince DOES see the tide coming. He sees that MMA was encroaching on his business, so you know what he did? He counter balanced it by making a family friendly product. Of course, none of us appreciate the PG era, but from a business standpoint it makes perfect sense. An attitude era repeat can't occur at the moment as long as the UFC exists, because you can order a UFC PPV and see all the violence and vulgarity you want, and the best part...it's real! Vince can't compete with that and he knows it, so he did the next best thing, he put a very tight filter on what can be done in his company to make it kid friendly, and the effect? Higher sponsorship levels, cross branding with national chains, WWE films, etc.

The desperation required to cause any kind of change won't occur anytime soon, because the WWE is doing as good or better than they have in recent years, and so from a strictly money standpoint "if ain't broke, don't fix it".

No doubt. But that plan is a very short sighted plan. Yes it has sponsorships, yest it has national chains but are the buyrates skyroketing? Are the WWE Films really getting a positive light? No, not really. The sponsorships are here, only for a while. WWE has given thier profit to the sponsors as opposed to keeping the investors in a tight grip by holding on your product and making it big. Kids grow up fast and these people think the kids have credit cards. Their parents have the credit cards. If they say no, it's gonna be no. The main problem with 'E is that they believe they are Big Brother for these kids. What they don't understand is kids grow up fast and they have a short lifespan of comic hero obsession. When you're 12, you'd like to see the good guy win, but when you're 14 you wanna see Miley Cyrus' tits and someone getting the shit beaten out of them. It's a simple teenage thing. WWE is losing in profit and that is a bad thing for them. Thier buy rates have been consistent down and and they need a re-vamp: Either form better storyline, create better characters or slowly die off.

Social Darwinism: If you adapt you live if you do not, you wither off into extinction. WCW did, TNA is not too far off and if WWE keeps going like this and hires shitty writers and bookies they'll be the second one who hits the fan.

 

[tRKOj]

Vinny Mac is a learner. There are two typsa people in the world those who learn and those who see the tide coming. Vunny is the latter. He needs to see the tide coming and he needs a SERIOUS wake up call. And as much as I adore Cena, Cena needs to get boo'd the FUCk out one of the Raw's like...NUMBEROUS times 'til Vince says "Shit we need some ideas." If we seen one thing in the past it's only when Vince is backed into the corner he fights back. Vince needs to be backed to the point that he can only go on the offensive. And we all know what happens when WWE goes on the offensive.

Vince really is like dat he didn't get real edgy with his product in the 90's until WCW debuted the nWo and kicked their asses 4 2 years, he did the brand split a year after buyin WCW and ECW cuz he saw the rating drop within dat year due 2 no competition. Vince is like Rocky Balboa he'll get the shit beat out of him until he is backed into the corner and then BAM!! he goes on the offensive and down goes Creed then were all happy. The problem rite now though is dat there aint nuttin there beatin da shit out of him i've been seein more threads on here bout MMA and UFC hittin da WWE real bad and they r in PPV buyrates but in da end they really r 2 differant things until TNA or another wrestling promotion comes along nuttin is gonna change we really just have 2 suck it up and live with it, Vince McMahon said it best "Life Sucks And Then You Die" lol

 

[One to Remember]

i think hes been crazy since he was a young guy. I think it took til the late '90s to come out with it though. We seen early signs of his nuttiness with the Goldust character. I think he let lose when cultural changes permitted. PG is safe for business and truthfully MMA and wrestling are in the same universe as hard as that is for some people to get. Boxing and wrestling were way back in the day too. If MMA is too close to encroaching WWE whynot make WWE mor likee MMA and non-predetermined to boot? TNA is not PG and yet they have not absorbed the fan base seeking attitude era esque wrestling shows..

I think Trish stratus rolling in mud, Sables and Debra's puppies howling at the moon, and WWF officials being sprayed down with a beer hose and shot gun weddings and crotch chops are a better personification of the real McMahon then that lame bow tie he wore as an announcer circa 1993..

 

[Serious Mozzarella]

It's got to be the fact that Vince doesn't really have any competition anymore. Sure, he "upped" his game when TNA became a name people actually knew, but he quickly found out that TNA didn't become anything like the threat people were making it out to be. Basically, Vince is going to go about doing what Vince wants to do, simply because there's nothing else out there that's going to make people want to switch programming.

That being said, I don't think it's fair to say that Vince never takes input from his talent. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to sit here and say that Yoshi Tatsu has creative control over his character, but I'm sure people like Triple H and John Cena have a little bit of pull when it comes to how to portray themselves.

