The Top Five Stupidest Things.....

[Guest Kanenite#357]

For this list, I am looking for instances where the stupid act had far reaching consequences which seriously hurt the company and the inring product. In each case, please provide an explanation as to why the act in question was so dumb and what the should have done instead.

 

My own list is as follows:

 

5.Switching to Monthly Pay Per Views-Starting in 1995, WCW adopted monthly PPVs as a means of competing with the WWF. At the time, WCW had a very deep roster so they could afford to do this. By contrast, the WWF roster was very weak. PPVs are very expensive to make; there were very few stars who drew money and that drawing power was usually insufficient to overcome a wretched midcard. Vince's decision to copy his rival merely exposed how badly the WCW talent raids were hurting him and nearly bankrupted the WWF.

 

What Vince should have done was to hold off on making monthly PPVs until he could build up some new stars and straighten out the midcard. He would have lost face in the short term, but he would not have lost as much as he did and he might have avoided the financial woes of the late 1990's.

 

4.Creating the XFL-While the failure of the XFL had many causes, one of them was that it was a dumb idea in the first place. Trying to form a new football league using mostly NFL washouts with the teams in areas already oversaturated with NFL teams seems like a dubious strategy even under the best conditions. Even worse, the XFL's rules encouraged very conservative gameplay. After all, who is going to even try to field a punt if there are no fair catches? Also, nothing says iminent disaster like having the cheerleaders be the top draws.

 

Vince should have realized that the NFL was as likely to allow credible competition as he was and not even tried. He is first and foremost a wrestling promoter and should stick to what he does best.

 

3. Making Stephanie McMahon the head booker-When the head writer, Chris Kreski, quit due to high stress and low pay, Vince chose perhaps the worst replacement imaginable at the time. Why on earth wouldyou give that job to a woman with no real experience in creative matters, (all of her previous positions were in the marketing department), and who is actively dating one of the top stars? Stephanie had no clue what she was doing and probably still doesn't. She really has no alternative but to rely on the experience of people like Jim Ross the Internet's Most Beloved Wrestler to advise her on how to run the company. As a result, the overall creative direction has suffered.

 

Instead of throwing Stephanie right into the thick of things, it would have been better to start her off in a lower echelon creative role and slowly ease her up the ranks as her experience and skills developed. The booking committee itself should have been reorganized to reduce stress levels and each writers pay should have been increased. This would have reduced turnover and provided more incentive to aspiring writers to join the company. One of the other writers on the booking committee would have easily sufficed as the top writer.

 

 

2.Keeping Steve Austin employed in 2002-By May of 2002, it was clear that Steve Austin was not only finished as a top draw, but that he was an unprofessional shit as well. He used every opportunity to damage the credibility of Chris Jericho when the latter was undisputed champion. Then he almost singlehandedly ruined the very expensive New World Order angle, severely damaging the roster split angle in the process. He was also instrumental in the burials of both Booker T and Rob Van Dam. His refusal to job to Scott Hall alone was a justification for firing him. Yet, he remained gainfully employed until he threw a hissy fit and left rather than put over Brock Lesnar. The lax punishment he received sent a very negative message to the other backstage politicos such as Kevin Nash and the Undertaker. That message was that management did not have the balls to punish the top guys. As a result, backstage politiking has escalated ever since.

 

Why the Hell was Austin not fired after the Jericho debacle!? Getting rid off him would have sent a postive message to the locker room that acting like a crybaby backstage will not be tolerated. It would have likely deterred the other politicos from doing anything too destructive. At the very least it would have eliminated the worst backstage cancer from the company that much sooner.

 

1.Running a WCW/ECW invasion-Invasion storylines as a rule tend to suck, since they usually bring about a massive infusion of new talent into a company, all of whom need to be given something to do. In most cases, only a few stars will get much of a push while the midcard falls into complete dissarry. This one was no different. Also, the whole concept of interpromotional invasions had been done to death in recent years with the NWO, the ECW/USWA invasions, and the NWA "invasion". The fact that it was three years since anyone cared about either ECW or WCW didn't help. By 2001, both companies were pathetic shadows of their former selves. Their rosters had been stripped of their best and brightest by the WWF long ago and all that was left were has-beens like Tommy Dreamer and DDP, never-weres like Buff Bagwell and Mike Awesome, and poorly trained rookies like 3 Count and the Natural Born Thrillers. With all that in mind, it should not have been a shock to anyone that the invasion story bombed so badly. The whole affair seemed like one massive smokescreen to disguise all the injuries to the regular main-eventers.

