Did Vince briefly lose touch in the mid 90s?

[Venti]

Almost put this thread in WWE(current), but this is based more around the New Generation era.

What brought this thought on, is that I was reading Death of WCW(great book) and when they are going over in detail some of Vince McMahon's business strategies in the 1980s, I was in awe.
I always knew he was a pretty ruthless businessman back then, but some of his tactics were genius compared to his peers. Sure there were misses like Black Saturday, but just for example of something that I thought was really smart:

(I might get a couple facts wrong so forgive me) Starrcade 1987 was to air on Thanksgiving night, so Vince decided to air the first annual Survivor Series the same night. Since WWF was pretty much the top dog in wrestling pay per views, especially after the colossal success of Wrestlemania III, JCP offered to move Starrcade to earlier in the evening.

To take things even further, McMahon announced that any cable company that aired Starrcade, not only wouldn't be allowed to air Survivor Series, but they also wouldn't have the next Wrestlemania either. And it worked, all but five companies chose Survivor Series.
And that is just a small example.

Flash forward to the mid 90s, it seems like the normally shrewd WWF was making lots of mistakes.
Things like allowing Luger to get away and show up on Nitro and not bothering to take the Women's title of Medusa before she brought it to WCW just seems like thing Vince would have never allowed to happen in the 80s.
Then there is the fact that they kept pushing Diesel as a Hogan-esque babyface despite that not being the guy's appeal at all, and not changing the style and format of their show when WCW was kicking their ass every week.

Of course, by 1998, WWF seemed like a totally different show than it was in 1995, and they were back on the war strategies at every turn.

What I'm wondering is, what happened in that time period in between? Do you think Vince got too comfortable? Did he lose touch for a while? Did the steroid trial take its toll?
It seems like it took a couple years for him to say screw it and start being outwardly aggressive again.


I ponder this because I'm very interested in reading about business practices and strategies, and the most interesting ones are involving wrestling promoting. It's cool to hear input from people who know more about the behind-the-scenes of those days and people who actually lived through those days as a fan.

[Deleted]

The only time Vince was ever really "in touch" was in the mid 80's and his success stemmed from the fact that he was competing against a bunch of old men who were hopelessly out of touch. He was able to raid them, take all their best talent, and birth the Rock & Wrestling Era. He wasn't in a position where he needed to be that creative because he had assembled the hottest and best talent in the world to put butts in the seats for him.

By the 90's, most of that talent was old or played out and the Rock & Wrestling era had run its course and Vince had pretty much become an out of touch promoter just like the ones he basically put out of business years earlier. The WWF was coasting on its success from the 80's until about '94 when Eric Bischoff did the same thing to Vince that he did to everyone else and within a few years was kicking his ass.

If there's a case to be made for Vince being "in touch" during the Attitude Era, it's only that he realized his stuff wasn't working and he needed to get his old ass out of the way for once and give the fans what they wanted instead of telling them what to like. But, how long did that last before he once again became the Vince we have today? A few years at best?

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

He’s never been in touch lol.

Ok what happened in the mid 90s was desperation. Warrior dropped the ball as the future and the steroid trial started, in the middle of this Hogan did an interview with Arsenio Hall where he came off very bad regarding steroids.

Because of this, Jerry Jarrett who was working on the booking committee pitched to have smaller wrestlers on top so the conversations about steroids would stop. Ironically enough, Shawn and Bret were gassed to the gills.

Add Diesel as world champion and the famous story of Gerry Brisco yelling at him that Nash was the lowest drawing champion ever and the company enter the dark ages.

Vince going with Bret, Shawn and the kliq, almost bankrupted the company. I’m talking about running shows in high school gyms and the midcard talent not being able to afford their travel costs.

If it wasn’t for Austin and with Shawn still on top, the company dies.

[Paul]

Apr 4, 2019 19:34:32 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

He’s never been in touch lol.

Ok what happened in the mid 90s was desperation. Warrior dropped the ball as the future and the steroid trial started, in the middle of this Hogan did an interview with Arsenio Hall where he came off very bad regarding steroids.

Because of this, Jerry Jarrett who was working on the booking committee pitched to have smaller wrestlers on top so the conversations about steroids would stop. Ironically enough, Shawn and Bret were gassed to the gills.

Add Diesel as world champion and the famous story of Gerry Brisco yelling at him that Nash was the lowest drawing champion ever and the company enter the dark ages.

Vince going with Bret, Shawn and the kliq, almost bankrupted the company. I’m talking about running shows in high school gyms and the midcard talent not being able to afford their travel costs.

If it wasn’t for Austin and with Shawn still on top, the company dies.

Yeah, some of those Superstars and Raw tapings from High School gyms and very small arenas are just sad.

