The HHH Effect

[celtics543]

I'm a long time WWE/F fan and I've been watching a lot of 80's and early 90's stuff on the Network lately which has gotten me thinking. HHH was a big fan of Ric Flair and the NWA, he's said so on numerous occasions and he's gained more control in the WWE over the last few years, and reportedly has been in on the booking since the early 2000's.

Basically what I"m saying is that the WWE is turning into the NWA and it's not a good thing. Heels holding the major titles with faces chasing them worked back then because people thought it was real and had the patience to wait for their favorite guy to hopefully unseat the champion. Meanwhile in the WWF it was Hogan defending the title against the heel monster of the month. Now as smarks we all love 1980's Ric Flair but the 80's NWA presented in 2017 just doesn't draw fans in because everyone knows it's predetermined. People don't have the patience to wait for their favorite to climb to the top of the mountain. Once someone loses once in a title match people get off their bandwagon and find the next guy so that by the time that guy wins people aren't as hot for it.

The WWE can't seem to book strong face characters, which is crazy when you remember that Vince is the guy in charge still and he was the one who booked Hogan/Bret/HBK/Austin/Rock and even Cena as top faces who held the title for long stretches. In today's wrestling world it seems easy, they just need to book whoever the crowd pops loudest for as the world champion and then book the heel of the month against them. It's like 2017 is begging for 1980's WWF booking and they just refuse to do it. People want to cheer and do catchphrases and chant things, they don't want to follow stories that leave them depressed with a heel winning every time.

Watching GBOF last night and really none of the faces won. Vince has gone from sending them home happy to burying the faces at every turn and I think this is a HHH effect that is relying on 1980's NWA booking.

Currently I'm watching Summerslam 1990 and the storytelling is so simple and so effective, both the build up and the payoff in the ring. Faces win for the most part, the crowd eats it up, and the wrestlers are focused on storytelling instead of doing fancy flips and things. Ric Flair was a once in a lifetime talent and the NWA worked because of him. Jinder Mahal is not Ric Flair, he shouldn't be a long reigning world champion. Ideally he would've been the bad guy of the month.

It's also an issue that there aren't any more big companies or territories. Heels shouldn't stick around more than six months or so. Once they've had a main event run and failed to win the title, what purpose do they serve? As much as I enjoy his work, what purpose does Rusev or Sheamus serve right now? It's not like they really get any character development or anything and it causes the entire company to feel stale. They should either be guys on the way up or guys at the top. Guys on the way down should all be let go and encouraged to go to Japan or Mexico for a while before making a return.

Overall, they should be building around top faces, not top heels. They made a ton of money in the 80's doing Hogan vs heel of the month. Tons of money in the 90's doing Bret/Shawn/Austin vs Heel of the month. Tons of money in the 2000's doing Rock vs Heel of the month. Then they have a solid mid card that supports the main event. Guys now are pushed and then forgotten about so instead of being solid mid card guys they all come off as failed main eventers. Back in the Attitude Era you had a clear main event and then a midcard with Benoit, Guerrero, Jericho, all the tag teams, Holly, Mark Henry, DLo Brown, and so many more that didn't move up for years so they were always viewed as the future instead of just a guy that might get a quick push and then get dropped.

I know I've rambled but it's just such a stark difference watching older, story driven WWF shows versus the current workrate driven shows.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

I forget where I read it, probably here but one writer was soundly mocked by everyone for keeping a flow chart of what the f*** was happening on each show so he could write coherent stories.

So, there you go.

["Magic" Mark Hurr]

Jul 10, 2017 18:09:02 GMT -5 celtics543 said:

The WWE can't seem to book strong face characters, which is crazy when you remember that Vince is the guy in charge still and he was the one who booked Hogan/Bret/HBK/Austin/Rock and even Cena as top faces who held the title for long stretches. In today's wrestling world it seems easy, they just need to book whoever the crowd pops loudest for as the world champion and then book the heel of the month against them. It's like 2017 is begging for 1980's WWF booking and they just refuse to do it. People want to cheer and do catchphrases and chant things, they don't want to follow stories that leave them depressed with a heel winning every time.



Currently I'm watching Summerslam 1990 and the storytelling is so simple and so effective, both the build up and the payoff in the ring. Faces win for the most part, the crowd eats it up, and the wrestlers are focused on storytelling instead of doing fancy flips and things. Ric Flair was a once in a lifetime talent and the NWA worked because of him. Jinder Mahal is not Ric Flair, he shouldn't be a long reigning world champion. Ideally he would've been the bad guy of the month.