 

A better course of action would have been to simply elevate reliable veterans like X-Pac, Rhyno, and Kane while Speeding up the pushes of Edge and Test. All the injuries should have been treated as opportunities for up-and-comers to advance. The WCW and ECW star should have been sent to OVW so that they could either shake off their ring rust or be retrained. That way, the Booking Committee could take their time in devising creative ways to utilize the new talent without the pressure of dealing with two dozen new faces at once.

[Guest the pinjockey]

Spending a combined 20 million dollars on the Big Show and Mark Henry

[Guest teke184]

Here's one that was left off: Signing the nWo to deals worth a combined $2,000,000+ a year in 2002 while eliminating HWA as a developmental territory and releasing a bunch of wrestlers.

[Guest IB2BLACK]

I'm sure they made that NWO $$$$$, back with Hogan. Also, wrestlers contracts aren't guaranteed.

[Guest bps "The Truth" 21]

Wrestling contracts have a guaranteed minimum.

 

If they sent Big Show home for the year he'd still get 1 mil. Because that's his downside guarantee.

 

Hogan's title win literally cost them a full point in the ratings that they have never gotten back. So how much value he has is questionable.

[Guest teke184]

I'm sure they made that NWO $$$$$, back with Hogan. Also, wrestlers contracts aren't guaranteed.

The downsides are guaranteed... and their downsides were supposedly $1 million for Hogan and $600,000 each for Nash and Hall. They DID save themselves money by legally releasing Hall for failure to follow contractual obligations (alcoholism) though.

 

As for paying themselves off, Nash has only had 2 or 3 matches in a year and drawn no money, as usual. Scott Hall lasted for 3 months before being fired in conjunction with RAW's InsurreXion tour last Summer. Hogan MAY have paid himself off by drawing people for Wrestlemania 18 but consider his legs as a draw and the low numbers for the event compared to what was expected.

[Guest bps "The Truth" 21]

Mania 18 did the same # as the Rumble two months earlier without Hogan.

[Guest JDMattitudeV1]

1. XFL - How could any sane person actually think that this would work. I don't know much about American Football but I know that the American public are not going to pay their hard earned money to watch a product with players not good enough to play NFL. This along with the fact that most hardcore sports fans will never take to a product associated with pro wrestling, "the fake sport."

 

2. WBF - See XFL.

 

3. The Invasion - A WWF vs WCW war had been what wrestling fans had been dreaming of for years. Instead we got a WCW group consisting of jobbers and WWF guys. Basically killed the dreams of wrestling fans everywhere.

 

4. Stephanie McMahon - Head Booker - The WWE has been on a downhill slide ever since she took the book. She has basically been HHH's puppet, allowing him to damage the company for his own personal gain. And despite two and a half years of falling ratings, buyrates and attendances, along with just general incompetence, remains the WWE's head of creative.

 

5. The Brand Extension - I think if done properly this could have worked, but all it has done is drive house show audiences away in drones. They still have given us no explanation as to why the brands remain split. Doesn't Vince own it all now? So why does he want two separate companies? I'd settle for any explanation for this but I realise it is just not going to happen. If this was done during the Invasion it could have worked as we would have had two distinct brands, instead we get two identical products where 70% of the matches I just don't care about. This could move higher on my list of stupid ideas with the plan to split the PPV's next month. No one is buying WWE PPVs at the moment, and the notion of halving the number of stars on PPVs as being the solution is by definition stupid.

[Guest Kahran Ramsus]

1. World Champion Diesel

After a respectable 1994, Diesel's title run killed the product to the point that it took the WWF until 1998 to recover fully. He killed TV ratings, buyrates, attendance, and the star ratings at the top after Bret & Owen going at it in 1994.

 

2. Making Steph headbooker.

This may eventually end up worst than number 1, but we haven't quite reached it yet. She has been a failure from the beginning.

 

3. WWF Champion Hulk Hogan (in 2002)

He lost 1/4 of the audience literally overnight.

 

4. Fully Loaded 2000

Triple main event with Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit & Chris Jericho facing established stars in matches where victories would have launched them into the stratosphere. Only Benoit survived without serious damage and he would only last another three months before HHH stomped him for good. First by beating him at No Mercy, then by turning heel and taking his spot on the card while pushing Benoit down to feud with the likes of Billy Gunn.

 

5. XFL

The biggest flop Vince has ever made, but it didn't really impact the WWF directly. It is still a big deal, but it was over and done with. The things above it were/are lingering problems.

[Guest teke184]

5. The Brand Extension - I think if done properly this could have worked, but all it has done is drive house show audiences away in drones. They still have given us no explanation as to why the brands remain split. Doesn't Vince own it all now? So why does he want two separate companies? I'd settle for any explanation for this but I realise it is just not going to happen. If this was done during the Invasion it could have worked as we would have had two distinct brands, instead we get two identical products where 70% of the matches I just don't care about. This could move higher on my list of stupid ideas with the plan to split the PPV's next month. No one is buying WWE PPVs at the moment, and the notion of halving the number of stars on PPVs as being the solution is by definition stupid.

