wrestling / Columns

The Wrestling Sandwich: Vince Cuts Nose Off To Spite Face

January 28, 2015 | Posted by Scott Rutherford

Greetings pilgrims and welcome to The Wrestling Sandwich.

A few years ago when I was writing the Wrestling Sandwich on a regular basis, I made the assertion that Vince McMahon was “batshit insane”. I expressed the view that the single biggest threat to the WWE and their ability to be a thriving, money making entity was Vince McMahon himself. Check out whatI wrote in the wake of John Cena beating Brock Lesnar clean at Extreme Rules 2012 here. Unfortunately, when 411mania switched over to the new layout all the comments disappeared from the articles. Needless to say I had many detractors saying I was stupid for even implying that Vince was trying to kill the WWE. I never said it was on purpose but used the analogy that a damaged leader of an army will cause more damage to his own forces than if he was removed outright.

A couple of weeks later I did a forensic dissection of Vince McMahon and performed the Hare Psychopathy Checklist or PCL-R. I did this after I read that a CEO of a large company is four times more likely to be diagnosed as a psychopath than the rest of society. Sure it was tongue-in-cheek to a certain extent but based on common knowledge of Vince McMahon and the litany of stories told by ex-employees it really wasn’t that hard to do. In the end Vince came just over a point shy of meeting the criteria. You can read about that little exercise here.

For weeks after I would say “Vince is batshit insane” to the point people thought I was just being a troll. It always amused me because the evidence of Vince being disconnected to the reality of what he does for a living and what people wanted from his company was abundantly clear. This continued up until the end of my run writing The Wrestling Sandwich as I sadly stood down as the demands of a family with 5 kids left little time for me to write.

Then came the Royal Rumble 2015.

Now I have stuff to say.

Quick explanation, some of this article veers off into specifics like rumble booking, roster depth, and other topics. Hopefully, if I can translate what’s in my brain into the written word, it should all make sense.

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It’s been a common theme of discussion post-Rumble that Vince McMahon was actively trolling the audience with the booking of the Royal Rumble match. This is a funny one because depending on which side of the coin you’re on; the indicators for each are worrisome. Funnily enough what I’m about to outlay works for both argument that Vince is a troll or just clueless.

So for the sake of not having to repeat myself, let’s say that Vince WASN’T trolling the audience last night. This is actually my opinion. What does that say about Vince’s ability to “get” his own audience? Going in I thought they would book Dolph Ziggler to be the winner. He’d been involved in The Authority storyline, had the massive win at Survivor Series where he beat 3-on-1 odds and was booked to lose in the last couple of weeks (which they do if you are going to get a big win). I thought if Ziggler won, the Philly crowd would accept that because they respect the man as a worker. He was a good alternative if Daniel Bryan wasn’t going to win.

Second to that would be Dean Ambrose. Up until a few weeks ago he was the most entertaining aspect of RAW. Great in the ring, a different type of personality that fans are legitimately (and organically) attracted too. He was a legit dark horse, especially if Seth Rollins won the WWE World Title by cashing in the MiTB briefcase. While I’m not fool enough to believe Ambrose vs. Rollins, would headline WrestleMania it would have been a tremendous sign (and match) that the WWE and Vince himself was investing in new main event talent.

So who watched the Royal Rumble and thought that the booking of Daniel Bryan, Dolph Ziggler and Dean Ambrose was any good? If you did, please submit a resume to…

Titan Towers
1241 East Main Street
PO Box 3857
Stamford, CT 06905-0857

…chances are you may get a job on the writing crew.

We all know Daniel Bryan is the most over man on the regular roster. Period. We also know that whenever Ziggler and Ambrose appear they usually get the best reactions after that. So the three guys the crowd will be most invested in during the rumble match are booked to come and go without making a ripple in the outcome of the match. The only other person that the crowd gave a damn about, Mizdow, was gone within 15 seconds. No one would have expected him to win but if he went in, eliminated someone, sold it like he won the world title and then got thrown out by Bray Wyatt the crowd would have likely been OK with that. People just wanted him to shine for a bit. That’s all.