[Deleted]

Austin saved the company.

And I loved The New Generation Era. I thought it was great. Infact, I wish there was as many colorful characters and distinctive gimmicks now as they were then. I also liked the smaller arenas Raw was held in.

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

Apr 4, 2019 19:40:59 GMT -5 Paul said:

Apr 4, 2019 19:34:32 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

He’s never been in touch lol.

Ok what happened in the mid 90s was desperation. Warrior dropped the ball as the future and the steroid trial started, in the middle of this Hogan did an interview with Arsenio Hall where he came off very bad regarding steroids.

Because of this, Jerry Jarrett who was working on the booking committee pitched to have smaller wrestlers on top so the conversations about steroids would stop. Ironically enough, Shawn and Bret were gassed to the gills.

Add Diesel as world champion and the famous story of Gerry Brisco yelling at him that Nash was the lowest drawing champion ever and the company enter the dark ages.

Vince going with Bret, Shawn and the kliq, almost bankrupted the company. I’m talking about running shows in high school gyms and the midcard talent not being able to afford their travel costs.

If it wasn’t for Austin and with Shawn still on top, the company dies.

Yeah, some of those Superstars and Raw tapings from High School gyms and very small arenas are just sad.

Prichard admits that Vince was gasping at straws, that why the Icopro shit started and why he even pitched OJ Simpson to appear at wm. The company was in the red.

It got so bad that Jerry Mcdevitt said that they took the water coolers out of the office.

It’s nothing short of a miracle that they survived and Vince became a billionaire.

This isn’t nice to say but Shawn going down for four years saved the company.

[wildojinx]

Didnt they still draw well in international markets during the New Generation era? I've heard that thats what was keeping them afloat.

[Toilet Paper Roll]

Making wrestling “cool” with people over the age of 13 and having the performers to do it kept WWF alive. What’s keeping them alive now is an almost monopoly on US talent

[Deleted]

yeah, too many occupation gimmicks like race car driver, farmer etc

[1 Free Moon-Down with Burger]

Wrestling always sucks when members of The Kliq are on top.

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

Apr 4, 2019 20:29:30 GMT -5 wildojinx said:

Didnt they still draw well in international markets during the New Generation era? I've heard that thats what was keeping them afloat.

Barely, that’s why Bret got the big push. Unfortunately that business didn’t translate well all around the company, it just kept them afloat like you said.

In the 605 superpodcast, they noticed that Vince was so desperate for any kind of press, that he lowered himself to attend the cauliflower alley club just to accept an award.

[Honeybear Lyder]

Apr 4, 2019 22:07:40 GMT -5 @jr1 said:

yeah, too many occupation gimmicks like race car driver, farmer etc

This. Wrestling dentist, wrestling pirate whom Bret Harts has to fight over a stolen jacket, etc.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

Apr 4, 2019 19:34:32 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

He’s never been in touch lol.

Ok what happened in the mid 90s was desperation. Warrior dropped the ball as the future and the steroid trial started, in the middle of this Hogan did an interview with Arsenio Hall where he came off very bad regarding steroids.

Because of this, Jerry Jarrett who was working on the booking committee pitched to have smaller wrestlers on top so the conversations about steroids would stop. Ironically enough, Shawn and Bret were gassed to the gills.

Add Diesel as world champion and the famous story of Gerry Brisco yelling at him that Nash was the lowest drawing champion ever and the company enter the dark ages.

Vince going with Bret, Shawn and the kliq, almost bankrupted the company. I’m talking about running shows in high school gyms and the midcard talent not being able to afford their travel costs.

If it wasn’t for Austin and with Shawn still on top, the company dies.

Vince could have gone with a main event of Hulk Hogan with a full head of hair, Warrior and Jesus in the mid 90s and they would have ended up in highschool gyms because of the decisions made before any of those guys held the top belt. Scandals, lawsuits, disastrous media tours, people being sick of the WWF formula and Hulk Hogan all caused the company to start bleeding out and not even putting Ric Flair up against Hogan helped, people hated Hogan and to the public, the WWF and Hogan were one and the same. To make matters worse, the brutal cost cutting in 1992-3 left the company unrecognisable, in the 80s they had the cream of the AWA and NWA to work with, by the 1993 they were all gone and replaced with people who weren't anything like up to that standard, they went from having guys like Piper, Perfect and so on, to guys like Thurman 'Sparky' Plugg and Duke the Dumpster Droese... All being booked absolutely abysmally to boot. They had talent who could have been polished to make the stars of the future, but they flat out weren't so Bret, Taker, Shawn et al were left heading up a company with a lower and midcard that was flat out embarrassing to watch.

