Humble Hearst Helmsley

[gmoney]

I think people have forgotten how atrocious WWE was from 2002 - 2022. The good stuff in that time was often accidental or because someone was able to convince Vince to let themselves have some input. Can't believe some of the revisionism happening here. 

[tiger_rick]

1 hour 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. 

I think that's really harsh. If you look at the big angles, it's probably still not true but if you look at the bigger picture, then I think it's under-rated how good a job they did for so long. They didn't just book big angles or storylines, they booked house show feuds across the board, the beginnings of those feuds, the shows and TV events they'd peak at and the outcomes, generally bleeding into new feuds. Their traditional booking was way better than the TV booking we've become used to that has to go week to week to week and lead to a PPV match and often multiples of them while convincing us marks to scan QR codes or whatever. 

11 minutes ago, Cod Eye said:

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.

There have been times were he's very hands on but it's never really just been him. People like George Scott, Pat Patterson, JJ, Jerry Jarrett, Bill Watts, Corny, Russo, etc have come and gone, working with or under Vince. He's was the clear head booker from the early 80s encompassing many years of concise booking in their traditional business model and handling the transition to TV dominated booking pretty well.

4 minutes ago, gmoney said:

I think people have forgotten how atrocious WWE was from 2002 - 2022. The good stuff in that time was often accidental or because someone was able to convince Vince to let themselves have some input. Can't believe some of the revisionism happening here. 

Not trying to be deliberately inflammatory but it still seems atrocious. It wasn't all bad from 2002-2022. It trended pretty horribly but it had some highs. I'm not sure that's any different from 2022 to now.

[Supremo]

I love slagging off Hunter as much as anyone, but trust me. Nothing he has done will ever come close to WWE under Vince in 2019. The worst stuff ever. A man’s brain melting in real time. If you disagree you simply weren’t watching. Because only freaks like us continued watching this shit. Something actually wrong with us.

 

Edited April 15 by Supremo

[LaGoosh]

Is WWE the only long running TV show where most of its output is considered bad by its fanbase?

When you think of Raw, it's been running for over three decades but the good periods probably collectively amount to...6 years?

[tiger_rick]

2 minutes ago, Supremo said:

I love slagging off Hunter as much as anyone, but trust me. Nothing he has done will ever come close to WWE under Vince in 2019. The worst stuff ever. A man’s brain melting in real time. If you disagree you simply weren’t watching. Because only freaks like us continued watching this shit. Something actually wrong with us.

 

Fucking hell. Old blokes main eventing, Brock Lesnar dominating, family members all over TV, Seth Rollins nonsense. That's just 2026. Is Vince back?

[gmoney]

2 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

I think that's really harsh. If you look at the big angles, it's probably still not true but if you look at the bigger picture, then I think it's under-rated how good a job they did for so long. They didn't just book big angles or storylines, they booked house show feuds across the board, the beginnings of those feuds, the shows and TV events they'd peak at and the outcomes, generally bleeding into new feuds. Their traditional booking was way better than the TV booking we've become used to that has to go week to week to week and lead to a PPV match and often multiples of them while convincing us marks to scan QR codes or whatever. 

There have been times were he's very hands on but it's never really just been him. People like George Scott, Pat Patterson, JJ, Jerry Jarrett, Bill Watts, Corny, Russo, etc have come and gone, working with or under Vince. He's was the clear head booker from the early 80s encompassing many years of concise booking in their traditional business model and handling the transition to TV dominated booking pretty well.

Not trying to be deliberately inflammatory but it still seems atrocious. It wasn't all bad from 2002-2022. It trended pretty horribly but it had some highs. I'm not sure that's any different from 2022 to now.

It's pretty fucking bad now, as far as I can tell, I don't watch the weekly TV (it's shit). But it was excellent for a few years. There was a sustained period of good storylines that made sense or if they didn't, they were corrected and ended up good. Now they've gone off the boil. That doesn't mean we need to start looking at the late Vince years with any fondness. 

[tiger_rick]

Just now, gmoney said:

It's pretty fucking bad now, as far as I can tell, I don't watch the weekly TV (it's shit). But it was excellent for a few years. There was a sustained period of good storylines that made sense or if they didn't, they were corrected and ended up good. Now they've gone off the boil. That doesn't mean we need to start looking at the late Vince years with any fondness. 

