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Post by Jaws the Shark on Dec 11, 2020 13:41:25 GMT -5
Bingo. This idea that he's a genius is McMahon blowing smoke up his own arse with documentary talking heads, basically all of his success is because he was in the right place at the right time and he got the breaks. He's no different to most vastly wealthy businessmen in that respect, really. So his vision wasn’t genius, getting the right people to help out things in place, deciding on Hogan, knowing to get pop culture involved, learning his methods weren’t working in the 90s and switching gears taking peoples advice and going all in isn’t genius? Maybe not the creative genius but business wise he is a rare type of person to take something successful in a small scale and turn it into a world wide empire. To a large extent he got lucky, the revisionist history will never admit it though. The WWWF wasn't as small scale as he likes to make out, but saying that makes his "rags to riches" story more impressive; in reality it was one of the largest and most lucrative territories in the US and wielded a lot of influence. Hogan already had crossover appeal and was gaining mainstream recognition, Gagne just dropped the ball and McMahon picked it up. MTV and NBC were available to him because he was the New York promoter, had he been promoting in Crockett or Watts territory he wouldn't have been able to do that; likewise, it's hard to imagine that other promoters wouldn't have done the same had they been promoting in New York. When it came to going national, he was fortunate that Southwest - whose highly-rated slot he took - had upset the USA Network and that Georgia's office had split allowing him to have their TBS slot. His hunches, like pushing the likes of Marc Mero and Mabel in the nineties, often fail spectacularly and his biggest stars got over organically.
So basically, he's not a genius, he's someone who was presented with chances by virtue of timing, and who took them. He's had massive successes, and massive failures too. It isn't a slight by any means, it just means he's like the vast majority of successful businessmen.
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Post by horseface on Dec 11, 2020 14:53:11 GMT -5
He 100% knows how to use Sting and most people correctly, he just chooses not to.
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Post by THE FVNKER on Dec 11, 2020 15:04:44 GMT -5
Yep. Legion of Doom, Dusty Rhodes, Ric Flair, the NWO, the entire WCW roster during a once in a lifetime Invasion angle..the list goes on. And on Cornette's podcast this week he was saying how Vince didn't care about Austin or Foley because he was more obsessed with Marc Mero. I believe less and less that Vince is a genius and more that he is lucky and has simply good contacts. Um, ixnay on the Ornettcay... LOD did all right for PG Road Warriors. Well until Rocco and until the Attitude Era. Rhodes was a silly midcarder but rarely lost until after SummerSlam 90. Flair was allowed to be Flair, mostly. Still, look at the common bond here and you'll realize why he misused Sting, or to be accurate, not so much as not knowing how as NOT WANTING TO USE HIM. So people arent even allowed to reference Cornette, even if it is a pretty solid opinion of his?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2020 16:24:56 GMT -5
I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with this. Maybe the booking wasn't perfect, but I prefer the way Sting was introduced in WWE than his first words being "Wait, Tony, are you kidding me?" WWE captured the mystique of Sting. Sure, Sting being on TNT, being with Arn, Tony, Cody, it's all a feel good moment, but past the entrance, there's just no mystique. Yeah, putting recency bias aside, Sting probably had what, less than 10 WWE appearances but most of them were great. He got like a six minute sustained ovation for his debut at Survivor Series. His Raw debut when he helped Team Cena get their jobs back. When the lights went out and he saved Orton. Outsmarting HHH at Fastlane by countering the sledgehammer with the bat. Jumping out of the statue and attacking Rollins. Teaming with Cena and winning his first and only Raw match. Headlining the Hall of Fame. He looked like a badass and came out on top of every segment he had except his two pay-per-view matches which I had no problem with. Sorry, but if you're a 57 year old part-timer there's no scenario in which you should be winning marquee matches whether you're Sting/Goldberg/Undertaker or whoever else. Against Seth yes but there no way in hell that Triple H needed a Wrestlemania Win against Sting.
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Post by Ben Wyatt on Dec 11, 2020 16:29:24 GMT -5
To say Vince's success and longevity is all just luck is as disingenuous as saying he was a total genius who outsmarted everyone.