I've stared what you're thinking before.

The circumstances of the who, what, when, where, how, and why guys are booked to a huge turn during the Cena years.

You should always a have multiple guys who could potentially be the top guy given the that story is told well enough to transition from one champ to another.

The preparation it took to do that went out of the window. Booking guys who pick up steam and start to build a solid following to have their heat siphoned deaded a lot of people's enthusiasm. Creating this vacuum where the fans weren't to be trusted with who they like. Having the formula that worked during the boom period be widdled down to just Authority figures then champions with no real resolutions. Not to mention flavor of the month ventures that took away from the little cred some of the wrestlers had. Stories were told sloppy like the writers had short-term memory loss. Just a bunch of mess.

Through out that time period Vince and HHH had two different plans. And that's a dynamic we won't see again.

[Chiral]

I always liked WWE for being the one where the good guys generally won. I really can't stand the shift to Heels Always Win. I don't watch escapist entertainment to feel hopeless and defeated.

[celtics543]

Jul 10, 2017 18:29:57 GMT -5 Chiral said:

I always liked WWE for being the one where the good guys generally won. I really can't stand the shift to Heels Always Win. I don't watch escapist entertainment to feel hopeless and defeated.

Exactly. A movie is two hours and the good guys generally win. A wrestling storyline generally goes a few months and you just sort of hope that in the end the good guy wins. It's a lot to ask for a fan to keep watching that long. Need to have something on every card where a face wins a big match. Ideally feuds are staggered so that some are ending while others are in the middle or the beginning.

[Deleted]

Jul 10, 2017 18:33:53 GMT -5 celtics543 said:

Jul 10, 2017 18:29:57 GMT -5 Chiral said:

I always liked WWE for being the one where the good guys generally won. I really can't stand the shift to Heels Always Win. I don't watch escapist entertainment to feel hopeless and defeated.

Exactly. A movie is two hours and the good guys generally win. A wrestling storyline generally goes a few months and you just sort of hope that in the end the good guy wins. It's a lot to ask for a fan to keep watching that long. Need to have something on every card where a face wins a big match. Ideally feuds are staggered so that some are ending while others are in the middle or the beginning.

In 2016 I watched Mania with a bunch of newer non-insider fans and everyone they liked lost.A lot of those people have stopped watching completely after that.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

Jul 10, 2017 18:29:57 GMT -5 Chiral said:

I always liked WWE for being the one where the good guys generally won. I really can't stand the shift to Heels Always Win. I don't watch escapist entertainment to feel hopeless and defeated.

Considering how many logical storyline points Triple H weaseled out of by claiming his character would never fall for that, you can't be surprised

[celtics543]

For as repetitive as the booking was, when Hulk Hogan was over they didn't try to get cute, they put the monster of the month up against him and Hulk went over to huge profit and cheers. When Austin as over huge they put him over everyone to huge reactions and record profits. This is the only era where they've pushed guys the fans hated and cut the legs off of guys who were over. This whole, "most controversial" stuff is really new. Business seems like it was better when they had guys on top that everyone loved.

[Mayonnaise]

We're getting what Vince wants though. Looks at Roman Reigns, he is everything Vince loves and is booked like it. He cool and cocky, making lame jokes and always comes out on top but people hate him for it. Cena is the same way: good looking, muscular, All American, type that makes lame jokes and always came out on top, and people hated him for it. We've seen the fans rejecting this character style going back to Hogan and it is always what Vince falls back on. What we are getting isn't NWA style booking, if it was the faces would look amazing. We'd have a face that people are dying to see succeed. We're getting an old man constantly trying to shoehorn his vision, that credit due made him a lot of money a long time ago, onto a generation that it doesn't fit, and thinking a new hat is all it needs.

Compare that to stuff we know Hunter booked or approved in NXT. Yes there have been some heel champs but they were used to get a face over to carry the brand. Dallas to Neville, Owens to Balor, Joe to Nakamura and now were seeing that with Roode. Hell go back the brand split return when Dean had the title, then AJ, their ratings and following went up. People saw a show they liked because it fit with the now. Then when it came WM time, Vince took full control back, Cena went back on top and down she went.

[chrom]

Jul 10, 2017 18:29:57 GMT -5 Chiral said:

I always liked WWE for being the one where the good guys generally won. I really can't stand the shift to Heels Always Win. I don't watch escapist entertainment to feel hopeless and defeated.

I said last night that no one wanted to see Vader shoot down Luke and Yavin get blown up. Bought a ticket to see Rocky get beat in the 1st round or watch and hope Goku fails against Frieza.

