Ben Wyatt
Crow T. Robot
Are You Gonna Go My Way?
I don't get it. At all. It's kind of a small horse, I mean what am I missing? Am I crazy?
Posts: 41,789
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Post by Ben Wyatt on Apr 13, 2019 17:47:07 GMT -5
I always thought Foley nailed it: He's a cross between Satan and one hell of a guy.
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Post by Final Countdown Jones on Apr 13, 2019 17:59:34 GMT -5
"Genuinely nuts" I don't feel is in doubt given everything the f*** else about him. I think his business acumen is a mixed bag; he did outmaneuver some of his competition, but there's other places that killed themselves off and he was just there to be a vulture and snatch up the pieces. He had a favorable territory in a major market and his father gave him a deal to 'buy' the company that was pretty laughable. Where he did have the sensibilities and the media savy then to know what a successful television wrestling product could be, he's never moved on from those things and he's so far removed from his glory days and it shows. The highs outside of that era came when he listened to other people and stopped putting on a product built from his own mind, and I think he's managed to internalize "I won" as the only lesson to take away from anything since. In recent years he's been an active detriment to the product throguh stubbornness, last-minute rewrites, and his quirky insanity taking less than endearing forms. I genuinely think WWE will be better off when he's no longer at the helm of it.
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Allie Kitsune
Crow T. Robot
Always Feelin' Foxy.
HaHa U FaLL 4 LaVa TriK
Posts: 46,816
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Post by Allie Kitsune on Apr 13, 2019 18:34:30 GMT -5
I really don't think he's even 1/4 as evil or bigoted as most people want to think he is, but he's definitely nuts. I think you have to be to deal with the types of people he's had to over 30+ years.
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Post by Ecks Ecks Ringout Ecks Ecks on Apr 13, 2019 19:07:32 GMT -5
He excels in this business because it's the only world he knows, and barring the occasional failed side project, he puts 100% of his always-on, barely-sleeping work ethic behind it.
While some of his eccentricities are funny, I think he's so entrenched in his bubble that he's caused legitimate hurt (financially, emotionally and/or psychologically) to many of his employees for no sensible reason, and he's in the "buck stops here" position when it comes to the toxic elements of the WWE work environment. It sucks that he never seems to be held accountable for that.
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Post by OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 on Apr 13, 2019 19:24:36 GMT -5
A refined redneck who legit grew up in a “hills have eyes” trailer park and unfortunately had a brutal childhood. He had no choice at being normal.
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Post by "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay on Apr 13, 2019 19:46:49 GMT -5
Other: all of the above, at various points of each day.
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Woo
Hank Scorpio
Posts: 5,317
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Post by Woo on Apr 13, 2019 21:31:40 GMT -5
He is everything on that list except a good business man. He's out of touch with wrestling such is tragic because he's even more out of touch with everything outside wrestling.
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Post by BoomPeriod on Apr 13, 2019 21:35:13 GMT -5
stubborn and egotistical and vindictive
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Post by willywonka666 on Apr 13, 2019 22:41:18 GMT -5
Everything he has ever done is catching up to him.
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msc
Dennis Stamp
Posts: 4,555
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Post by msc on Apr 14, 2019 7:32:53 GMT -5
A refined redneck who legit grew up in a “hills have eyes” trailer park and unfortunately had a brutal childhood. He had no choice at being normal. Yeah, I often think look how normal Vince became from such a f***ed up childhood tbh. And with various brushed under the rug mental issues: ie once mentioning as an aside in an interview 20 years ago he had dyslexia issues then never bringing it up again, because he seemingly thinks this makes him look weak rather than genuinely inspiring. Basil DeVito's book has a great bit about Mania III. A meeting with all the big PPV and Silverdome chiefs about the seating for Mania, and how the people in the top rows wouldn't see the ring or the screens unless it was raining on the day, so a Plan B should be put into place. Vince McMahon gets up from his chair, announces "Ok, we've decided it will rain on the day" and finished the meeting! And yes, it did rain but still! So nuts is never in question. Eccentric? Just look up any Vince thread on here, ever. Snowcones! Drag races! Killing Dracula! etc etc Business sense? More than his 80s rivals! More than his modern rivals to date. You don't need to be Usain Bolt, being faster than the last guy being chased by the lions will do. I get the sense Vince is more intuitively led than has business education, so to speak, which explains how he can build very quickly on advantages but not break the ceiling on a plateau, perhaps. But even if lacking in that, he is very very good at getting people to give him money, and that is a success. I sort of view him as a modern PT Barnum. He can be awesome, but maddening, a good businessman with so many flaws to his game it makes you wonder, a dodgy person but also an inspiring person at the same time, backwards in many ways but forwards in many others (WWE took concussions seriously faster than many actual sports I follow, and PR or not, they did promote disability charity long before most would touch it, for two)... He's just not a man you can pidgeonhole as one thing.
