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Post by LiamMcDuggle on Apr 6, 2024 1:07:12 GMT -5
The WWE now is as popular as its ever been, the storytelling is as good as it's ever been and I don't think anyone believe's that is just a coincidence with Paul running the show.
VKM was not always a bad booker, but for what felt like 15+ years, he was just doing the same copy/paste storylines OVER and OVER again. It was to the point where he was actively feuding with the audience trying to force Roman as the next John Cena.
He wasn't always bad at storytelling, but it's pretty clear the WWE was better when he would delegate creative input and refine it - in the 80's wrestlers were more involved in their own stories and in the 90's/early 2000's Vince would often take Russo's and Gewertz's ideas and make them fit better in the wrestling context.
Somewhere along the line, he just stopped delegating and started using the same tropes over and over.
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TWERKIN' MAGGLE
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Post by TWERKIN' MAGGLE on Apr 6, 2024 1:08:57 GMT -5
The day he realized he was the only game in town and all he had to do was the bare minimum to keep the doors open while shedding millions of viewers.
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GOTHIC CHARISMA 🧊 🥶❄️FURY
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Post by GOTHIC CHARISMA 🧊 🥶❄️FURY on Apr 6, 2024 1:11:02 GMT -5
2001
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Post by ChitownKnight on Apr 6, 2024 1:39:06 GMT -5
I enjoyed 2004-2008 as a kid/teen as that was when i first started watching and i enjoyed the storylines at that time. 2009 was when it started going down in value to me although they would have glimmers of greatness (like Punk’s Pipebomb, Cena vs Rock I, Bryan’s road to mania 30, the shield story, 2016 smack down). But I think after 2017 it really started going downhill and didn’t get better till Roman won the title, but I feel like Roman and Heyman were more involved in that
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Fake Jesus
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Post by Fake Jesus on Apr 6, 2024 1:46:36 GMT -5
Weren't the Pattersons and Russos of the world doing a hell of a lot of the booking during VKM's golden years?
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Post by David-Arquette was in WCW 2000 on Apr 6, 2024 2:08:28 GMT -5
It's a hard question to answer because it was never just Vince booking stuff. But I'll go with 2001, based on my own opinion of the product.
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Post by eJm on Apr 6, 2024 2:09:20 GMT -5
Basically, yeah. I can go in depth but as a fan who literally started watching that year, there was a point that even my 12 year old brain wasn’t watching something that was firing on all cylinders as people in 2000 were telling me. Especially with how new talent being brought on were treated. The Ruthless Aggression era was trying way harder to just be the Attitude Era, they got super lucky with Cena (even if his character was, IMO, the most inconsistently booked main eventer I had ever seen) and the 10s were desperate attempts at ratings grabs after desperate attempts for ratings grabs before he got lucky and the pandemic allowed for his true dream; booking for himself only without those annoying fans.
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Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]
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Post by Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-] on Apr 6, 2024 2:17:46 GMT -5
It's as simple as the main competition didn't even have to try anymore, and then other competition didn't even give them enough to bother with them like TNA
By the time AEW rolled around a ton had already left but it only highlighted how much he was well past it and had lost not the room but basically the planet in how he booked wrestling
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chazraps
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Post by chazraps on Apr 6, 2024 2:29:28 GMT -5
I would NOT say it's as popular as it's ever been. It's potentially getting there, but rewatching a lot of non-WWE owned 1985 footage from local news coverage of the events leading up to Wrestlemania, it's not there.
Hogan/T vs Piper/Orndorff has public comments from Tina Turner, the vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, National Organization for Women head Gloria Steinem and Little Richard. Additionally, you had the direct involvement from the biggest starts in television, music and the art world involved.
Media has changed a lot in the last 40 years. Some would say nothing can capture that much of a zeitgeist again, but last year we had Taylor Swift and we had Barbenheimer.
Until wrestling reaches that kind of not just popularity, but ubiquity, it's not "as popular as its ever been."
We're near Attitude Era level heating up, but lets keep expectations and reality in check.