 

[The Duke]

So apparently answering questions and not writing babble isn't allowed so...

Back in the day, a long time ago Vince thought up a deep, dark secret for Kane. That secret was SOOOOO bad that HHH said he'd tell the world and blah blah yadda yadda. In all of Vince's genius...he decided to culminate it with Hunter fucking a fake, dead corpse in a casket by the name of Katie Vick. So...to answer the question much longer than I actually needed to...Vince went nutty when his top storyline was to have one of his top superstars having dirty, nasty, unadulterated, steamy fucking sex with a fake corpse of a fake dead girl.

 

[Davi323]

Way back in mid 1997 Vince McMahon called a talent meeting backstage, just after Brian Pillman died, and admitted, to the roster, that perhaps he was out of touch with what the general public wanted to see and, in future, he welcome, and wanted, a much larger input from the talent, and backstage hands, into creating the characters that we saw on TV.

Source? Were you there? Do you actually know what was said during that so-called meeting, or is it just pure speculation based on a memory of something that you think happened 13 years ago? If such a meeting occurred, what makes you think that he changed his mind at a later time? Do you have any kind of evidence to back up your claim that Vince sought more input, and then, do you have any kind of evidence to back up your claim that at some point afterward, Vince decided to reject outside input?

However, as the years have gone on, promo's are scripted word for word now. Matches are planned spot for spot. Talent has to follow a dress code. Just to name a few things but there are probably loads more.

I call complete bullshit. If promos are scripted word for word, then the NXT challenges would have been memorization contests, instead of on-the-spot ad libbing. Further, it means that there have to be guys backstage who have to write them all, and they have to keep the language consistent to each character. If they were all written ahead of time by some script writer, they wouldn't all sound completely different from each other. Far more likely that they merely give the wrestlers certain bullet points to hit, and then leave it up to them to get to them in any way they see fit. Hampering someone like Chris Jericho with a scripted promo, when he is clearly capable of speaking on his own, is a complete waste of talent, and given the individual personalities of each wrestler, makes little sense.

This also goes to the matches themselves. Between the 3 shows and weekly house shows, there are probably 30 or more matches, give or take in any given week. I figure about 6 per show on Raw and Smackdown, 3 on NXT, and between 7-8 each per house show. That's right around 30 matches. Logistically, having to script 30 complete matches a week, move for move, and then rehearse each match with the wrestlers to make sure they have it completely right, in addition to all the time those wrestlers spend travelling, doing company photo ops, etc, while still giving them a few days off seems a bit too much to chew. But that is exactly what you are suggesting. That somehow wrestlers have time to memorize complicated matches, while travelling, while still finding time to spend with their families, working out, and going on press junkets for the WWE. I suggest there is no way in hell they would have time to do everything you claim they have to do. From the wrestler's standpoint, that is asking a lot.

From a booker's standpoint, you are asking a lot too. You suggest that the wrestlers have no input, and follow some script that details each and every move they do. So, they have to memorize their promos, and they have to memorize each step of a very complicated match, scripted by a 3rd party, whose job is not only to lay out every single move, but to make sure that every match looks like a match that those two wrestlers would have, using each's specific move sets. That all requires time to plan out. How can a team of bookers accomplish such a task? If they have to script out EVERY move, for 30 matches a week, keeping each match in style with each wrestler's abilities and personalities, in addition to ensuring the wrestlers have those matches completely memorized, you better be getting paid a shit ton of money, because the stress involved in that would send you to an early grave. So, I call bullshit. More likely they have a few key spots they work on ahead of time, know the finish, but that how they get from A to B to C is left entirely up to them, based on their individual wrestling personalities and wrestling styles. You are making it way too hard. The bookers give the wrestlers guidelines, then let them call their own matches, for the most part. Some key spots will be planned, sure...but for the most part, if the wrestlers are any good, they should be able to call their own match, and make it cohesive. If Shawn Michaels had to rely on the pre-scripted matches that bookers made for him, and didn't improvise, he never could have gotten the reputation of making everyone in the ring look better. HBK put on great matches because he knew how to put on a great match, not because it was scripted. If it was scripted, they could script every match to look as good as an HBK match does.

Dress codes are actually good ideas. When you dress in a suit and tie, you act more professionally than you do in jeans and a T-shirt. The WWE is a major corporation, whose stock is exchanged on the NYSE. They are big time. Asking his employees to dress like professionals when arriving to and from the arena is not too much to ask at all. Having wrestlers show up to the arena in a suit and tie says the WWE cares about presentation. The same dress code is in effect in the major sports leagues, so this complaint is ridiculous.

