Tuesday, March 19, 2024
NewsWhat really grinds my gears? Ep. 5 - Vince Strikes Back.

What really grinds my gears? Ep. 5 – Vince Strikes Back.

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“You know what really grinds my gears? That Vince McMahon… why can’t he get with the freaking
program? It’s called wrestling sir, not “sports-entertainment”. Whatever
happened to the midcard? Why do you constantly bury your younger talent?
Why do we have to endure silly segments that are attempts at being
funny, but overall, makes anybody over the age of fourteen cringe into an oblivion? Why Vince, why?

Whatever happened to the feeling people would get when the
wrestling was on? They would get all excited having no idea what’s going to happen next… you changed that Vince, you made it so predictable
didn’t you? And why did you do that? Because you can. Who’s going to
stop you? I know I’m not, I know that no other company has the money you
have, I know that wrestlers are afraid to speak up in fear
of you. Why don’t you just go ahead and die? Oh wait a minute! CM Punk
already said that and you gave him a WWE title for it. Well done sir,
you really know whats cool nowadays don’t you? No! You don’t, you have
absolutely no idea, you’re 68 years old and you may as well be a
dinosaur, oh wait… didn’t you know Vince? They ain’t been cool for
decades either… And that is what really grinds my gears.”

Episode 5 – Vince McMahon Strikes Back.

So you might be thinking… what the hell man? This is episode five, but it should be episode three? What happened to 3 and 4? Well I can
tell you gentlemen (and ladies) that if you ever watched Star Wars, you will
know that Episode 4, 5 and 6 came out before Episodes 1, 2 and 3. So why
can’t I do it too? Are you mad because I didn’t do things in the
correct manner? That I wasn’t predictable? If so, then your naivety
shocks me, it’s just a blog, calm your little self down and read on.

When people think of Vince McMahon, many names spring to mind. Genius…
Business man… The Boss… Douche… Big Douche… Total Douche… and
so on.

So why is Vince hated.. but yet, praised so much at the same time?
Well it comes down to him going through many controversial moments in
his careers, while also helping to shape “wrestling”, or should I say
“sports-entertainment”, as it is today.

Let’s go through some controversial moments, just because… they are funnier.

Montreal Screwjob – Everyone knows about this, he totally screwed
Bret, and he still won’t take the blame for it, he will always turn it
around and say that Bret screwed Bret, even after everything has sorted
itself out, he will never take the blame for anything. This has to be one of the biggest mistakes he ever made in his career, he didn’t handle the situation well, and in hindsight, I bet he would have done it all differently.

Sterioids scandal – In the early 90’s, the WWF was going through a
rough patch, the Hulkamania era was declining, and Vince needed new stars
to shine. However, the WWF was attacked with a court case which saw Vince
put into the spotlight, and almost imprisoned for apparently selling
steroids and other enhancement drugs to his talents. Hogan testified and
stuck up for him, and he was cleared of charges, however the drugs
continued to flow in the WWF for a long time after, and he didn’t take
any steps to stop this from happening. It was the “normal” thing to do
those days. We still have the odd media outlet trying to talk down about wrestling and blaming early deaths on steroids. *cough Nancy Grace* cough*

Wrestlers dieing too young/Benoit Tradegy – This ties in with the
last one, in that there was no wellness policy before the mid 2000’s. The WWE came under
serious pressure after the Benoit murder/suicide, and he took all
measures possible to erase Benoit from the company, and to deny any
claims that steroids, or other drugs had played a roll in how Benoit
acted in his final days. For a more detailed, and factual explanation on
the whole ordeal, read my Benoit blogs, because I put a lot of time and effort into those, and I have no reason to expand on that here. Lots of other wrestlers who have
worked for Vince have also died young, and the majority of them have
some link to using prescription medication. (E.G. Eddie Guerrero, Test, Umaga). You can see this as being a problem with the wrestling business in general, however, with all the money Vince has, he could have (and still could) take steps to prevent wrestlers from working hurt for prolonged amounts of time, to the point they have to take drugs.

No time off for his wrestlers – Vince doesn’t allow this, which
is crazy. How is anyone humanly able to carry on traveling, and
wrestling throughout all 12 months of the year with barely any holiday
time? It’s incredibly selfish of him, and it always does more harm them
good. The only time wrestlers get time off is when they get injured.
They have to be hurting and as soon as they are able to go again, he
brings them straight back, usually too soon, and they get injured again.
Just about every sport in the world has an off-season, they can spend
time with their families, and rest their bodies to come back and do it
all over again, but Vince won’t allow that for his wrestlers, and then
he wonders why many of them get frustrated.

I can gladly add CM Punk to this subject. I originally wrote this blog two years ago, and if someone had told me that Punk would walk out on Vince and the WWE, I wouldn’t have been surprised one bit. I am happy that they allow more time off for wrestlers who pick up concussions (Thanks Nowinski!) but there is still a whole lot more that can be done. Bret Hart said it best, there should be an off-season, because the passion that wrestlers have, and the amount of money involved, they can’t take the time off, but they physically and mentally have too after years on the road. It ends up with wrestlers severely injuring themselves, others, leaving the company completely, taking drugs to ease the pain, or even worse.. death.

