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December Wrasslin' |OT| Dreaming of a Vanilla Christmas

Sephzilla

Member
All of Stephanie's success has come because she works for a company where everyone is afraid to question her because her father is the boss. Her face is probably right next to the word nepotism in the dictionary.
 
She's not to them, but to us she is. We've heard nothing from within the company about how good or bad she is. That's the point. If we are balancing whether it would be better for Shane/Dunn to end up in control or Hunter/Steph, I'd pick Hunter and Steph 1000 times out of 1000 given what we know and past performance.

Shane/Dunn = at best shaky business leadership and bad creative

Hunter/Steph = unknown business leadership (maybe terrible, maybe good) and good to great creative

In business, as in any other job, the unknown is worse than the known

Going into an interview with no resume, immediately after a person with a resume exits, very likely isn't ending with you getting the job over them.

Stockholders are worried about one of these options, and it's not the one you're worried about.
 
In business, as in any other job, the unknown is worse than the known

Going into an interview with no resume, immediately after a person with a resume exits, very likely isn't ending with you getting the job over them.

I'd rather have a pilot who's on their first flight after years of training than a pilot whose flights are always shaky and put one in the ocean a few years ago.
 

Sephzilla

Member
She's not to them, but to us she is. We've heard nothing from within the company about how good or bad she is. That's the point. If we are balancing whether it would be better for Shane/Dunn to end up in control or Hunter/Steph, I'd pick Hunter and Steph 1000 times out of 1000 given what we know and past performance.

Shane/Dunn = at best shaky business leadership and bad creative

Hunter/Steph = unknown business leadership (maybe terrible, maybe good) and good to great creative

Also, as with most job interviews, the person with actual work experience in the job is going to have a better chance of landing the job than the person without work experience.

I'd rather have a pilot who's on their first flight after years of training than a pilot whose flights are always shaky and put one in the ocean a few years ago.

This analogy implies that Shane's first effort running a company tanked. Earlier you said it simply went nowhere (implying no progress but no failure). Which is it?
 

somedevil

Member
A review of Lana's performance at NXT last night:

Lana defeated Sarah Bridges, the former Crazy Mary Dobson. Besides the dancing which some loved, Lana was pretty impressive here. She worked as a face and was over the crowd, winning with a fisherman's spinebuster. This should be interesting, she showed lots of promise

Its interesting at this show she basically plays her total divas character.
 
At the end of the day, Shane has no power in the company right now, and Vince doesn't want to give him any, so I doubt this becomes an issue anyway. Shane would either have to leave again and then come back (which he wouldn't do most likely if he left again) or attempt to take over the company coming off of years of simply being a character (which is a hard sell at best). It's an interesting discussion, but when Vince ultimately dies/retires it's hard to imagine the scenario where Steph and Hunter don't take over simply off the back of inheriting his controlling stock.
 

Data West

coaches in the WNBA
Also I don't know how much of Triple H and Stephanie's creative are known as 'good to great'. Who is to say Shane wouldn't keep the same people in charge of creative? As you said, 'an unknown' then we don't know what ideas Stephanie was potentially responsible for or Triple H was responsible for.

If you want to say NXT as Triple H, I'd argue that NXT's creative quality has completely plummeted shortly after Dusty's death. Its appeal now is almost entirely 'indie star meet & great' a la PWG. How else do you make a feud between Samoa Joe & Shinsuke Nakamura so boring? Because both those guys can bring it. Joe's feud with Balor was a similar level of tedium but Joe brought it in the promos, reactions and swagger to help carry the feud into passable.
 

Zach

Member
That VICE article is fantastic, great breakdown into the challenges faced by the company.

The biggest challenge is Vince, unsurprisingly

Yeah, I've been reading it off and on at work. It's good. And it fits The Zach Narrative of Vince McMahon and Stephanie McMahon being bad people, so yeeeaaah!
 
You can't judge Shane as a businessman and then judge Hunter as a wrestling fan. I'm sure there are bike owners who bought bikes from Shane's company that talk about the 'workrate' of the bikes were great even if the company didn't go anywhere. WWE has been on a consistent downhill drop in revenue, advertising, and ratings with Stephanie and Hunter at the helm. NXT hasn't gained them any money which is why they want to tour with it.

Heyman said Shane was the one who wanted to do a weekly live internet show long before anyone else at WWE and that Shane wanted to do stuff with the UFC before the UFC got massive. And you mention the Triple H being approachable thing, during the Attitude Era most of the locker room considered Shane 'one of the boys' when Triple H was being separated and protected from his peers.

I recall reading that Shane was not well liked because he was doing these high spots and causing pressure to be put other wrestlers because of, but wasn't working every day.
 

Data West

coaches in the WNBA
I recall reading that Shane was not well liked because he was doing these high spots and causing pressure to be put other wrestlers because of, but wasn't working every day.

I read and heard that Shane was well-liked by the roster because he'd show up for training even when he wasn't working and was considered a real natural despite not having a lot of ring experience.
 