My question is two-fold really....

Firstly, when do you think that Vince decided that he was the master of what the public wanted to see again (even if ratings and buy rates say otherwise)

Secondly, what can you being the catalyst for the return of the freedom that Vince (within reason) allowed his talent to have in the past?


Me personally? I think that, if this inquest into the "Independent Contractors" situation forces WWE to admit they're employees, that could see a huge shift in how Vince deals with talent....Saving that his death (coupled with Triple H getting in Steph's ear about giving the talent more scope to work) seem to me to be the only hope we have.

Your entire premise is based on nothing but speculation, when you can provide some form of concrete proof, perhaps I would consider your post to be something more than a smark trying to sound smart and failing.

 

[harrythem]

Well Davi323. Firstly if you bothered to read interviews with people that were there during the time, including big names such as Mick Foley, Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Steve Austin, The Rock, etc, then you'll know that the meeting did take place.Vince even went on tv not long after and gave his "not insulting the audience" anymore speech. I'm not going to go hunting through hours of wrestling stuff to find the exact quotes but, the meeting did take place.

And, onto your second point. The top level talent does have a hand in what they do, I know that. I'm talking about the mid-card guys. You listen to the promos and you hear the word "opportunity" and certain aspects of language used over and over again, regardless of who's saying them. I know the mid-card has always had a basic outline as to what to say in what time-scale but, there was a lot more freedom for guys, even using Val Venis as an example, to be able to put a bit more of themselves into the character and create more of a connection then the talent has today.

As for the dress code. It's a picky point but, they're classed as independent contractors, surely he can't force them to adhere to a dress code (or limit their bookings to just him, but that's by the by)

perhaps you should look a bit more into the reality of the WWE and how it works before referring to someone as smarky and stupid because, "quite frankly", you come across as a twat.

 

[Davi323]

Yes, he can "force" them to look professional. You have obviously NEVER done any independent work, have you? If your contracted employer wants you to dress a certain way, you dress the way they want to.

Again, show me specific evidence. I can say that there are interviews from the Rock, Austin, HHH, HBK, Undertaker too, that say the exact opposite of what you claim...but without a legit source, its useless...just like your entire post.

So, in defense of your position that wrestlers have no say in their matches or promos, you end up agreeing with me? That is going to make your case so much easier...You realize that your rebuttal completely proves my point about what a smark trying to sound smart you are, and how stupid you actually came across as. You started out by insisting that the wrestlers had absolutely no control...and then, when someone points out how ridiculous that premise was, you change your tune, because you know you made a completely stupid post, and don't know how to back down gracefully. Just admit it, you were wrong in stating that wrestlers (which you didn't qualify at first, and now suddenly you do) had no control to call their own matches, had no control over their promos. Because clearly, they do. Miz's promos are the Miz's promos. He isn't a world champion, he is a midcarder attempting to reach that next level. He was delivering the same style promos when he was a complete unknown on ECW, as he does now, on the verge of being a world champion level wrestler. So, you now have the following choices to make...Miz has no control over his promos, because he is still a midcarder, and whoever writes it for him is pure gold, but somehow fails miserably with everyone else, or Miz had a large creative hand in his own promos, even when he was getting his ass beat every week on ECW. Either way, you can't win, because your rebuttal contradicts your own post.

I come across as a twat? Well, I guess you should feel lucky then, because I am as close as you will ever get to seeing a pussy.

 

[harrythem]

Mick Foley's first book talks about the meeting. Vince Russo's first book talks about the meeting. Jim Cornette has spoken in various interviews with Power Slam magazine (as did Mick Foley) about the meeting. There is proof there but I'm not going to start digging through things to quote pages and exact words because I have better things to do. It's there though.

Yes I've done independent work and followed codes etc, I just don't see why, all of a sudden, he decided to enforce this dress code, considering it was years after the WWE went public.

Perhaps the Miz has that charisma that he can make the scripted lines come across with more passion then others in the company. You give someone like The Rock the scripted stuff they get today and he could still make it passionate because he has charisma. A lot of the guys seem more interested in remembering to state their lines then they do delivering them with any semblance of character (Sheamus being a prime example).

I'll admit I was wrong to state all wrestlers but, let's be honest, apart from the elite few, the majority of the roster have a line they have to follow with career suicide being the option to not do as their told in the ring and how they're told to do it.

You're right, you're clearly the closest I'll get to a cunt