Anyway, to answer your main question, I think 2018 was the very first year you could say was more misses than hits. Every year has things that don't work and there's plenty of rough patches, but bad years like 1995 you can look at a lot of the calendar and say they at least spent the majority of the time making the most of what they had. 2018 is really the dire spot where the bad outweights the good and the scales don't really have an entire year tipping back for the full 12 months past that.
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XIII
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Post by XIII on Apr 6, 2024 2:36:36 GMT -5
Probably once he decided to book everything himself. A lot of the amazing stuff from the golden era was either booked by Pat Patterson or others and not just Vince.
Once Vince decided to hire Hollywood writers and have like 10 people writing every show knowing full well that he was going to change things anyways just because is really when it went to shit though.
Prior to that he always at least had guys like Patterson, Cornette, JR, and others in the room with him that were actually from the wrestling business.Once he hired the writers and the only people that were from the wrestling side helping to book were all yes men it had no chance(no chance in hell)
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Post by "Sweet & Sour" ImSoFudginGreat on Apr 6, 2024 2:55:41 GMT -5
It had been coming for a long time but I feel it got at its worst just after KofiMania had reached it pinnacle in the Kofi vs Bryan. After that it felt to me like “THERE, I’VE GIVEN YOU THIS, NOW IT’S MY TURN” and he never gave us another turn.
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Post by Andee9001 on Apr 6, 2024 3:41:14 GMT -5
Serious answer - whenever it was when reports of shows being rewritten last minute
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Post by DoubleDare on Apr 6, 2024 4:00:18 GMT -5
1995 - early 1997 was the first period we saw he wasn't that good. Of course someone like Russo at the time helped Vince try different idea's and it was good through the rest of 1997 and 1998. 1999 WWF was so hot, it didn't matter some of the booking was pretty bad and then into 2000 after Russo left it was pretty good again.
But then late 2000, signs started happening again,like Rikishi's failed heel run.
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Post by yokohamacpfc on Apr 6, 2024 4:07:27 GMT -5
I'm thinking 2018ish was when it fell off a cliff (although it had been on the wane for a while) and that coincides with it being a couple of years before Pat Patterson's passing and perhaps the period when declining health meant PP was spending more time at home.
Patterson is the 'ideas guy' whom Vince seemed to genuinely respect, listen to, and bounce ideas off and he just didn't have the same spark with Johny Ace, HHH, Steph, Heyman, or JR when he tried them out as his No 2.
I think TK intended for Punk to be his "Pat Patterson" and has attempted it with Jericho, but it looks like it is Danielson with whom he has the spark with.
I wonder who HHH's "Patterson" will be? Probably HBK but the banter timeline means it may well end up being Punk.
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Post by theironyuppie on Apr 6, 2024 4:30:58 GMT -5
Late 2001 is significant as an example of the storytelling catering to Vince's personal proclivities than trying to engage or maintain fans. To spend much of the year telling the Invasion story, to have a high-stakes elimination match at Survivor Series apparently determining the future of the company, only to have the main story in the few weeks after that being the 'Kiss My Ass Club' was a waste.
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Apr 6, 2024 6:01:47 GMT -5
When Pat Patterson was pushed out to enable the Reign of Terror, he lost the last person he respected that could say no so we got unfiltered Vince and people writing to make him happy. The bad ideas were always there but nobody was left with the power of veto and they were the only game in town.
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Post by Instant Classic on Apr 6, 2024 6:58:50 GMT -5
2014-2015
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Post by EvenBaldobombHasAJob on Apr 6, 2024 7:01:47 GMT -5
when he won the Monday Night War and suddenly decided he didnt need to listen to any of the people who helped him win it in the first place anymore.
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Post by The Kevstaaa on Apr 6, 2024 7:36:01 GMT -5
I know everyone points to when his competition was gone and I get that but 1999 was legitimately atrocious. 2000 mostly ruled tough so I guess 2002 lines up in some ways.
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Post by CeilingFan on Apr 6, 2024 7:40:17 GMT -5
2017.
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