It Could Be Said #62 At Wrestlemania 41, WWE Pays The Price for Vince McMahon's Selfishness
Will actually stayed up to watch Wrestlemania, and he saw a new WWE struggling to be born
Wrestlemania 41 is in the record books with the world’s leading pro-wrestling company having drawn more than 60,000 fans to each night of its biggest show of the year whilst thanks to its new global deal with Netflix, the event was almost certainly seen live by more people than any special in the promotion’s history. But for all the box office success WWE feels like a promotion ill-at-ease with itself as leading figures tripped up in pre-event interviews whilst the fan reception to both the build and events was decidedly mixed. Meanwhile the locker room was clearly far from harminous with Drew McIntyre protesting at being relegated to the mid-card after a year of storming performances in the main event, a backstage rivalry between Tiffany Watson and Charlotte Flair broke out into open warfare in front of the fans when an interview segment broke down, and Bret Hart openly mocked Triple-H on the Wrestlemania stage.
It was hard to escape the complaints about Triple-H’s egomania with him headlining the Hall of Fame with a seventy minute speech then breaking the news about WWE’s purchase of AAA during Saturday’s pre-show before opening the main show and getting another superstar entrance on Sunday during the Hall of Fame segment.
None of this was necessary. Triple-H was a fine individual addition to the Hall of Fame as his work and impact goes far beyond what he did with either version of DeGenerationX. But he didn’t need to headline as he could have given that spot to Steve Austin and Bret Hart to celebrate their famous match at Wrestlemania 13. But if he really felt he had to go last, he didn’t need to go as long as he did, nor deliver a mawkish speech so clearly designed to force the crowd to cheer for him.
Likewise, Vince McMahon rarely had his entrance music played nor delivered extended remarks at the start of Wrestlemania; indeed for many shows he just let the event begin without an introduction except for the singing of America the Beautiful. Nor did Triple-H have to have his wife open the Sunday show, after all both RAW and Smackdown do have storyline general managers that could have handled these duties.
What’s funny is that “Paul Levesque” was positively restrained compared to the other Paul that books WWE. For all the plaudits Triple-H receives about WWE’s booking over the past three years, it has clearly been Heyman who has been responsible for calling most of the shots in the promotion’s biggest storyline. Just as he had worked with Brock Lesnar to develop the power-spot, short match format that dominated late noughties main events, during lockdown he worked with Roman Reigns to develop the histrionic soap operas that helped make the Bloodline saga one of the most successful in the promotion’s history. Indeed the best tell that storyline was not Triple-H’s work is that it inverted his strengths by being low on logic, high in inspiration.
After the acclaimed main events of the past two years, what did he come up with? Two of the promotion’s three biggest babyfaces fighting for his love, only to be laid low by a manager who for all his verbal excellence had next-to-no physicality when he was twenty stone lighter and twice that number of years younger. It’s reminiscent of the convoluted web he weaved around himself as Smackdown Head Writer at Armageddon 2002, where having sided with The Big Show against Brock Lesnar the previous month, he sided with Kurt Angle against both of them.
It is not a coincidence that Heyman was fired from his leadership position just a few months later. Both Pauls are pushing themselves to the fore of the television product because in the new WWE there is no such thing as job security for upper management. There have already been extensive departures and redundancies since the promotion merged with UFC as Endeavour tries to secure the efficiencies necessary to make the deal profitable. Now the promotion is faced with meeting its owners expectations for popularity and profits, expectations that brook no excuses for poor or even middling performance.
Ever since the TKO deal was announced, and even more so after Vince McMahon left the promotion in disgrace, both men have pushed themselves harder than ever before. Triple-H has tried to recreate the magic of the initial roll out of his corporate role to the public through his oversight of NXT; building alliances with promotions around the world whilst being everpresent in promotional materials. Paul Heyman has pushed himself in terms of his on-screen performances, including taking the biggest bump of his career during the main event segment of a sold out show at Madison Square Garden. He would then return to place himself at the heart of the Survivor Series main event, which would begin the road to him ultimately aligning himself with Seth Rollins.
Both men are clearly trying to make themselves as indispensable as possible by placing themselves at the heart of the product they’re booking, be it turning themselves into WWE’s mascot or building storylines around themselves. The stratagem is as old as the wrestling business; the more fans value the booker’s on-screen performances, the harder it becomes to remove them due to backstage problems. This only feels new because WWE was typically immune to such nonsense because Vince McMahon had the final say on creative and typically allowed only limited involvement from active talent. Yes the big stars would reject undesired opponents or change unwanted wishes, but you rarely had a superstar use their position on the writing team to make themselves everpresent like a Dusty Rhodes or Jeff Jarrett would in other promotions. Not uncoincidentally Triple-H and Paul Heyman were the two men who you could most credibly make that accusation about.