The truth is, as always, in the middle
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Post by Dub H on Dec 11, 2020 17:49:53 GMT -5
To say Vince's success and longevity is all just luck is as disingenuous as saying he was a total genius who outsmarted everyone. The truth is, as always, in the middle Not luck but not " skill" either just absolutely ruthless and corrupt. Willing to do anything is a "quality" that gets you farm
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2020 17:49:58 GMT -5
In Vince’s defense he was probably too nervous to do anything with him. I’d be to if the threat of sending an S.O.S to the World was constantly looming over my head. I’m sure Sting also threatened to get The Police involved if Vince bothered him too much. This post is so funny it needs a warning. We could have Roxanne put on a red light.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2020 19:43:15 GMT -5
If you want proof that Vince was never a genius, look at Hogan's heel turn.
It literally ushered in the boom period in the mid to late 90s.
Wrestling was never as mainstream as it was back then.
If it wasn't for the nWo, Vince would've still had Hulk Hogan as a patriotic baby face all the way from 94 to probably 2003 knowing how long he's kept Cena the same.
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Post by Toilet Paper Roll on Dec 11, 2020 23:26:45 GMT -5
Sting needed to be a guy who showed up sporadically when things were so unjust somebody had to step in and be the guy who tried to right the wrongs. They could have lived off that for years.
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Dec 12, 2020 2:39:48 GMT -5
To say Vince's success and longevity is all just luck is as disingenuous as saying he was a total genius who outsmarted everyone. The truth is, as always, in the middle YOu could probably more accurately call him a genius promoter (I mean I wouldn't I think the word genius is overused as it was) but... but the marketing and promotional machine he built is how he made big names bigger and made most of his original money. most of the better business decisions happened either in spite of himself or when he was smart/desperate enough to listen to other people. Regardless whatever the guy had he's decided that he no longer needs to listen to anyone else... when basically he never operated that way... and has lost it.
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Post by greyfmdan on Dec 12, 2020 2:57:35 GMT -5
Sting needed to be a guy who showed up sporadically when things were so unjust somebody had to step in and be the guy who tried to right the wrongs. They could have lived off that for years. Agreed. They started out pretty strong with him, knocking down the Authority and saying it wasn’t about WWE vs. WCW. Of course we know the path that all went. On another note... I’ll be honest, I didn’t dislike the HHH match. Sure, the NWO stuff didn’t fit with storyline continuity, but I thought it was a fun, overbooked nostalgia trip. I wasn’t hearing the commentary during the match, though, and from what you guys have said, that probably made the match seem a whole lot better. And I do agree Sting should have won.
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Post by Casey Jones on Dec 12, 2020 19:27:48 GMT -5
With Austin you dismiss the fact that he was a mid carder at best until getting with Vince. Rock was going to be successful regardless I don't know who created the Stone Cold character but I'm willing to bet it was one of the writers and not Vince. . Steve came up with the character after watching a documentary on Richard Kuklinski called "The Ice man" His wife came up with the name "Stone Cold" after WWE pitched names like "The Ice Dagger and "Chilly Von Freeze"
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Dec 12, 2020 19:30:10 GMT -5
I don't know who created the Stone Cold character but I'm willing to bet it was one of the writers and not Vince. . Steve came up with the character after watching a documentary on Richard Kuklinski called "The Ice man" His wife came up with the name "Stone Cold" after WWE pitched names like "The Ice Dagger and "Chilly Von Freeze" HEY! It was Chilly McFreeze get it right. and I think Fang McFrost... I also think the story was Austin came up with calling himself Stone Cold because his wife said his coffee/tea whatever was getting stone cold.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2020 22:07:22 GMT -5
Steve came up with the character after watching a documentary on Richard Kuklinski called "The Ice man" His wife came up with the name "Stone Cold" after WWE pitched names like "The Ice Dagger and "Chilly Von Freeze" HEY! It was Chilly McFreeze get it right. and I think Fang McFrost... I also think the story was Austin came up with calling himself Stone Cold because his wife said his coffee/tea whatever was getting stone cold. You just know Vince was gonna make him look like this...