The nonsensical RAW Is DRAFT to start it off didn't help.

 

Jericho and Trips weren't eligible to be drafted since the title match was the ME.

 

Austin went home, so he wasn't eligible.

 

Rock went as #1 even though he was leaving a month later.

 

Flair picked Undertaker and the nWo for no better reason than to keep McMahon from picking them.

 

Mark Henry and Lita were both top 10 picks.

 

Rock got a longer post-pick speech than the time between all of the lask 6 picks.

 

The nWo were able to be chosen as a group yet the only other stable given that option were the tag champs, Chuckabilly, and their manager Rico.

 

The hits just kept on coming from there.

[Guest Cerebus]

Nathan Jones

Necrophilia angle

Hiring HHH

Monthly PPVs

Signing Big Show & Mark Henry

[Guest AndrewTS]

What about putting Steph in charge of the writing team?

[NYU 0]

Vince: Hey Steph, honey, do me a favor....

 

Steph: Yes Dad....

 

Vince: Can you write some new storyline for me ? I want it to involve necrophilia....it will bring in the millions.

 

Steph: Wow....great idea !

 

Vince: And Steph....!

 

Steph: Yes, Dad.

 

Vince: While you're at it, have Dawn Marie and Torrie Wilson fight over Torrie's dad. They'll engage in a lesbian storyline where nothing happens. Then we'll have Torrie's dad marry Dawn Marie in his underwear on television. Then...ho ho....we'll....ho ho...

 

Steph: Come on Dad. This is genius !

 

Vince: We'll have Torrie's Dad die during the honeymoon night ! Then, next week at the funeral, Dawn will hit Torrie with a lamp !Then Dawn and Torrie will have a best-of-1000 match series, of which Torrie will win 999 !

 

Steph: My god Dad ! That's brilliant !

 

HHH: And Vince-uh, let's keep the title on me for a whole year-uh.

 

Vince: Great idea, Hunter ! I love that kind of ingenuity ! Mind working a racist angle into your title reign ?

 

HHH: No problem. I'm a company man-uh !

 

And this is only in the past couple of months ! Wait to see what the future holds !---------------------------------------------------

 

Vince: And Steph, get Rupert Murdoch on the phone for me. I have some new idea planned....some kind of extreme baseball called the XBL ! Where do I come up with this stuff ?! I'm great !

[moral suasion 0]

Kanenite, did you just read Scott Keith's book?

[JN News 0]

The biggest mistake Vince ever made was actually letting HHH date Stephanie. IMO, an employee should NEVER be allowed to date his own employer. Appointing Steph as head writer only made things worse.

[Guest raptor]

I wouldn't call signing Big Show a blunder, but their usage of him is definatley top five.

[Guest newblood03]

If i was Austin i would have not jobbed to Brock neither it was way too soon. Idk what happened with Jericho but you can blame trips for how that reign went

[Agent_Bond34 0]

There are so many stupid things the WWE has done, the number of them greatly exceeds 5.

 

Here are a few, and they aren't my 'Top 5', just a few to throw out for the sake of doing so...

 

Necrophilia/Katie Vick angle

Putting Kane in the Raw main event feud back in October of last year.

Kane/Undertaker as a tag team in 2001 (Came 3 years too late, had they done it in like 1998, it would've been better)

Giving Test, Albert, and Mark Henry titles/TV time.

Bringing back the nWo

[Guest bps "The Truth" 21]

I'm only doing the year 2001 till now...because there's so much to cover.

 

5. Keeping HHH heel the night after WrestleMania 17.

 

4. The Post Jericho title changes. (HHH while not even the least bit good, Hogan lost so many viewers, Taker how much can we regress?, Rock who just came back and was leaving soon)

 

3. Doing the Invasion...having it fail...then and only then signing the big names from WCW needed to do the Invasion.

 

2. The use of RVD. I know many don't like him and even fewer beleive this...but there was a window of time where they could have made money off of him. And there isn't anyone else you can really say that about. Plus it pisses all over the fans. It's worse than the pre-Invasion things because even with the Invasion dying they had a star handed to them...and blew it.

 

1. Making Steph head booker. So many reasons.

[Guest mst3krules]

The biggest mistake Vince ever made was actually letting HHH date Stephanie. IMO, an employee should NEVER be allowed to date his own employer. Appointing Steph as head writer only made things worse.

EXACTLY. If the WWE is run as a business, then it should be expected to have similar rules and follow them. Many places have rules against that sort of behavior.