It is extremely telling that the man who within the promotion comes closest to replacing Vince McMahon as the boss remains in the shadows with Nick Khan happily sat at one of the best ringside seats during both nights of Wrestlemania without deigning to perform like a circus animal for the fans in attendance. And that is because Khan has clearly consolidated his position through securing good-enough television deals to reassure the stock market, pushing through redundancies, and building more native advertising into WWE’s programming. But more than that, Khan knows that should he ever be told to leave TKO’s employ, there will be many suitors vying for his services. In that he more resembles the everchanging parade of Turner Broadcasting or Sports veterans who were asked to babysit WCW during its twelve years of operation.
The result is clearly a less settled WWE that has existed for quite some time, a remarkable achievement given the promotion has never been more profitable and all but one of its broadcasting deals have been secured on a long-term basis. And this despite being the first time the post-Vince McMahon leadership had the Wrestlemania build to themselves without the old man suddenly forcing his way back or suddenly being forced to leave.
Just how unsettled was laid bare by The Rock when talking to WWE commentator and ESPN personality Pat McAfee on his talk radio show; clearly stung by fan criticism of his failure to intervene in a main event defined by him seemingly encouraging John Cena to turn on Cody Rhodes, The Rock went to great lengths to explain that he was never meant to be at Wrestlemania and his involvement in the original angle was always only a favour to the promotion after WWE’s ultimate owner, Ari Emmanuel called him out of concern about low ticket sales. The latter point is the more important. That WWE would struggle to match what the Elimination Chamber did the last time it was held in Canada was obvious to everyone given that there would be no hook which could compare to local hero Sami Zayn finally challenging Roman Reigns in 2023 after years of tension worthy of the sweatiest internet slash fiction. That Emmanuel was startled they couldn’t match such heights, especially in the context of increased ticket prices, speaks to WWE’s bookers being subjected to the same unreasonabled expectations that WCW once received from Turner suits.
Inadvertedly, The Rock provided a window into a backstage setup where Endeavour executives such as Emmanuel are demanding ever more returns on their investment in combat sports. The heavily leveraged owners need the lines keep going up, reliant as they are on the operating profits from WWE and UFC to pay down the debt they took on to pay for those business, and more speculative bets they’ve placed. If Vince McMahon could sometimes be complacement then Endeavour is insatiable, hence the ever more aggressive commercialisation of the broadcast. That means those responsible for the promotion are placed under ever more pressure to achieve greater heighs, which explains how despite this year’s Wrestlemania being by most standards a roaring business success, everyone turned up to Las Vegas in a bad mood. Likewise, it explains why the owners are reaching out to the likes of The Rock to identify ways they can goose revenue. Not for nothing are those within WWE complaining to industry journalists that they are confused about who is actually in charge of the product as all these different factions within the promotion struggle to assert themselves or pass the blame.
It’s easy for this to sound like an apologia for Vince McMahon. And it is true that I believe we are starting to see what McMahon still brought to the creative process even in his diminished state, as for all Triple-H’s bold reimagining of WWE television, he lacks the flashes of inspiration that seperate the great bookers from the good. But if you were to leave to one side the disgusting way he treated Janel Grant and other women in his employ, everything I’ve written is meant to damn not praise him.
Because for all the jokes from WWE about Tony Khan being “the kid”, Vince Kennedy McMahon was pro-wrestling’s original nepo baby promoter. His father sold the richest promotion in the country to him at not just a below-market price but on a payment plan. If his father had tried to maximise the price he got for selling his life’s work, his son would not have had the freedom to unleash his radically different creative and commercial vision for the promotion. Vincent James McMahon literally passed up a small fortune so Vincent Kennedy McMahon had the chance to fulfil his dreams.
Now let’s compared that to how the man now synonmous with both his and father’s name has behaved. Not only did Vince insist upon staying hands-on with WWE way past the point his father retired (which contrary to legend was not caused by his later cancer diagnosis) but watched as all members of his immediate family quit rather than work with him, and demoted his son-in-law. Then when he was forced to quit in disgrace the fist time, he not only forced his way back at the expense of forcing his daughter to quit a second time, but then chose to sell the company in a way that would inevitably place maximum pressure on those left running the promotion and risk that the McMahon family’s involvement in combat sports promotion ends with his son-in-law.