[HMARK Center]

Babyface chasing a heel champion also tended to work better in the old days because of the way the territory system worked. You worked a general circuit of venues that you'd be at with regularity, so heels going over one time could easily build to a face getting revenge the next trip there; plus, a champ like Flair often traveled the country, so it wasn't like he was there every week to antagonize the area's top face...plus, there's a reason Flair was "Mr. Broadway", as he'd often keep the local top face strong with 60 minute matches.

Then, as maligned as the Dusty Finish is (and as badly as it got overused), it was effective in sending a crowd home happy while still keeping the belt on the heel champion, so the cycle could begin again.

I don't know if they're really doing NWA style booking right now, but they certainly shouldn't pursue a booking style that relied on having less televised big cards and also relied on traveling around a steady circuit of regular venues.

[Milkman Norm]

And in fairness to the comparison yes Ric Flair was the champion most of the time. But he would sell like crazy for the babyfaces and put them over when he needed to.

[The Yes Man]

From various indications HHH has very little influence at all on the main roster. If you want to see his booking style,look at NXT. The three longest title runs were Neville, Balor and Bo Dallas. Neville and Finn were faces, and Bo's run started as a face.

Blaming Triple H for anything creative wise on the main roster is pretty ridiculous.

[cabbageboy]

Then who is it? Entire PPVs of nothing but heel wins aren't so much a Vince thing historically, even though some PPVs have by necessity done this. I recall one where Evolution won basically all the titles, but that was more of an exception.

To piggyback off the territory point, guess what? All that goofy booking and Dusty Finish stuff killed the NWA because they burned through those finishes in a hurry and angered fans. Lex Luger as a Florida babyface that kept getting screwed by Flair coming to town is one thing. Lex Luger having a match stopped due to a lame cut on a national PPV is business killing level bad. I still remember as a kid watching the first Clash. The NWA had a chance to make me a fan that day, but even though the wrestling was good the show was so bad from a booking standpoint that when it was over I didn't even care. That show had a goofy Dusty Finish in the US tag match, Mike Rotunda and Jimmy Garvin having a college rules match (1 count), and the main event where I was SURE this awesome Sting guy would win the title just went to some lame time limit draw.

It's funny because WM 4 the same day is generally considered a lame PPV now, but at the time I loved it. Did some heels like Demolition go over? Yeah. HTM did another screwjob to escape with the IC. But at the end of the day Savage won the tourney. Now we'd get the heel tag and IC stuff but Dibiase would probably win the tourney after taking a bye to the finals while Savage wrestled 3 other men.

[Deleted]

Jul 10, 2017 18:29:57 GMT -5 Chiral said:

I always liked WWE for being the one where the good guys generally won. I really can't stand the shift to Heels Always Win. I don't watch escapist entertainment to feel hopeless and defeated.

This is why I have pretty much given up on my 25+ years of wrrstling fandom.

If someome knows of any other company that doesn't have this problem, (I haven't watched anything but WWE simce WCW went under), I'd love to know.

[celtics543]

Jul 10, 2017 22:37:52 GMT -5 cabbageboy said:

Then who is it? Entire PPVs of nothing but heel wins aren't so much a Vince thing historically, even though some PPVs have by necessity done this. I recall one where Evolution won basically all the titles, but that was more of an exception.

To piggyback off the territory point, guess what? All that goofy booking and Dusty Finish stuff killed the NWA because they burned through those finishes in a hurry and angered fans. Lex Luger as a Florida babyface that kept getting screwed by Flair coming to town is one thing. Lex Luger having a match stopped due to a lame cut on a national PPV is business killing level bad. I still remember as a kid watching the first Clash. The NWA had a chance to make me a fan that day, but even though the wrestling was good the show was so bad from a booking standpoint that when it was over I didn't even care. That show had a goofy Dusty Finish in the US tag match, Mike Rotunda and Jimmy Garvin having a college rules match (1 count), and the main event where I was SURE this awesome Sting guy would win the title just went to some lame time limit draw.

It's funny because WM 4 the same day is generally considered a lame PPV now, but at the time I loved it. Did some heels like Demolition go over? Yeah. HTM did another screwjob to escape with the IC. But at the end of the day Savage won the tourney. Now we'd get the heel tag and IC stuff but Dibiase would probably win the tourney after taking a bye to the finals while Savage wrestled 3 other men.