I'm not sure anyone was? He still built the Roman & Cody who main evented Mania 39 though. I don't think that's debateable, personally. One of the few things I think deserves any credit in the last 7-8 years is that Roman title reign, which was Vince going back to basics and was a very good decision, with or without hindsight. That he did that while putting out unwatchable TV production, obsessing about ad breaks and losing golden eggs is quite remarkable.

[HarmonicGenerator]

24 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

Is WWE the only long running TV show where most of its output is considered bad by its fanbase?

When you think of Raw, it's been running for over three decades but the good periods probably collectively amount to...6 years?

The Simpsons comes to mind.

[gmoney]

15 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

I'm not sure anyone was? He still built the Roman & Cody who main evented Mania 39 though. I don't think that's debateable, personally. One of the few things I think deserves any credit in the last 7-8 years is that Roman title reign, which was Vince going back to basics and was a very good decision, with or without hindsight. That he did that while putting out unwatchable TV production, obsessing about ad breaks and losing golden eggs is quite remarkable.

I think being able to point to one thing, which isn't really even an angle, which amounts to "have a dominant star" and it's something people were urging him to do for years anyway, doesn't erase all of the horrendous TV and shows that were put out consistently for years. I ask myself, would bringing Vince back now improve TV? The answer I arrive at is no. Was Vince overall a better promote and booker? Probably, but it's not exactly cut and dried. 

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

Wrestling in general and WWE particularly hasn't changed the way it books and presents its TV and angles despite the way media is consumed has changed over the last 5 years let alone the last 25-50. Any success they have had has been accidental and they have gone out of their way to kill anyone who got over in a viral manner, see Zach Ryder's original run for example. 

I can't see it changing until they grasp that, and they won't. 

[Supremo]

https://www.postwrestling.com/2026/04/07/paul-levesque-nick-khan-texts-show-friction-between-vince-mcmahon-and-levesque-over-wwe-creative-in-2023/

This fascinating article, where they obtained a lot of text messages between Triple H and Nick Khan, is extremely telling for how much Hunter was in the dog house after NXT failed to compete with AEW, and then how much Hunter didn’t want Vince to return when he tried to come back.

The more we get a glimpse behind the scenes, the more convinced I am that Hunter leaked all the awful shit surrounding Vince. Cerebral Assassin, indeed.

[Lorne Malvo]

8 minutes ago, Supremo said:

The more we get a glimpse behind the scenes, the more convinced I am that Hunter leaked all the awful shit surrounding Vince. Cerebral Assassin, indeed.

Why read the lawsuit when he's the one that wrote it?*

*I'm aware this joke doesn't work in the slightest.

[tiger_rick]

9 minutes ago, gmoney said:

I think being able to point to one thing, which isn't really even an angle, which amounts to "have a dominant star" and it's something people were urging him to do for years anyway, doesn't erase all of the horrendous TV and shows that were put out consistently for years. I ask myself, would bringing Vince back now improve TV? The answer I arrive at is no. Was Vince overall a better promote and booker? Probably, but it's not exactly cut and dried. 

I don't disagree with any of that but the last bit. Whatever the motivation, he still did it, he rode out the period where it was always Roman v Brock or Roman beats everyone - which sounded boring as fuck - and created the platform for the big match by bringing back Cody.

I wouldn't bring him back either and not just because he's a scumbag. He clearly lost it a long time ago. But I wouldn't have Trips either. A part of that is because he is a scumbag but mostly because I don't think the bloke has had an original thought in his life.

Was Vince overall a better promote and booker? Yes, by absolutely miles. 

[TheScarlettChad]

HHH wouldn't have done Stone Cold. Or The Rock. For all you can say for Vince he had some good ideas. Even if he was a senile sex pest by the end. Didn't he claim Austin's gimmick he based off of his own personality? He thought of himself as some hard man. 

[BarryOVega]

Vince booked his top babyface to cry like a wanker at The Fiend turning up, that has to cancel out any and all good stuff he ever did

I do like the back to basics booking HHH does and especially the mini feuds they do occasionally, stuff like Becky Lynch and Maxxine but there’s nothing that makes you desperate to watch the next episode of Raw or whatever