It’s a reminder, if you need one, that all Vince McMahon cares about, is himself. And he cares about himself in the crudest, most short-termist way possible. If as seems increasingly likely this current ownership of WWE stripmines the promotion like they have done UFC, it will underline that for all his skills as a promoter, McMahon was destructively selfish.
Cooling Content Consumpton Corner
Will keep this short and pro-wrestling themed as I’m working on another column for later in this week.
Obviously I watched Wrestlemania 41 and I agree with the consensus that it was a disappointing event, especially as I was less high on the Night One main event than most people. I thought the first three matches on night two were a breath of fresh air, and the rapturously positive response suggests we may finally be coming out pro-wrestling’s prog-rock era. The fanbase clearly wants shorter more impactful matches, which also happens to be what most performers can do best. Unlike most people I didn’t mind the long gaps between matches, both because I think it helped keep the crowds fresh, and it allowed me to grab snacks and check the online discourse. I do think they should be more careful about the brands they work with, and ask for more interesting mateirals to be provided, lest they undermine the sense its a genuinely premium event. It was particularly striking how few genuine major stars they could rustle up to wave at ringside, which bodes ill for WWE’s cultural footprint if it consumates its marriage wth Netflix by moving the monthly specials to the streaming service in the United States next year.
Wrestlemania having long established itself as a fixture of the Easter half-term here in the UK means I always find it difficult to fit in watching the indy shows, something made worse by the late starting times this time round. I have watched GCW’s Bloodsport which was perfectly fine. The influx of WWE talent clearly raised the quality of the matches although at the expense of almost all the matches going around ten minutes, so robbing Bloodsport of the smattering of quick finishes that provide spice to all exchanges and variety to the match layout. I also felt some of the finishes were less conclusive than had been the case in previous editions, as if there was an attempt to protect the loser. If the partnership with WWE endures, I would suggest adding a preliminary Bloodsport event that uses lesser known talent, and built to a men’s and women’s final that featured on the main show. Likewise at some point the brand needs to confront the fact that Josh Barnett can sadly no longer go in the ring, with the memory of his tearaway classics against Minoru Suzuki and Jon Moxley becoming ever more distant. A younger, thinner Barnett would have found Gabriel Kidd the perfect opponent for a bloody brawl but instead he never left first gear as he forced his young opponent to sleepwalk through some perfunctory exchanges. Thankfully Zack Sabre and Jonathan Gresham put on a mini-classic in what proved to be the real main event of the show, and represented a welcome return to form of a performer in Gresham who has become something of a joke.
I also watched AEW’s Dynamite the Wednesday before Wrestlemania which featured one of my favourite pro-wrestling matches for ages in Sasha Banks vs Athena. What made it great was that you got a real sense the women were pushing themselves to the very limits of what they could physically and technically do as best demonstrated when they were countering each other’s attempts at powerbombing the other. Compare that to Will Ospreay vs Konosuke Takeshita later in the same show, where both men could just pull all the moves off with such ease, that their selling felt disingenious. Likewise for all that the main event was a welcome break from LOL DEATH RIDERS WIN, it underlined how deathly old and stale the promotion’s main event scene is compared to its undercard. All the veterans involved would be better off back in WWE whilst AEW let its younger talent cook…and yes that does include The Young Bucks who are not just insufferable as ever but now act as a deadweight on Kenny Omega and Hangman Page.
Finally I rewatched Steve Austin vs Bret Hart at Wrestlemania 13 and this is as near perfection as you will ever see in pro-wrestling. There are three ways to judge a pro-wrestling match; fan reaction, critical evaluation, and business success. No match scores as highly across all three as this match does. It is an unusually highbrow match concept, with the heel clearly at a disadvantage given the match stipulations favour the babyface whose finisher is a submission move. The match punches that wound as Hart becomes more and more sadistic, whilst Austin becomes ever more admirable as he withstands the dissection. I recently compared the story of the match the 1971 thriller Straw Dogs; the nice, seemingly weedy guy is set upon by a nasty redkneck but as he’s smarter than the redkneck when he starts to fight back he reveals himselfs to be more viscious and deadly than the redknecks could ever imagine. And of course after Austin passes out the storyline is pressed home by Hart beating him up a bit more, chickening out of fighting Ken Shamrock when the special guest referee intervenes, and then Austing walking out under his own power. It got the fan reaction it wanted, the ringwork was fantastic in every way, and it set the stage for Steve Austin to become the biggest star the business has ever seen. It just doesn’t get any better than this.