Also I don't know how much of Triple H and Stephanie's creative are known as 'good to great'. Who is to say Shane wouldn't keep the same people in charge of creative? As you said, 'an unknown' then we don't know what ideas Stephanie was potentially responsible for or Triple H was responsible for.

If you want to say NXT as Triple H, I'd argue that NXT's creative quality has completely plummeted shortly after Dusty's death. Its appeal now is almost entirely 'indie star meet & great' a la PWG. How else do you make a feud between Samoa Joe & Shinsuke Nakamura so boring? Because both those guys can bring it. Joe's feud with Balor was a similar level of tedium but Joe brought it in the promos, reactions and swagger to help carry the feud into passable.

Well if Shane is allying himself with Dunn, who is very well known for meddling in creative and de-pushing people for petty reasons, then that is by no means a good option.

And I personally think the Joe/Nakamura feud has been fine. Maybe it should be more than fine, but it's by no means a failure. And the Balor feud just went too long. NXT at its worst is competent, and you absolutely cannot say that about main roster WWE writing/booking in the past decade.

And we do know what Triple H is responsible for in NXT: everything. He is the be all end all there in the same way Vince is on the main roster. No character is created and no storyline is executed without him signing off on it. He may not create the specific ideas, but he is in charge of the show.
 
You nonce, the entire thrust of the article is '...but everything goes through Vince and he has the final say'. So Vince is fucking himself.

He's lost it, he's well and truly lost it. And I kinda agree with the assessment of Hunter as well - they are struggling to pick out stars and utterly failing current talent by writing absolute and utter horseshit for most of them.
Vince needs to sit back from a fan standpoint instead of the guy who holds all of the keys. He needs to actually be aware as he was 20 years ago about what people want.
I still think Shane is the best choice for running WWE in the future because he's the only one of them who has any sort of real-world experience. Stephanie has pretty much exclusively been under the WWE bubble and sheltered by nepotism.
Like I said, I respect Shane because he actually went out and tried to do something different instead of relying on daddy. I think he can do it, you're not just running a wrasslin company, you're running a business.

There's a neat quote in that Vice article about how they write for the week in the WWE and not for the future.

"'All Vince cares about is that night's show—not 15 weeks later, like how all other television shows work,' a former senior-level executive said. 'That's why you see astute followers pulling their hair out. There's no guiding principle other than that Vince is a carnival barker—a promoter of a live event product.'"
That wcw bs.
 

Sephzilla

Member
PLOT TWIST
Shane gets power and then *SWERVE* fires Dunn

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Data West

coaches in the WNBA
I definitely can see a New Generation-esque dark time for the WWE when Vince dies except with the decline of cable tv and the increase of other promotions for 'enthusiastic' fans which will make it even more of a fight. Even if Vince has blocked a lot of good ideas, Vince names has sway, Vince IS the WWE for all intents and purposes. I think they lose clout and a LOT of it when Vince dies whether that affects them creatively or not who is to say.

But I could see WWE, as a global brand, plummeting when Vince dies. I could see the TV deal gone or on some minor television network, I could see a world where they keep touring but only air PPVs and SNMEs or Clash of Champions style PPVs. I think Vince himself is what gives WWE the stakes at the table with major networks whether he's a crazy asshole or not. Vince is the guy they associate with those mega ratings of the Attitude Era and expect him and only him to bring those back.
 

jmdajr

Member
Vince is fucking crazy, and I will miss him when he's gone.

A world without WWE and Vince will be a strange one for me.
 
I definitely can see a New Generation-esque dark time for the WWE when Vince dies except with the decline of cable tv and the increase of other promotions for 'enthusiastic' fans which will make it even more of a fight. Even if Vince has blocked a lot of good ideas, Vince names has sway, Vince IS the WWE for all intents and purposes. I think they lose clout and a LOT of it when Vince dies whether that affects them creatively or not who is to say.

But I could see WWE, as a global brand, plummeting when Vince dies. I could see the TV deal gone or on some minor television network, I could see a world where they keep touring but only air PPVs and SNMEs or Clash of Champions style PPVs. I think Vince himself is what gives WWE the stakes at the table with major networks whether he's a crazy asshole or not. Vince is the guy they associate with those mega ratings of the Attitude Era and expect him and only him to bring those back.

I could definitely see all of that. But I could also see that the "WWE" brand continues to have name value for long enough after Vince is gone that there is a sort of "grace period" for whoever takes over (likely Steph/Hunter) to right the ship with their own ideas before it all falls away.
 

Sephzilla

Member
After Vince dies WWE will have that grace period where they give the successor a chance, but the moment there's blood in the water the sharks are going to come and then there's just going to be disaster. Long term I think it's inevitable that WWE declines post-Vince, especially if any competition ever rises.
 

Zach

Member
I honestly don't care what happens when Vince dies. I just want to see it go down.

Unfortunately he'll probably outlive me (and certainly that sickly Data West). He'll probably even be president.
 
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