Reports suggest that Vince McMahon was genuinely surprised at how the fans reacted to the rumble match. If this report is correct than no, Vince wasn’t trolling us and yes, Vince’s now completely out of touch with his fanbase. Part of me understands why…

Back in the territory days there was a long held belief by bookers that the fans really don’t know what they want. If they liked a particular guy that was never intended for the man event, they would certainly take advantage of him being over, but he’d never be booked as “the guy”. The booker ALWAYS handpicks that role and he was protected as such and usually they would be a good draw.

The problem today for Vince is that he cherry-picks which wrestling booking traditions he wants to follow and which ones to disregard. Usually, if a method of booking someone is for lack of a better word, standard, Vince seems to run from it at all costs. If someone manages to catch fire without the WWE machines help, then they are buried.

This is why we have 50/50 booking and guys going on losing streaks before they win big matches or titles. It’s also why guys like Wade Barrett, Dolph Ziggler, Cesaro, Kofi Kingston, Jack Swagger, Tyson Kidd, Ryback and most recently Dean Ambrose will likely never been seen as legit main eventers that can draw. They’ve never been booked as anything more than people that are talented but just aren’t good enough. All these guys have something to offer but at this point it’s all for nothing because Vince or his cohort Kevin Dunn don’t see them as stars.

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But really, the booking of the Rumble match itself was baffling and set an all time low mark for what is usually a fun, entertaining match. Let’s break it down based on individual competitors.

Bray Wyatt: Word is that he’s penciled in to face The Undertaker at WM31. Fine. The idea then was to give him the longevity push in the rumble as a way to build him in preparation. Excellent. Does anyone really remember how Wyatt was eliminated? I watched the rumble twice, with my son and then by myself later, and I still had to look it up. If a man goes 46 minutes he needs to be eliminated by the eventual winner and it needs to have drama to go with it. Reigns and Wyatt have history and it would have been beneficial to both men. Wyatt just disappeared and the longevity stuff is for nothing right now.

Daniel Bryan: It’s very simple, if Daniel Bryan is in the rumble match then he really should have won it. The Philly crowd was going to accept nothing else. The fact that he was dumped liked a total scrub with no drama or build-up shows just how clueless the booking of the rumble really was. The only other course, if the rumours are true that Bryan will face Sheamus at WM, was Bryan to enter first and be strong for 20 minutes, eliminate a bunch of guys and have the returning Sheamus interfere to cause his elimination. This turns Sheamus heel, which has been in the offing for months, sets up the match for Mania and makes BOTH GUYS LOOK STRONG.

Roman Reigns: I’ve got no problem with Reigns winning the match. It’s the way the WWE and Vince has gone about doing it that has soured so many people. The REALLY baffling thing about the booking of this rumble was Reigns was not booked strong at all. His sneak elimination of Kane and Big Show was not the booking your superhero babyface needs. Ditto the complete lack of drama in getting rid of Rusev. He should have gone through bitches like Missy Hyatte through an indie promotions dressing room. This rumble was full of jobbers. Reigns came in at #17. This is when you go all or nothing. Be dominate or go home. When he entered there should have been 8 guys in the ring. Two minutes later he should be by himself. Then at the end he should eliminate another 5 guys (all big names). He wins in a dominant, strong performance. Gets the Goldberg push and a 5 minute mauling of Brock Lesnar at WM. If your boy aint a star after that, then he’ll never get there.

Dolph Ziggler: His presence could have turned the Philly crowd back. He didn’t need to win but a strong showing eliminating a bunch of guys and then Ziggler and Reigns having a 6-7 minute tussle before Reigns comes out on top. It makes BOTH GUYS LOOK STRONG. Dumping Dolph after 2:20 was, after the elimination of Daniel Bryan, the single stupidest idea of this match. The continual burial of Ziggler ranks as one of the all time high mysteries of the WWE in the last 5 years.

Kane & The Big Show: We sit here in 2015 and these two are the strongest booked men in the match. 15 years of these two. Enough already. These guys have been kicking around since the late 90’s and they have made all the money that they will ever make. Having them booked so strong when you are trying to build Reigns defeats any purpose of the Rumble getting the winner ready for Mania. I have no problem with these two wrestling. I have a big problem when they are booked at the expense of your younger talent that YOU NEED so the company can make money in the future.

