Vince McMahon Question

[riseofsetian1981]

Okay, the majority of us like to debate and bring about suggestions on how the WWE product could and should be better. I am throwing this question out here because I was thinking about it earlier today. The question is: At what point do you think Vince stopped listening to the fans and decided to pursue his own fantasy?

For me I felt he stopped caring and listening when fans first started to turn against Cena's Superman push. It was at that point that I believe Vince took it very personal, continued to book him as Superman despite fans being against it, and by continuing to ride the Cena train even at its stalest the fans who were hardcore loyal to the product eventually left and tuned WWE out completely. So as a fan from your perspective, at what point do you believe Vince stopped caring about the consumer and more about what he likes instead?

[Mayonnaise]

Which time? Remember that period 93-97 where he pushed forward with crap that bombed and put him deep in the hole. It wasn't until, credit where it is due, Russo stood up when no one else would and got Vince to try something out of his comfort zone. However that was really short lived as he won the wars and shortly after the WCW RAW main event flopped he went back to his old tricks as that told him that it was his genius that did it all, not talent or the booking.

[This Player Hating Mothman]

I don't think that outside of the Attitude Era Vince ever really "listened" to fans. His success in the '80s has a lot of external factors, but it is largely down to him. He had a vision that fit what mainstream pop culture wanted. Invincible good guys who were portrayed as unambiguously right all the time (even when being dicks) like Hogan were all over movies, and with WWE being a face-centric promotion built on the back of Hogan, it of course led to very good reception. The '90s demanded a different beast, but he kept playing at what had already worked, which led to a period of drought and Lex Luger as Hogan 2.0, which failed because the culture had changed and moved on. His success in the late '90s doesn't seem to have reached him as far as "why" it worked, which is why one of the only elements to stick around from the Attitude era is the occasional burst of crass humour. But now, culture has changed again--markedly, several times--and yet WWE has remained static, because Vince failed to understand that his periods of success have been when he was matching the culture. He decides what people want, and as a 70 year-old whose mindset is so incredibly outdated, a lot of people don't really like what he's selling.

Vince has never listened, it's just a matter of growing more and more out of touch as his sensibilities are further and further removed from what people want to see.