Humble Hearst Helmsley

[Supremo]

He should sack the head of creative.

[TheScarlettChad]

He's such a bellend. He gets the credit for 39-40 but those were the old regime. He's a complete cretin with zero creative instincts. I'm convinced NXT was other people's hardwork. 

[Supremo]

Irony is that between Trick Williams and Oba Femi he’s sitting on the best Class of NXT in about a decade, with all signs suggesting you could pull the trigger on both of those lads as Main Event talent in the near future, and yet he’s already talking as if he knows they’ll bottle it and screw both of them up.

[LaGoosh]

7 hours ago, TheScarlettChad said:

I'm convinced NXT was other people's hardwork

The acclaimed Black and Gold era was indeed. Ryan Ward was the head writer but somehow Triple H got all the credit.

[RedTwoster]

10 hours ago, TheScarlettChad said:

He's such a bellend. He gets the credit for 39-40 but those were the old regime. He's a complete cretin with zero creative instincts. I'm convinced NXT was other people's hardwork. 

To be completely fair on him, they weren’t. 39 was pre-TKO, but Triple H had replaced McMahon in creative. At 40, they made a big play of this being the first Wrestlemania of the new era. He definitely deserves some level of credit for that period, just as Vince Russo deserves some level of credit for portions of the Attitude Era. 

[Supremo]

I like the difference in energy between these two clips, the first from last year’s Wrestlemania media week and then this week’s.

Not quite as cocky this year. Almost as if he can feel the walls closing in. Brian Gerwirtz haunting his dreams like the Ghost of Christmas Future.

[BomberPat]

4 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

The acclaimed Black and Gold era was indeed. Ryan Ward was the head writer but somehow Triple H got all the credit.

and before that, when it was a fun little character-driven show, it was more Dusty Rhodes than Triple H.

Triple H's input to NXT seemed to be hiring everyone he could with some indie buzz behind them, barely changing them at all, and promoting them as someone who had "won titles all over the world" - yeah, you and everyone else on the roster, mate. 

I'm sure he had some good ideas and good input in those years he gets credit for, though the main thing I saw praise for was the Bloodline story and Sami Zayn's involvement in it - I'd wager that there was more Heyman than Hunter to that whole angle. But even if it was all Triple H, it's the nWo to his Bischoff, a good idea that ended up working against him because he didn't know when to let it go.

[Chris B]

His entire career was made out of being the backup guy at the right time.

[tiger_rick]

37 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

To be completely fair on him, they weren’t. 39 was pre-TKO, but Triple H had replaced McMahon in creative. 

39 was built on McMahon's decision to reset the World Title onto Roman Reigns, create a single focal point and a monster reign. McMahon also rehired Cody. I fucking hate the old sex-pest but there's little argument for anyone but him creating the Cody & Roman main event. People were falling over themselves to blame McMahon for Cody losing too.

40 is a success off the back of 39 so I'd credit them equally for the outcome. However, the mess made in the run up to 40 is some of the worst booking in wrestling history. It's casually mentioned on here in a LOL TNA way as a bit of a hiccup but it was an almightly shit show that only works out because there are no standards anymore. They don't even have to book themselves out of things anymore. They just wink at the camera and play the highlights on Unreal. They did the same for the Cena heel and face turn. It's dogshit.

The guy is fucking rubbish and a MAGA cunt but he exists in an era where no-one looks too closely at the former and the latter is the norm. 

McMahon, for all his flaws, is 100 times the booker that Poundland Dana White is.

[LaGoosh]

A Triple H booking story that always sticks with me is when they had spent weeks building up to the big Festival of Friendship angle/Owens heel turn on Jericho. On the day Vince wasn't there and Triple H was running the show and decided to scrap it and do your standard heel turn because he thought the whole thing was stupid. Jericho called Vince, thinking it was him who had scrapped it, and asked him why. Vince immediately said "What the fuck? No, that's what we're doing!", called Triple H and told him to change everything back to the original plan and we got one of the best angles of the modern era.

[RedTwoster]

23 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

39 was built on McMahon's decision to reset the World Title onto Roman Reigns, create a single focal point and a monster reign. McMahon also rehired Cody. I fucking hate the old sex-pest but there's little argument for anyone but him creating the Cody & Roman main event. People were falling over themselves to blame McMahon for Cody losing too.

I’m not saying McMahon shouldn’t get credit for aspects of it - but the Bloodline storyline didn’t hit the heights it did until he was removed from his role. He was responsible for Reigns retaining at 39, I believe. He’s a MAGA twat, but he deserves his due for the company’s recent boom period. It may simply be because he let others run with their ideas, but he was still in charge of creative at that point.

Personally, I had more time for him than I now do - I liked his early booking, it gelled with my personal tastes, but his positioning with the Trump campaign has me slightly loathed to say positive things about him, even if things were still good. If you’re willing to associate yourself with Trump, you’re willing to overlook multiple acts of genuine evil to benefit your bottom line. So in spite of the credit I’ve given him for 39/40, he can still go fuck himself. 

[TheScarlettChad]

Vince was a fantastic booker. Just not in the last twenty years of his tenure. But he had a couple of times where he struck gold. Cody was one. And like Rick said, it's not like Triple H invented the story of Cody winning the big one. I'd argue it started the raw after mania 38. He mentioned why he came back, how his dad never held the big one etc etc. He inherited that story. The bloodline was created when Vince was in charge too. 

[Lorne Malvo]

1 hour ago, TheScarlettChad said:

Vince was a fantastic booker. 

He was in charge for about 40 years and in that time I reckon I could count the number of genuinely great storylines on one hand.

He was a fantastic promotor and businessman* but I don't think he was a good booker in the slightest. 

*and a disgusting cunt, obviously. 

[Chili]

18 minutes ago, Lorne Malvo said:

He was in charge for about 40 years and in that time I reckon I could count the number of genuinely great storylines on one hand.

He was a fantastic promotor and businessman* but I don't think he was a good booker in the slightest. 

*and a disgusting cunt, obviously. 

He could be a good booker when he had a good foreman and team of decent heads under him. Patterson, Cornette, even Prichard and Russo in that because Vince could filter. But he was someone who needed a filter himself depending on where his head was at. I look at that spring 1992 period during the time Pat Patterson wasn't about as an example of Vince needing the support system. Even during the shit business years, he still had the team and there were good or very logical angles going on.

[Cod Eye]

I always classed Vince as being in the the "Head Chef" position in the Booking Team. He was the one that set the overall direction of the product, the ingredients(the talent/gimmics), but it's actually his brigade working under him that puts the angles and stories together that gets the story arc from A to B to C, with Vince acting as almost Quality Control to make sure he is happy with what will be on screen and that it matches his vision.