This always got me too. People say Sting was made that day but he wasn't even the guy that was made the most on that day, it was Randy Savage by far. If Sting had actually won the title then that would have been a huge day for making Sting a big star. A draw has always seemed like a boring end to a long match to me. For the love of God just give us a happy ending once. They used to say that Vince always wanted to send the people home happy but they've really swung the other way the last ten years or so. I'd kill to have a babyface as over as Hogan or Austin win a title straight up and just celebrate to end a show and actually send people home happy.

[madness50]

Triple H is definitely a fan of the heel champion being chased by the babyface. I still think the main roster storylines is all Vince, but the heels win way too often for my taste. It's funny when you go back and watch Triple H's 2003 RAW run, it is a rehash of old Flair storylines from the 80's. Steiner stripping Hunter down to his underwear was done several times to Flair with Steamboat, notably in the lead up to the first Flair-Steamboat match in 1989. Hunter putting a bounty on Goldberg was a rip off of Harley Race's bounty on Flair in the lead up to the first Starrcade in 1983. Hell, Triple H promos back then were just slightly reworded Horsemen era Flair promos.

[cabbageboy]

The problem with HHH's entire 2003 run is that it sucked. It's one thing to be a heel Flair in the 1980s having great matches with everyone. It's another to have the crap matches HHH did with Steiner, Nash, etc. as well as the insulting Booker T. feud and sabotaging Goldberg. I've been watching old NWA on the WWE Network and by 1987 Flair was becoming a real problem in one way. He didn't especially want to be booed. Watch those shows. The Horsemen clearly are something other than straight up heels. They basically wrestle as heels but Flair in particular on the mic courts fan approval, they did a promotion to "Win a date with Lex Luger!" and all that. The only member of the Horsemen that even seemed to grasp that he was meant to be hated was Tully Blanchard. The Horsemen had more in common with the NWO that Flair would like to admit, from the cool heel personas to the attempt at somehow being the top hees and top faces.

It also struck me that the NWA just didn't have any babyface that was the total package that could draw money. Dusty was in his 40s by then and out of shape, even though the mic skills were always there. Magnum TA was probably the closest thing but he had the car wreck before ascending to the next level. Sting was barely in the company at the time of that Clash match with Flair, having only come in from the UWF at the end of 1987. He was also not really 100% ready for that spot, and was really never quite a main event level promo. Luger ironically enough was never really the total package since he lacked charisma and was more at home as a heel.

[HMARK Center]

Jul 10, 2017 22:46:35 GMT -5 @wvguitar said:

Jul 10, 2017 18:29:57 GMT -5 Chiral said:

I always liked WWE for being the one where the good guys generally won. I really can't stand the shift to Heels Always Win. I don't watch escapist entertainment to feel hopeless and defeated.

This is why I have pretty much given up on my 25+ years of wrrstling fandom.

If someome knows of any other company that doesn't have this problem, (I haven't watched anything but WWE simce WCW went under), I'd love to know.

Some opinions might differ, but hey, why not:

["Cane Dewey" Johnson]

Jul 10, 2017 21:15:13 GMT -5 HMARK Center said:

Babyface chasing a heel champion also tended to work better in the old days because of the way the territory system worked. You worked a general circuit of venues that you'd be at with regularity, so heels going over one time could easily build to a face getting revenge the next trip there; plus, a champ like Flair often traveled the country, so it wasn't like he was there every week to antagonize the area's top face...plus, there's a reason Flair was "Mr. Broadway", as he'd often keep the local top face strong with 60 minute matches.

Then, as maligned as the Dusty Finish is (and as badly as it got overused), it was effective in sending a crowd home happy while still keeping the belt on the heel champion, so the cycle could begin again.

I don't know if they're really doing NWA style booking right now, but they certainly shouldn't pursue a booking style that relied on having less televised big cards and also relied on traveling around a steady circuit of regular venues.

To add: I'm struggling to think of the last time when a babyface champion had a 'honeymoon' run with the title. I always think of the chase like all the preparation that goes into having a wedding. The match itself is the wedding. Winning the title is the 'I do'. But wrestling fans haven't had the luxury of enjoying the marital bliss of a babyface champion who defends and holds the title for 2-3 months before dropping it to a heel.

Bryan at Wrestlemania 30 is the most recent one I can think of, but the build-up to Bryan's actual 'I do' moment took several unentertaining twists and turns between August and January, and despite the fact that he won the big one, because of his injuries, he never got the honeymoon period with the title.

I still think that April-September period from 1998 when Austin held the title, with the one night trade-off to Kane, was the best honeymoon period of a babyface champion in WWE history. I wish WWE would try to book a babyface champion like that again, just without the evil owner of the company bit (since that's way beyond played out).