The Jobbers: This is the most jobber-riffic Rumble I can recall. Regardless of the Philly crowd, any live audience would have given up on this match since almost everyone in it is booked like a complete geek. Adam Rose? Titus O’Neil? Fandango? Sin Cara? Zack Ryder? R-Truth? I’ve just listed off 1/6th of the entrants. All are jobbers. I will speak about this next but the lack of depth in this roster was telling tonight. They needed star power and there was none to give. It’s prophetic when you claim that no one reaches for the brass ring anymore when they’re booked to be someone that will never get it.

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As mentioned above, the lack of depth on the main roster now has reached legit worrisome levels. Out of the guys they have now (outside of Cena, Orton, Reigns, Bryan, Rollins and Brock) there is maybe 5 guys that if booked right, might be able to wash the stench of loser off them. Funnily these guys are mostly the ones that Vince actively tried to bury during the Rumble.

Here’s something to think about. Your current WWE Main Roster…

Adam Rose
Bad News Barrett
Big E
Big Show
Billy Gunn
Bo Dallas
Bray Wyatt
Brock Lesnar
The Bunny
Cesaro
Chris Jericho
Christian
Curtis Axel
Damien Mizdow
Daniel Bryan
Darren Young
David Otunga
Dean Ambrose
Diego
Dolph Ziggler
El Torito
Erick Rowan
Fandango
Goldust
Heath Slater
Hornswoggle
Jack Swagger
Jey Uso
Jimmy Uso
John Cena
Kane
Kofi Kingston
Konnor
Luke Harper
Mark Henry
The Miz
R-Truth
Randy Orton
Rey Mysterio
Road Dogg
Roman Reigns
Rusev
Ryback
Seth Rollins
Sheamus
Sin Cara
Stardust
Sting
Titus O’Neil
Triple H
Tyson Kidd
The Undertaker
Viktor
Xavier Woods
Zack Ryder

That’s 54 names. Take away The Undertaker, Billy Gunn, Road Dogg, Christian, Chris Jericho, Brock Lesnar and Sting who are part timers. Take away The Bunny, Hornswoggle and El Torito for obvious reason and finally Rey Mysterio who’s only on the roster because Vince McMahon refuses to release him. That’s 11 guys that aren’t full-time, active in-ring wrestlers.

That leaves us with a regular main roster of 43 wrestlers.

43.

When you look up and down that list there’s not that much star power to be had. This is the other, not talked about reason the Rumble sucked so bad this year. It’s complete jobberville in the ranks of the WWE these days. This is why losing CM Punk last year was a big blow to the company. Besides the loss of his star power, there’s no one to step up in his place. More worrisome he only get there himself because he elbowed, clawed and kicked his way into the main event. Vince was never keen on Punk becoming a star.

The bigger issue right now is that there are very few capable workers in this bunch. Most have to be carried to some extent. I know the WWE is cost cutting but they need to open their purse strings and try to entice back guys like Harry Smith, Shelton Benjamin, John Morrison, MVP and Chris Masters. Also get older guys like William Regal, Christian and Finlay. I know these are mid-carders but they can be highly effective and if booked well can make the vital difference when the greener NXT guys make it too the main roster.

Now here’s where I tie this back to Vince…the roster is so shit these days because Vince has a very clear vision of what he thinks a wrestler is and how he looks. We all know that. Kevin Dunn who seems to have an inordinate amount of power on who gets booked well and who doesn’t usually backs up Vince’s opinion or worse still, influences Vince. A push can literally die on the vine if Dunn doesn’t like the way someone’s arms glisten in the light on TV. It’s that esoteric.

The Ascension right now is on a one-way ticket to “future endeavors”. Why? Kevin Dunn has strong opinions that they are not good enough and Vince has now bought into that. How does anyone think a team of new guys is going to get over with fans when you book them to be berated and squashed down by a bunch of old, retired wrestlers? That segment from last weeks RAW should have had them decimate everyone in the ring above the age of 45. You want strong looking wrestlers? Don’t give a fuck about protecting guys that no longer work.