[ellisdee]

Totally agree with Dysco. All this talk these days that Bret and Shawn failed ect is such BS. The company was kept treading water by Bret and Shawn. Without them, who else is headlining? Bob Holly? They may not have created a new boom like Austin and The Rock but they kept Vince from going bust when he had nobody else.

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

Apr 5, 2019 7:26:08 GMT -5 The Dark Order Inferno said:

Apr 4, 2019 19:34:32 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

He’s never been in touch lol.

Ok what happened in the mid 90s was desperation. Warrior dropped the ball as the future and the steroid trial started, in the middle of this Hogan did an interview with Arsenio Hall where he came off very bad regarding steroids.

Because of this, Jerry Jarrett who was working on the booking committee pitched to have smaller wrestlers on top so the conversations about steroids would stop. Ironically enough, Shawn and Bret were gassed to the gills.

Add Diesel as world champion and the famous story of Gerry Brisco yelling at him that Nash was the lowest drawing champion ever and the company enter the dark ages.

Vince going with Bret, Shawn and the kliq, almost bankrupted the company. I’m talking about running shows in high school gyms and the midcard talent not being able to afford their travel costs.

If it wasn’t for Austin and with Shawn still on top, the company dies.

Vince could have gone with a main event of Hulk Hogan with a full head of hair, Warrior and Jesus in the mid 90s and they would have ended up in highschool gyms because of the decisions made before any of those guys held the top belt. Scandals, lawsuits, disastrous media tours, people being sick of the WWF formula and Hulk Hogan all caused the company to start bleeding out and not even putting Ric Flair up against Hogan helped, people hated Hogan and to the public, the WWF and Hogan were one and the same. To make matters worse, the brutal cost cutting in 1992-3 left the company unrecognisable, in the 80s they had the cream of the AWA and NWA to work with, by the 1993 they were all gone and replaced with people who weren't anything like up to that standard, they went from having guys like Piper, Perfect and so on, to guys like Thurman 'Sparky' Plugg and Duke the Dumpster Droese... All being booked absolutely abysmally to boot. They had talent who could have been polished to make the stars of the future, but they flat out weren't so Bret, Taker, Shawn et al were left heading up a company with a lower and midcard that was flat out embarrassing to watch.

No. Bret and Shawn were on the posters, they were leading the charge, it was their non drawing asses that almost took the company to bankruptcy.

Hogan went to wcw with a shit undercard and they weren’t on high school gyms, the wwf was.

The blame starts at the top, and while Bret and Shawn technically are the best ever, they can’t draw flies to a shit factory.

The cost cutting happened because nobody came to watch them.

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

Apr 5, 2019 8:03:23 GMT -5 ellisdee said:

Totally agree with Dysco. All this talk these days that Bret and Shawn failed ect is such BS. The company was kept treading water by Bret and Shawn. Without them, who else is headlining? Bob Holly? They may not have created a new boom like Austin and The Rock but they kept Vince from going bust when he had nobody else.

Vince lost six million of his own money to cover for losses, so Bret and Shawn weren’t effective at all, they were sinking the company.

[Deleted]

I don't think you can blame it all on Bret/Shawn, but nor can you say that they weren't part of the problem. The booms can largely be credited with wrestling synching with trending pop culture, but it's also because those booms had the right leading men. Hogan was undoubtedly the right (gay) guy for Rock & Wrestling and managed to reinvent himself to lead the 90's resurgence. Austin was undoubtedly the man needed for the WWF to become trendy again, but it wasn't JUST Hogan and Austin or otherwise WCW would have been doing great business in the early 90's. It was the fact that wrestling not only found synchronization with culture, but was actually able to recognize this when it happened and ride the trend.

[wildojinx]

I wonder if Bret and Shawn were being heavily pushed not just because of the steroid scandal, but also because they were the last 80s stars still remaining (yeah, they were part of tag teams, but still,,). If they were so gung-ho about pushing smaller wrestlers, 123 kid would have gotten the superpush.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

Apr 5, 2019 8:03:32 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

Apr 5, 2019 7:26:08 GMT -5 The Dark Order Inferno said:

Vince could have gone with a main event of Hulk Hogan with a full head of hair, Warrior and Jesus in the mid 90s and they would have ended up in highschool gyms because of the decisions made before any of those guys held the top belt. Scandals, lawsuits, disastrous media tours, people being sick of the WWF formula and Hulk Hogan all caused the company to start bleeding out and not even putting Ric Flair up against Hogan helped, people hated Hogan and to the public, the WWF and Hogan were one and the same. To make matters worse, the brutal cost cutting in 1992-3 left the company unrecognisable, in the 80s they had the cream of the AWA and NWA to work with, by the 1993 they were all gone and replaced with people who weren't anything like up to that standard, they went from having guys like Piper, Perfect and so on, to guys like Thurman 'Sparky' Plugg and Duke the Dumpster Droese... All being booked absolutely abysmally to boot. They had talent who could have been polished to make the stars of the future, but they flat out weren't so Bret, Taker, Shawn et al were left heading up a company with a lower and midcard that was flat out embarrassing to watch.