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Post by OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 on Apr 14, 2019 9:02:10 GMT -5
A refined redneck who legit grew up in a “hills have eyes” trailer park and unfortunately had a brutal childhood. He had no choice at being normal. Yeah, I often think look how normal Vince became from such a f***ed up childhood tbh. And with various brushed under the rug mental issues: ie once mentioning as an aside in an interview 20 years ago he had dyslexia issues then never bringing it up again, because he seemingly thinks this makes him look weak rather than genuinely inspiring. Basil DeVito's book has a great bit about Mania III. A meeting with all the big PPV and Silverdome chiefs about the seating for Mania, and how the people in the top rows wouldn't see the ring or the screens unless it was raining on the day, so a Plan B should be put into place. Vince McMahon gets up from his chair, announces "Ok, we've decided it will rain on the day" and finished the meeting! And yes, it did rain but still! So nuts is never in question. Eccentric? Just look up any Vince thread on here, ever. Snowcones! Drag races! Killing Dracula! etc etc Business sense? More than his 80s rivals! More than his modern rivals to date. You don't need to be Usain Bolt, being faster than the last guy being chased by the lions will do. I get the sense Vince is more intuitively led than has business education, so to speak, which explains how he can build very quickly on advantages but not break the ceiling on a plateau, perhaps. But even if lacking in that, he is very very good at getting people to give him money, and that is a success. I sort of view him as a modern PT Barnum. He can be awesome, but maddening, a good businessman with so many flaws to his game it makes you wonder, a dodgy person but also an inspiring person at the same time, backwards in many ways but forwards in many others (WWE took concussions seriously faster than many actual sports I follow, and PR or not, they did promote disability charity long before most would touch it, for two)... He's just not a man you can pidgeonhole as one thing. Vince grew up being sexually abused by his mom and physically abused by his step father in a trailer park while his dad Vince Sr ran the east side as a multi millionaire. His business sense? Jim Barnett thought him everything and took him by the hand introducing him to every single major tv station manager, the rest is history. He also had the business acumen to hire real business people and not wrestling carnies, unlike wcw did and his other competitors.
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Post by Aceorton on Apr 14, 2019 9:32:48 GMT -5
Echoing some points here:
Good businessman, no. It's just that every other wrestling businessman is/has been worse. Look at the WWF in 1994-95 to see how great a businessman Vince was. If WCW had been run by even marginally competent people, combined with Vince not having a series of happy accidents at precisely the right time (Stone Cold fever, "Mr. McMahon" being born out of the mess of Montreal, and the edgier ECW/Russo elements to infuse into his product out of more or less desperation), the WWF would have been gone by the end of the '90s.
He continues to preside over the industry today in spite of himself. Within the U.S., his competition has been awful or nonexistent, so he still gets top stars to work for him (though that may be changing). The most popular elements of his product are not the ones he wanted to be popular, but rather the ones that forced his hand (Daniel Bryan, Becky, Kofi, etc.). NXT, which pumps new stars into the company, was not his doing.
He's a guy who should have failed numerous times in wrestling but continues to be lifted up because there are just enough good people around him to make good things happen anyway. He's an incredibly lucky guy who seems to believe that he has a Midas touch (which is most definitely NOT the case if you look at anything he has ever done outside wrestling).
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Bad Moon
Unicron
for reasons known only to the goblins that live in my brain
Posts: 3,091
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Post by Bad Moon on Apr 14, 2019 14:09:12 GMT -5
Maybe he actually is insane, maybe he just puts up the most convincing act in the history of wrestling. Either way he has blood on his hands.
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Post by romanstylesiii on Apr 14, 2019 20:00:21 GMT -5
Especially with the WWE's profits not being related to in-ring quality, he has just gotten more out of touch.
No one finds this over produced style particularly entertraining, but no one in the WWE particularly cares because the profits have never been higher
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