Some say they The Ascension weren’t ready to be brought up. Let you in on a little secret…John Cena, Randy Orton and Dave Bastista weren’t ready either. However they were protected and given time to learn and grow. There’s your three biggest stars from the last 10 years. Dismissing talent out of hand, like Vince is prone to doing, does not a future build.

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There is hope and that hope lies in the hands of HHH and his pet projects NXT and The Performance Centre. Since John Laurinaitis was pushed out as a Vince yes man and talent recruiter, HHH has gone out of his way to revamp developmental. I’m sure even the biggest HHH haters will admit NXT has been an excellent way for the WWE to “soft” debut talent.

The biggest thing however is that HHH has decided to not just look at athletes that have never wrestled but giving indie talent a shot. Right now there are about seven guys working the NXT taping that could move to the main roster and if (and that’s the magic word) they are protected by decent booking you could have a couple main event stars in the offing. Almost all these guys have been stars on the indies for years. If anyone in WWE management thinks that Adrian Neville, Finn Balor, Hideo Itami, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Tyler Breeze and Kalisto aren’t good enough for the main roster then they should be fired. They seriously don’t know shit about wrestling.

But it goes to the larger problem of Vince not being able to “get” what’s happening in the industry he took to the world. He thinks what worked 30 years ago with Hulk Hogan will work now. The problem with that is two fold, no one wants a Hulk Hogan these days and even saying that, Vince has forgotten how to book a Hulk Hogan anyway.

This disconnect is always going to be a potential issue. Right now I believe you could put Balor, Owens and Zayn up to the main roster and thrive. They have Daniel Bryan level talent at getting themselves over no matter what. Zayn is the babyface the WWE has been longing John Cena to be. He’s affable, charismatic, down to earth and gets everyone behind him. He also comes off like nothing less than a star. Like Bryan he’s a completely sympathetic character that draws people in. Right now he should be brought up and given a one-year push exactly like he got in NXT. If ain’t a star at the end of that then all hope is lost for wrestling.

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Right…I need to start tying this all together.

Vince is out of touch. The booking at the end of the rumble match is a glaring example. Reigns defeats two giants and an evil Russia and The Rock endorses him. I bet Vince was laying awake at night and thinking this is the best rumble finish of all time and Roman was going to be a babyface equal to that of John Cena.

So in front of the most hardcore wrestling crowd in America, and learning absolutely nothing from the year before we get Daniel Bryan eliminated early, the crowd turning on EVERYTHING except Dean Ambrose and Dolph Ziggler. But wait! You eliminate Dolph in just over two minutes and Ambrose does nothing in the match itself. The guy Vince wants to be the star of the match does nothing and I mean nothing except lay about and get rid of guys behind their backs. This was not the dominant performance that was needed.

No wonder the crowd shit all over it. I firmly believe that any crowd would have reacted the same way as Philly did. Everything that we the audience cared about was covered, buried and concreted over in 60 minutes.

This was done on purpose. Vince thought this was the best way to book this match. He actually believed Roman Reigns would come out a big star. For weeks leading up to the Rumble every fan and pundit said don’t do this. This is not what the audience wants. They have chosen Daniel Bryan. This is who they’ll get behind. But because he doesn’t fit what a “star” is in the minds of Vince McMahon, Kevin Dunn and to a much lesser extent Triple H he’s routinely denied the chance to carry the ball. Then we’re force fed someone we don’t want.

I’ve never known a company so hell-bent on not listening to the people that pay for their product. It’s astounding that a business like wrestling that is so dependent on fans actively works against them and denying them most everything they want. Vince made himself a billionaire by given what we cheered for the most. Why has he completely turned his back on that philosophy?

I get he may be reluctant to make a 34 year old man with chronic neck problems their long term babyface, but let him have a couple of years and build Roman Reigns. Get his promo and ring work up to the level required and then have him take over. Because right now Reigns is dead in the water and the only logical thing to do (if other crowds are heavily against him) is to become a heel. He’s even less ready to be a heel than a face. It is robbing from Peter to pay Paul.

