Why the payoff to the Anonymous RAW GM Sucked

[SirLucas]

Looking back at some of those moments, whenever that notification would go off, the crowd would boo the crap out of Michael Cole. It seemed like a gimmick designed mainly to generate heat for Michael Cole. And the way Cole would put enthusiasm into the email announcements, it came off as if Cole was dictating the orders himself.  It was as if Cole was covertly the GM. But, when Cole's heel run ended, so was the relevance of the anonymous GM. Yes, the Hornswoggle reveal sucked badly, but where else could they go with it without having Michael Cole being the person behind the computer all along?   

Love or heat Cole as a heel character, there is no denying the guy could a great job in seriously pissing off the fans. And I think that wrestling always needs that "non-wrestler" heel persona like a Bobby Heenan, who fans desperately want to see get his ass beat for running off his mouth like a coward. 

[Spider2024]

Why did Hornswoggle hate Jerry Lawler that much though (in kayfabe terms at least)? Why did he more or less screw him in his one and only WM win that wasn't?

[SirLucas]

Better yet, was Hornswoggle supposed to always be under the ring sending anonymous emails? If so, how was he under the ring to make an announcement at the start of the Royal Rumble 2011, only to enter the match through the curtain a few entries later?

[Vice honcho room temperature]

Feb 23, 2019 10:00:15 GMT -5 SirLucas said:

Better yet, was Hornswoggle supposed to always be under the ring sending anonymous emails? If so, how was he under the ring to make an announcement at the start of the Royal Rumble 2011, only to enter the match through the curtain a few entries later?

I think little people's court makes under the ring a magic portal so... magic

[cjh]

John Laurinaitis would have been the logical reveal.  When he started appearing on TV in 2011, he was always shown texting/e-mailing on his phone after we had watched the AGM communicate via e-mail for a whole year.

[Zone Was Wrong]

Eh, I'd just erase the payoff part and say the anonymous gm thing was stupid as hell. Really just felt it was around to gain heat for Cole which was double dumb because heel lead commentator shouldn't be a thing.

[Final Countdown Jones]

The payoff sucked because they never had a payoff in mind, Hornswoggle was a dumb joke they came up with just to not pay it off with anything of substance. The storyline is what happens when you write a storyline for months at a time with zero idea what the actual twist or ending is.

[A Platypus Rave is Correct]

pretty sure the Horsnwoggle thing wasn't meant to be the actual payoff only for that night because it happened WELL after the Anon stopped showing up.

It doesn't make any sense with some of the other stuff that happened before.

I don't think it really needed a full on pay off or anything... just have a new GM at some point. That said the only real obvious conclusion for most of it was Cole was the GM.

[Deleted]

The Hornswoggle thing was a gag for that night. He wasn’t the actual GM. It was more of a “Who’s always the mystery guy?” thing. It was a nod to him being Vince’s Son.

The “real” Anonymous GM was back for a one off episode in 2013(?) and this was after Hornswoggle was ‘revealed’ so they made it clear that he was still out there... hiding.

You’re right though. Cole would have been perfect for this. He wanted the power without having the responsibility of actually being the GM. It completely makes sense for his heel character.

[nickcave]

I'm of the opinion that it didn't have to have a reveal, it could have been just like the hidden WCW championship committee. Whatever the payoff was was going to be disappointing anyways,

[Milkman Norm]

Why did it suck? Probably because they never planned to have a reveal. They just kept doing it until Vince got tired of it and they moved on to the next cheap device to establish matches.

[prettynami]

The reveal should have been that the anonymous GM was the laptop itself. That an AI from the future had infested a present day computer in order to manage a wrestling federation. And when the computer is finally cornered and about to be smashed it would cackle maniacally through one last e-mail sent to and read by Cole (as a text to his phone) where it would also announce that it will "Escape! Escape into THE FUTURE!!!".

[Allie Kitsune]

Feb 23, 2019 11:24:54 GMT -5 Final Countdown Jones said:

The payoff sucked because they never had a payoff in mind, Hornswoggle was a dumb joke they came up with just to not pay it off with anything of substance. The storyline is what happens when you write a storyline for months at a time with zero idea what the actual twist or ending is.

As much as people hated him, the proper payoff would have been JBL.

In the few appearances he'd made, they showed him and Cole as actually being on friendly terms (and there was the whole "The JBL and Cole Show" thing on the dotcom), and if it wasn't going to be Cole himself, JBL was the only other one where it would have made sense for Cole to be so smug about the whole thing.

[Rave]

Story I'd heard was that Creative wanted to wrap it up, but by then Vince had gotten bored with it and just wanted it revealed to be Laurinaitis in a throwaway segment backstage.

The Hornswoggle thing was also s'posed to lead to him getting a mobster-type gimmick, but he couldn't pull that off, sooooo...

[SirLucas]

Remember when they gave it a robotized voice, then Edge smashed the computer, and the new computer did not have a voice.

[Bub (BLM)]

Feb 23, 2019 13:59:54 GMT -5 SirLucas said:

Remember when they gave it a robotized voice, then Edge smashed the computer, and the new computer did not have a voice.

Edge going Ric Flair on a laptop is still one of his career highlights for me.

[JCBaggee]

Rumor going around at the time was Randy Savage was going to make his grand return and be the Anonymous GM (Vince and Randy had started making amends at this time, after Randy did a few spots for the WWE Superstars game).

Randy died around this time though, and the rumor was never confirmed but how the Anonymous GM thing kept spiraling into more and more nonsense always seemed to confirm it for me.

[Kevin Hamilton]

It's really as simple as them having no plan from the outset. That's why it sucked. There was no endgame in mind from the jump. It was never gonna be good cuz there was never an actual story there.

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

Because Hornswoggle couldn’t cut promos so they killed the angle.

[CH Punk]

I get the feeling that, like with most drawn out ideas, they thought the idea of an anonymous GM was cool, maybe they had an idea (could have tied into the "Bigger Picture" thing from the end of 2010), but they got bored/scrapped the original idea and were left with something with no actual payoff. If you remember, there was no actual end to it, just Vince, Johnny Ace and Triple H started showing up on TV and they quietly removed the podium.

The Hornswoggle thing was just a gimmick for Raw 1000 hype, it's not supposed to be something you remember/care about.