Burying talents with stupid gimmicks/storylines – This is a
typical Vince trademark. Instead of just taking someone off TV for a
bit, and giving them a stern telling off, he decides to give the
wrestler an incredibly stupid gimmick or storyline, which is usually
cringing more then entertaining, which doesn’t just embarrass the
wrestler, it embarrasses the whole product. How many times have you seen
some wrestlers who used to have momentum, and then a couple of months
later, are turned into complete jokes? I can think of two right now…
Santino and Zack Ryder. 

Since originally writing this, I have noticed how Vince has turned from doing the stupid gimmicks/storylines, and instead just leave those talents off TV altogether. Whenever you do see them, they will get squashed by the next big thing (Rusev vs Ryder anyone?) and you won’t see them again for months. Of course, these talents are too afraid to speak up incase they lose their jobs. I can also remember the “Piggy James” storyline that they played on Mickie James before she left the company. They were bullying Mickie James weight gain (which was very minimal to be honest) live on television by having Lay Cool pick on her with a really childish video clip. They would also dress up in a fat suit, wearing a pig nose, acting like Mickie James. It was incredibly wrong, and not entertaining.

Controlling all the trademarks and merchandise – Another Vince
trademark. He never wants to use a name of a wrestler in case they leave
the company and can still use that name. Not only that, but he wants to
take a huge cut of the wrestlers merchandise sales, and even take
projects the wrestler has created themselves, and regulate it into his
system. Surely you have heard how he took over Ryder’s Youtube show and
now Ryder barely makes anything off it, and it has to be checked over
before they submit it? Ridiculous. Do you ever hear about Ryder’s show now? Nope. 

It is smart business to want to control your business as much as you can, but sometimes it ends up being a detriment to the fans of wrestling. Did you know that the Ultimate Warrior changed his name in real life to “Warrior” just so he would not be sued by Vince for using it? Did you also know that the Dudley Boyz ripped on Vince when they jumped to TNA for not allowing them to use the Dudley Boyz name? They were promised the Dudley Boyz name but because Heyman didn’t fill in the right paperwork, Vince (who owned the ECW assets) would not allow them to use the name in a rival company. They did cut a promo on this subject, but I can’t find it anywhere for some reason.

Stop/Start/Stop/Start – Having watched WWE for well over a
decade, he does that quite a bit. He starts a new storyline, then he
decides to hate it before its even got going, and stops it. Remember the
Kane vs Kane thing? Or more recently with AJ Lee being General Manager?
He does it with wrestlers pushes as well. He pushes someone to the
moon, then that wrestler has one or two bad matches, then he decides … nope, this won’t do, bury him.

Unappreciative of wrestlers abilities – He never listens to the
fans when it comes to this. A wrestler could be majorly over, but he
decides… No! You won’t like this wrestler! You will like this other
guy who I enjoy more… simply because… well…. I said so! Vince
never likes it when someone gets over when it wasn’t part of the plan,
and when that happens, he will try very hard to bury that wrestler,
instead of capitalize on it. How much did the fans have to protest to get Daniel Bryan as WWE Champion? What’s happened to Dolph Ziggler? Damien Sandow? Zack Ryder? I could pull out so many names that have gone unappreciated for long periods of time just because they don’t have the “look”.

Rules! Rules! Rules! – Ok so you can’t say this, and you can’t do
this move because of this, and you can’t mention this company, and you
can’t mention this pop reference, and you can’t use this weapon, and you
can’t bleed, and you can’t cut a promo like that, and you can’t wipe
your arse this way, and you can’t breath for this amount of time, and
you can’t be showing any kind of initiative whatsoever, because you are
all my robots, and you will all follow my orders, or else you’re ALL
FIRED!!!!!!!

Championships? – I strongly believe that Vince thinks
Championships are props. They are there for no other reason but to
try and get someone over, and it doesn’t really matter what
championships are defended and how, so long as the WWE title is
important. Whatever happened to the IC title? Why did he change the tag
titles to those bronze ones? Why did he have a Divas division when it was obvious that he,
and no one else really cared for it, they have pushed Paige as this new young champion, which is refreshing, but the divas divisiion still needs a lot of work. 

The WWE finally realized that having two world titles was detrimental and unified them. This was a great move, but the unification was done in such a terrible fashon, in an Orton vs Cena Tlc match. A match of that caliber deserved something more traditional, but you know for a fact nobody would have bought into a singles match between Orton & Cena. They finally made the championship important again, by putting it on the most over wrestler on the roster in the main event of the biggest show, Wrestlemania XXX. That’s an improvement! However, they still have no idea what to do with the IC and US titles.

Taking over the industry – This is the biggest one for me. He
went against his own fathers wishes, and he broke the unwritten rules
that you should not market your company in others territories. He
branded wrestling as “Sports Entertainment”, and started a crusade by
spending tons of money to buy out other companies, and their talents.
Many companies have fallen to Vince McMahon, and he brags about it.
Remember when he purchased WCW and aired his victory speech? He probably
had the biggest boner during that promo. Monopolizing a market is bad
for any business, business thrives on competition, and brings out the
best in all companies… business always thrives when there isn’t one
single monopoly.