So at this point, Vince is disconnected from his fanbase, the future vision that HHH is laying down in NXT and wrestling in general. He believes that the WWE brand name is the star and they he can’t risk making wrestlers household names because they move onto greener pastures. He’s lost the fact that the WWE became the brand it is, on the back of creating superstars and if he doesn’t keep making those, his brand will suffer.

Just like it is doing now.

Killing his company from the inside.

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So if I’m such a smart guy about all of this, then how do I book the Royal Rumble and have Roman Reigns win and come out a big star in front of the Philly crowd?

For all the handwringing about them, the one thing the Philly crowds do is react positively to good wrestling and storytelling. It doesn’t have to be a ***** classic or anything but give it a good story and make the match enjoyable and they’ll usually come along for the ride and forget any of the bad stuff.

I would have had The Authority put Reigns as #1 in the Rumble. They know he’s the biggest threat in the Rumble field and don’t want him near the main event of WM. I would then instruct every other competitor that the man that eliminates Reigns gets $100,000 bonus. This automatically gives the match a storyline besides the winner goes to Mania. Reigns will be a marked man, it will cause second-guessing for the other big babyfaces and conflict amongst the other entrants as they go after Roman and the money.

Then I would have Reigns just destroy the first ten guys through the curtain. None of them last more than a minute or so. Let Reigns be completely explosive and dominant. Then send out someone that really challenges Reigns. Then send out your two big goons Kane and Big show and just destroy him but Roman will not be eliminated. He’s now fighting from underneath as the ring is filling up with guys that want to take him out.

So there’s Roman, fighting off about 6 guys when Daniel Bryan comes out. He’s already wrestled a match earlier in the night and lost thanks to Sheamus interfering at the behest of The Authority. He’s a house of fire and kicks the shit out of everyone, setting them up for Roman to toss them out. So at this point Roman has eliminated everyone so far and already beaten his most elimination record from last year.

Bryan then gets the house mic and tells the Roman there’s nothing more than he’d like to see than the Authority be denied what they want the most. Plus, thanks to Sheamus, he’s got other things to take care of and lets Roman toss him out. This endorses Reigns, sets Bryan up with an opponent and give the crowd a reasonable reason why Bryan isn’t winning.

So for the rest of the night it’s the bigger name guys coming out and fighting an ever-wearying Roman Reigns. Just when you think he’s about to go over, he finds a way to get the other guy out making Reigns the only guy to be eliminating people. This happens right up until Rusev comes out at #30. Reigns is spent and the Russian is just ragdolling him but manages to hang on. HHH comes out to ringside to make sure Rusev gets the job done, when Sting appears out of nowhere and takes out HHH and Reigns takes care of Rusev for the win.

The Rock whose being watching from backstage comes out and endorses Reigns who’s managed to eliminate everyone is the match, survive a massive beating and proven he has the “stuff” to be the guy the company can hang their hat on.

Sure its all fantasy but I’m astounded we’ve never had a rumble where the #1 throws out everyone inside the 2 minutes and make that the story of the match for the first half or even the whole way.

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Anyway, this whole column was me venting my frustration. The WWE will flounder for as long as Vince is the man with final say. WWE has been downplaying the #CancelWWENetwork stuff and in light on news that The Network managed to hit 1 million subscribers appears, at least on the surface, that they are on the right track.

A couple points about that. The million subs is based on the free month in November, the Network finally landing in the UK, and the expected bump since we are now in the thick of WrestleMania season. For all we know the Network may have lost 300,000 subs after the Royal Rumble. By jumping the gun and waving the flag of a million subscribers, which put the company pretty much back into the black financially, it will deflect any loses that may have happened and the WWE will never tell the public just how many people jumped ship that night.

But the bad news is that Rolling Stone and Times both picked up on this and the fact the cancelation page went down due to the server being overloaded, no matter for how long, is not a good look. We’ve already established investors have no idea how the wrestling industry works after they drove the stock prices up to nearly $30 a share last year. People reading about a mass exodus of subscribers and downed servers will no doubt cast doubt over the WWE financial and possibly the stock price itself.

Right now we are at the most pivotal time in WWE history since they clawed back from oblivion in 1997 and possibly only second to when Vince lead the mid-80’s expansion. If he stays in charge, there is no telling where we’ll end up.