Bryan Alvarez had an interview with former WWE creative team member Robert Karpeles (who is behind the twitter account @WWECreative_ish) on Figure Four Daily today, as they talked about various storyline ideas and notes from 2005-2006. Here are some highlights:
-The October Raw homecoming show that marked them returning to USA network was suppose to be a major turn point for the company. They had just did a focus group on why people didn't watch wrestling anymore and the main reason was because there were no long term storylines, and they wanted to see major stars that weren't there anymore. This leads to the below idea:
-Vince McMahon thought of a long term storyline plan in 5-10 mins. In the October Raw homecoming show in 2005, Vince was going to come out and bury everyone like he does backstage. And basically ask who is going to take that brass ring. At the end of the show, Vin Man was going to get hit by a car. Mick Foley was going to be hired to be the investigator. It was going to turn out that Foley was the man that hit Vince because he didn't want Vince to hand over the company to Triple H and Steph because Triple H is the guy that ended Foley's career and he's an evil person. (They were going to publicly mention for the first time that H and Steph were really married at that point, and the plan for them to eventually inherit the company)
Then Shane was going to fight Foley at Mania to defend the family honor. Triple H would beat Cena for the WWE title at Mania with help from Shane in some way. Then as Triple H is at the ramp holding the WWE title with Shane, Steph was going to come out and hug Triple H, then Vince & Linda were going to come out and they were going to show the McMahon family united at the ramp.
-Apparently after Vince thought of this, the next week he thought of some storyline that involved him going away for months from the public eye. Not even attending stockholder and business meetings. They were going to put this on wwe.com to make it a huge deal, and eventually Vince was going to return with a HOBO ARMY. Can't make this up. (Of course this wouldn't have worked because they're a public traded company and something like this would nearly kill the company)
-McMahon was going to start his own church, and give speeches about what's wrong with government, religion, the world, etc.
-Bob Orton Jr was brought in to help Randy Orton get his issues straight at the time. That's partly why he was on the road with him during that time period. Also working with Taker was suppose to help as well since Taker was a respected vet.
-Lashley was put on TV after Vince saw him at Patterson's birthday party. Vince was going through notes, sees Lashley walk by in the hallway and said (in Vince voice) "God damn put that guy on TV." They put him against Simon Dean that night in Lashley's first match on TV.
-During the Angle/Cena fued in late 2005, creative members were also trying to write stories for mid-card guys because everyone on the roster had some type of storyline or story in the late 90's; which is what they were trying to get back to. However Stephanie sent an email to creative telling them stop worrying about the mid-card guys and to only focus on Angle/Cena. (Sounds like what they do now with booking)
-Mania 22 ideas were Hogan/Austin, but they couldn't come together on a finish. Triple H/Cena, and Lesnar/Batista since Lesnar was in mild talks with them at the time. (Of course Batista ended up getting hurt too)