When there is a monopoly, its the customers who suffer. The company can
charge whatever, and do whatever, and the customers have to deal with
it. They will continue to pay their hard earned money, even if the
product is terrible, because they don’t know anything else, nothing else
is anywhere near the production level of the WWE. TNA is getting there
slowly, but the WWE is still this huge monstrosity that will monopolize
the business for years to come, at least until people realize there are
alternatives.

Harrassment allegations – Numerous times, Vince has been accused
of sexual harassment. Now after seeing the Jimmy Saville ordeal on the
news, it makes you wonder if other big names manage to cover up these
crimes, because their victims are “too scared to fight the big popular
star”.

True, guilty until proven innocent, but if you were Vince McMahon, wouldn’t you feel a little… invincible at times?

Blacklisting – He does this to wrestlers he hates or has some
kind of history with. The worst of these being Macho Man Randy Savage.
People speculate its because of something that happened between Savage
and Stephanie McMahon, of a sexual nature, while others think it was
down to Savage being super greedy and asking for lots of money. Who
really knows? But we all know that Vince blacklists certain former
employees, they will never get a mention, and they will never get
recognized for any of their work. It was the same with The Ultimate Warrior, Bruno Sammartino and many others over the years, and it’s only because of Triple H that they were able to come to terms and get them into the Hall of Fame. Vince McMahon is pretty stubborn in these matters, it really does take someone like Triple H to build those bridges back up so old scores can be settled.

Be a Star Bully Campaign – Talk about being hypocritical. He
plugs the Bully campaign, then he openly mocks J.R’s bells palsy on Live
TV. That’s not the only time he has bullied people on air and made them
look like shit. What about when he made Trish Stratus bark like a dog?
What about the “Kiss my ass” club? Piggy James? Just a few examples of his
double-standards.

And you know, he likes to test his employess by putting them in awkward
situations, if they stand up for themselves, he rewards them.. If they
become submissive, he doesn’t like that… He will bully them, and if
they don’t respond how he wants, he will bury them more, then fire them.

Linda McMahon – Oh really, so his wife is going to run for
senate, and it just so happens.. that the Attitude era never existed,
let’s just take all that footage down, let’s try not to give her
opposition any ammo, let’s make the company public and bring in tons of
sponsors, so we can do a PG product and make the company look so family
friendly. He is advertising “Wrestling” AKA simulated violence, to young
children, and he thinks that will get Linda more votes??? She can
continue to spend her millions, most people with half a brain cell could
see through their B.S, and what happened? She lost! So much money made off the blood, sweat and tears of the wrestlers flushed down the drain.

Seriously, I could bring a lot more to the table. The table is already
so stacked, it might even break if I brought anymore to it. I think I can include just one more. ECW.

ECW

He brought back ECW at ECW One Night Stand 2005 and let Paul Heyman run the show. That PPV is still my favourite show ever. Everything about the PPV was awesome, and it felt like a love letter to the ECW fans; Then Vince McMahon decided it would be great if they brought back ECW full time.

Not only did he completely strip away anything that ECW was, he buried all the ECW originals in some fashion (except RVD .. for a little bit) and pushed his own talents. Heyman didn’t like it, and after December to Dismember (where Bobby Lashley won the title, instead of CM Punk like Heyman wanted) he left the company after a major argument. Vince refused to acknowledge Heymans visions for the new ECW, and he was going to profit from the reputation of ECW. Can I say that he raped ECW? Would that be too extreme of a statement, or is it right on? I can say that I was really disappointed by the new ECW, and the only good thing to come out of it was CM Punk. 

As Rhino says in this promo, Vince profited off the blood, sweat and tears of ECW, and ECW was dead. He would throw the original ECW title in the bin and set it on fire, Rhino hated Vince for this, and so did other ECW originals like Team 3D. Some of the ECW guys moved on from it, but others will never forgive Vince McMahon for doing what he did to ECW. 

Conclusion

I don’t know about all of you, but I cannot wait for the day that the
WWE is finally free to flourish without the dictator running the ship.
It might become fresh, or then again, it might plummet into a deep hole of
misery.

We all know that Vince has done a lot of good too. He isn’t completely heartless, and he does do good from time to time. He has feelings like the rest of us, he can make mistakes, and he can forgive.

He brought us such awesome names like… Steve Austin, The Undertaker,
The Rock, Shawn Michaels and so on, without his business skills and
tenacity, I might not be sat here today, typing this blog. You
people reading this.. might not be here reading this blog, you could
have gotten into something completely different.

Vince has handed more responsibility to Triple H and Stephanie in recent times, and there has been an improvement, however, everything still goes through him, and the old formula needs a bit more spice.

All we know is, wrestling has not been the same in a long time, and
although it was Vince, and all of his wrestlers who helped to bring it
into the mainstream, it appears to be Vince who is sabotaging his
own product these days, while the wrestlers have to suffer and do as
they are told… otherwise… they will feel the wrath of god.
Remember., it’s all about the MONEY!

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