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Post by Hulkshi Tanahashi on Dec 13, 2020 0:19:13 GMT -5
With Austin you dismiss the fact that he was a mid carder at best until getting with Vince. Rock was going to be successful regardless The fans forced Austin into that spot I don't know who created the Stone Cold character but I'm willing to bet it was one of the writers and not Vince. He was edgy in ECW so when he became The Ringmaster, a serious technical wrestler... Absolutely nobody bought it. No doubt Vince thought it would be a great gimmick though. Austin created the Stone Cold character. He came up with the idea for it based off of a documentary about serial killer and former mafia hitman the “Iceman” Richard Kuklinski. He asked for some nicknames similar to "Iceman" from WWE, and they gave him Otto Von Ruthless, Ice Dagger, Fang McFrost, and Chilli McFreeze. His then-wife Jeannie Clark gave him the "Stone Cold" name with an off-hand comment about him his cup of tea before it got "stone cold." Austin basically came up with a gimmick 1000 times better than the one WWE gave him just through happenstance.
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Post by Futureraven: Beelzebruv on Dec 13, 2020 7:14:11 GMT -5
So his vision wasn’t genius, getting the right people to help out things in place, deciding on Hogan, knowing to get pop culture involved, learning his methods weren’t working in the 90s and switching gears taking peoples advice and going all in isn’t genius? Maybe not the creative genius but business wise he is a rare type of person to take something successful in a small scale and turn it into a world wide empire. To a large extent he got lucky, the revisionist history will never admit it though. The WWWF wasn't as small scale as he likes to make out, but saying that makes his "rags to riches" story more impressive; in reality it was one of the largest and most lucrative territories in the US and wielded a lot of influence. Hogan already had crossover appeal and was gaining mainstream recognition, Gagne just dropped the ball and McMahon picked it up. MTV and NBC were available to him because he was the New York promoter, had he been promoting in Crockett or Watts territory he wouldn't have been able to do that; likewise, it's hard to imagine that other promoters wouldn't have done the same had they been promoting in New York. When it came to going national, he was fortunate that Southwest - whose highly-rated slot he took - had upset the USA Network and that Georgia's office had split allowing him to have their TBS slot. His hunches, like pushing the likes of Marc Mero and Mabel in the nineties, often fail spectacularly and his biggest stars got over organically. So basically, he's not a genius, he's someone who was presented with chances by virtue of timing, and who took them. He's had massive successes, and massive failures too. It isn't a slight by any means, it just means he's like the vast majority of successful businessmen.
You could compare him to Gene Roddenberry or George Lucas. The driving force and creative vision, but surrounded by people who helped to improve it and create a phenomenon. Then with age and the building of their own legend as "The creative genius" the listen to the help less and become insular in their vision to the detriment of their product.
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Post by Jaws the Shark on Dec 13, 2020 8:55:58 GMT -5
You could compare him to Gene Roddenberry or George Lucas. The driving force and creative vision, but surrounded by people who helped to improve it and create a phenomenon. Then with age and the building of their own legend as "The creative genius" the listen to the help less and become insular in their vision to the detriment of their product. Right. They all successfully created a brand and were afforded the right opportunities to make it a success. But none of them were geniuses, as evidenced by their multiple failures, they just took their chances. And like I said, it's not a slight, regardless of what any of us think about them they're still more successful than almost anyone else in their respective fields, it's just that their success isn't as a result of astronomical levels of intelligence, which is the case for most people and things.
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Post by DerktheDerk on Dec 13, 2020 9:05:10 GMT -5
Vince ruins everything. People call him a genius but its far from the truth. Stone Cold and The Rock landed on his lap and saved his ass during the Monday Night Wars. Without their superstar charisma, he would've been shut down by 1998. The likes of Cena would've been much, much better character wise without him too. Yep, every bit of this is true. Vince is absolutely not the genius he's made out to be in some circles. Fact is, he's a guy who got extremely lucky multiple times. In my opinion, wrestling would have been better off without him. The fact that he didn't know how to use STING of all people proves all of that, in my eyes.
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Dec 13, 2020 11:26:29 GMT -5
People underestimate Linda's influence on things, unlike most promotions, the WWF was run as a business and that made it a reliable partner for broadcasters and appealing to talent. You weren't going to work your match and get no payoff, or a small fraction of what was promised, you'd get every penny they were obligated to pay, even if that wasn't always what people were sold by Vince to get them to sign.
I don't care for what Linda stands for, but she kept the ship steady while Vince carnied as only he can, occasionally listening to the right people and reaping the rewards.
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Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Dec 13, 2020 11:47:51 GMT -5
He kept his old ass home like he should have, I have no real problem with that
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