[Guest Austin3164life]

The worst thing the WWF, or Vince, ever did was to screw over Bret Hart. Yeah, some of you are like "wuuut?", but think about it. Vince screwed Bret, and thus was overtaken with his monstrous ego that still runs rampant today. Sure, it resulted in the Austin/McMahon freud, but the downside was ultimately bad for business, because then we saw owner vs. employee like 65498463513 times. And then we also saw the ultimate McMahonamania run wild all over t.v. when quality workers were being relegated to Heat and Velocity and such.

[Guest notJames]

1. Putting Owen Hart's life in jeopardy at Over the Edge '98.

 

2. Letting HHH go anywhere near McMahon's "cash cow" Steph

 

3. Relying on old/washed-up dinosaurs (Hogan, Nash, Hall, Steiner, Goldberg, HBK, Piper, Sable) instead of building up the next crop of superstars

 

4. Letting HHH ixnay the supposed real ending to the Love Triangle with Steph and Angle

 

5. Violating their agreement with the World Wildlife Fund in '94, thus causing the huge loss of capital to rename the Federation last year

[TheFranchise 0]

Vince: Hey Steph, honey, do me a favor....

 

Steph: Yes Dad....

 

Vince: Can you write some new storyline for me ? I want it to involve necrophilia....it will bring in the millions.

 

Steph: Wow....great idea !

 

Vince: And Steph....!

 

Steph: Yes, Dad.

 

Vince: While you're at it, have Dawn Marie and Torrie Wilson fight over Torrie's dad. They'll engage in a lesbian storyline where nothing happens. Then we'll have Torrie's dad marry Dawn Marie in his underwear on television. Then...ho ho....we'll....ho ho...

 

Steph: Come on Dad. This is genius !

 

Vince: We'll have Torrie's Dad die during the honeymoon night ! Then, next week at the funeral, Dawn will hit Torrie with a lamp !Then Dawn and Torrie will have a best-of-1000 match series, of which Torrie will win 999 !

 

Steph: My god Dad ! That's brilliant !

 

HHH: And Vince-uh, let's keep the title on me for a whole year-uh.

 

Vince: Great idea, Hunter ! I love that kind of ingenuity ! Mind working a racist angle into your title reign ?

 

HHH: No problem. I'm a company man-uh !

 

And this is only in the past couple of months ! Wait to see what the future holds !---------------------------------------------------

 

Vince: And Steph, get Rupert Murdoch on the phone for me. I have some new idea planned....some kind of extreme baseball called the XBL ! Where do I come up with this stuff ?! I'm great !

Best. Realism. Ever.

[Guest Pigsy]

A few of my thoughts, in no particular order:

 

Making a complete mess of the split. I still don't understand why they had Vince win Flair's half of the company back, and then do the split.

(Personally, I would have had Flair say that he doesn't want to run a big company as it doesn't give him the time to ride his limos and fly his jets, so he's going to hand over his half to... (Vince comes out thinking he's won)... Eric Bischoff. That way Flair can be a manager or whatever he wants to do, and there's an instant feud between the brands and their owners, with a legit background. I would not have Bischoff hug Vince, ruining any potential feud that could draw interest and money, but that's just me).

 

Not concluding the 2000 love triangle storyline. Steph should have gone with Kurt, that way he becomes the new top heel, the McMahon-Helmsley era is finished, and Triple H becomes a face, naturally, rather than being cheered just because he tore his quad.

 

Now that I think about it, they fucked up Austin's return as well. They shouldn't have brought him back as the old, take no shit, ass whoopin' Steve Austin so the audience remembers why they liked him in the first place and then turn him heel in his hometown.

 

I think the stupidest thing they've done is their refusal to change, unless they're absolutely forced to, (eg. the steriod trial led to Bret and Shawn replacing the Lugers and Hogans, or WCW beating them in the ratings led to them trying new things, some of which worked and some of which didn't).

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

From 2000-2003

 

Fully Loaded 2000.

Love Triangle Angle with Angle.

Austin Heel Turn @ WM 17.

XFL

Stephanie Heading the Writing Team.

[Guest caboose]

Screwing Bret lit the fuse that turned the WWF from perenial number 2 into the No.1 show.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

...At what cost?

[Guest Lord of The Curry]

From 2000-2003

 

Fully Loaded 2000.

Love Triangle Angle with Angle.

Austin Heel Turn @ WM 17.

XFL

Stephanie Heading the Writing Team.

Ditto right here, with HEAVY emphasis on the Austin heel turn. That thing snowballed like a motherfucker and caused so many sub-problems.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

Austin Heel Turn > Tag Match w. HHH > HHH getting Injured > HHH/Austin program being cancelled > WCW invasion being Hot-shotted.

[Guest Lord of The Curry]

Rudo- In between the HHH Injured > Austin/HHH program cancelled you can add "Austin buries Jericho and Benoit and Benoit fucks up his neck".