No. Bret and Shawn were on the posters, they were leading the charge, it was their non drawing asses that almost took the company to bankruptcy.

Hogan went to wcw with a shit undercard and they weren’t on high school gyms, the wwf was.

The blame starts at the top, and while Bret and Shawn technically are the best ever, they can’t draw flies to a shit factory.

The cost cutting happened because nobody came to watch them.

The problem is everything was sliding before they got near the top, Hogan's magic wire off, he'd become a pariah for a while in fact, and let's not forget all the high profile scandals and Vince's trial, all that didn't stop because Bret was on top of the card, people did just go Oh, a new guy, all that bad stuff didn't happen.' Bret, Shawn, Luger, Diesel, Yoko, Taker were put at the head of a pariah federation that was bleeding out, and as we saw with Impact, doesn't matter who's on the posters as the main event if the bulk of the show is badly booked crap filled with dregs.

The blame does start at the top, with Vince, Jarrett, Corny, Prichard, Ross, Watts and everyone else in charge during that period. You're more than happy to blame Dixie for everything amiss with Impact, well, same applies here. The WWE were bleeding before the new generation, and Vince made it worse when he pissed away a tonne of money on the WBF, a bad idea at the best of times, made worse by the Dr Zahorian accusations and Hogan crapping the bed on his 'apology' tour.

WCW weren't in high school gyms because Bischoff took a machete to their schedule, ran huge taping blocks with free admission and PPVs, and papered the hell out of them. If it wasn't for Ted Turner's largesse they wouldn't be running Highschool gyms, they wouldn't have been running at all so don't pretend Hogan was super popular and drawing huge crowds with no undercard... You know, that non existent undercard with Savage, Flair, Sting, Luger, Bossman, John Tenta, Vader, Duggan... While they weren't well booked, their star power was still a hell of a lot higher than King Kong Bundy, Mabel, Kama, the Heavenly Bodies...

Main eventing the WWF in the mid 90s is like inheriting a mansion the previous owner had partially burned down during a hurricane, the roof is going to collapse whatever you try. Nobody would have drawn in that environment, with booking and a roster in that state.

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

Apr 5, 2019 10:30:51 GMT -5 The Dark Order Inferno said:

Apr 5, 2019 8:03:32 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

No. Bret and Shawn were on the posters, they were leading the charge, it was their non drawing asses that almost took the company to bankruptcy.

Hogan went to wcw with a shit undercard and they weren’t on high school gyms, the wwf was.

The blame starts at the top, and while Bret and Shawn technically are the best ever, they can’t draw flies to a shit factory.

The cost cutting happened because nobody came to watch them.

The problem is everything was sliding before they got near the top, Hogan's magic wire off, he'd become a pariah for a while in fact, and let's not forget all the high profile scandals and Vince's trial, all that didn't stop because Bret was on top of the card, people did just go Oh, a new guy, all that bad stuff didn't happen.' Bret, Shawn, Luger, Diesel, Yoko, Taker were put at the head of a pariah federation that was bleeding out, and as we saw with Impact, doesn't matter who's on the posters as the main event if the bulk of the show is badly booked crap filled with dregs.

The blame does start at the top, with Vince, Jarrett, Corny, Prichard, Ross, Watts and everyone else in charge during that period. You're more than happy to blame Dixie for everything amiss with Impact, well, same applies here. The WWE were bleeding before the new generation, and Vince made it worse when he pissed away a tonne of money on the WBF, a bad idea at the best of times, made worse by the Dr Zahorian accusations and Hogan crapping the bed on his 'apology' tour.

WCW weren't in high school gyms because Bischoff took a machete to their schedule, ran huge taping blocks with free admission and PPVs, and papered the hell out of them. If it wasn't for Ted Turner's largesse they wouldn't be running Highschool gyms, they wouldn't have been running at all so don't pretend Hogan was super popular and drawing huge crowds with no undercard... You know, that non existent undercard with Savage, Flair, Sting, Luger, Bossman, John Tenta, Vader, Duggan... While they were well booked, their star power was a hell of a lot higher than King Kong Bundy, Mabel, Kama, the Heavenly Bodies...

Main eventing the WWF in the mid 90s is like inheriting a mansion the previous owner had partially burned down during a hurricane, the roof is going to collapse whatever you try. Nobody would have drawn in that environment, with booking and a roster in that state.

I also blame Vince, in his brain he thought that Mable and Mero were good investments and that his boy toy drew money.