Bleacher Report - Vince McMahon

WWE's Undercard, Where Veterans Go To Die

Chris Mueller AKA The most interesting man in the world — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:27:52 -0500

There is something going on in the WWE right now that I can't decide if I am happy with or not. While the WWE can be given credit for recently pushing many newer stars like Drew, Sheamus, Kofi, Punk, and Ziggler, there is certainly something to be said for how they are treating their veterans.

I'm not talking about HBK, Undertaker or HHH, the guys who get pushes no matter what, I'm talking about guys like Finlay, Chavo, Dave Taylor, and Mark Henry. I know that Henry has been featured more notably on Raw, but he is still not in a position to win a title anytime soon.

Chavo is a guy I feel is being totally mishandled. His ongoing feud with Hornswoggle is just plain stupid at this point, and his streak of losses is piling up faster than lines at the stores this past Friday. He is a great wrestler, probably better than 90 percent of the roster, but because his look isn't quite right, he is pushed down.

Vince likes his guys to be muscular and good looking, Chavo is smaller than most and his receding hair line is not helping him any. After Eddie died he was given a brief boost but that soon faltered and Rey got the bigger push.

I love watching Chavo wrestler guys like Punk and Mysterio because not only is he up to their level, he is above it. He may not be as good of an "Entertainer" as some of the names mentioned, but his in ring skill is second to none and he is from a legacy of amazing wrestlers. WWE missed the boat on putting him in legacy because his family history in wrestling goes back as far as the McMahons.

I know I'm probably not going to get my wish but If this is how the WWE plans on treating Chavo for the rest of his career, then he should just go to TNA and have more of a smaller spotlight. He would be with family too, Hector announces for their Spanish team.

Chavo was once a great superstar who held titles like the tag, Cruiserweight and ECW titles, now he is fighting a midget every week. Whats wrong with this picture? I'm all for equal opportunity employment but the WWE has been using Horny for too long and its time to put him out to pasture.

As for Finlay, the WWE touts him as a tough as nails Irishman, but it seems like they only ever have him win a match, if he will lose to the same guy the next week. He is used as an "enhancement talent" which is not a bad thing if that's what he wants, but I think he is more deserving of a push than Regal, who is looking to take the ECW title.

Finlay is one of those rare talents who have continued to get better every single year. He can have a great match with just about anybody, and his long career tells a story of achieving your goals by pure grit and determination. If anyone should take the title from Christian its Finlay.

Mark Henry has been around for over ten years and has only held two titles, the ECW Title and the now defunct European Title. The WWE's first Olympian is being treated like he has no value at all.

I realize that compared to other huge men like Big Show he isn't as entertaining to watch, but he has gotten better over the last few years and seems to have a new vigor with his new team with MVP.

He seems primed to win tag gold soon with Montel, which would be a step in the right direction, but for a ten years veteran with WWE he has held less gold than anyone else with the same career.

Dave Taylor is known to many as the man who debuted Drew Mcintyre on Smackdown a while back. This debut of course sank and Dave was released and Drew was sent back to developmental. This was a good thing for Drew as he is now featured prominently on Smackdown these days, but what happened to Dave Taylor?

He is currently hitting the Indy scene but has no real contract or deal with anyone. This Vet is one of the better mat technicians in the world, and yet he has no place to call home.

He is very popular in Europe but they have no real organizations to support his talent over there. He could do well in Japan, where they still treat pro wresting like a real sport, but I don't see him making a permanent move.

Dave Taylor is up there with Regal and Finlay in skill, he just doesn't have the personality or charisma to be a top guy, but he is certainly better than he is given credit for.

Just my thoughts on the way some Vets are treated. What do you guys think?

Read more Vince McMahon news on BleacherReport.com

WWE Bloggers, Calm Down!

Nick Haynes — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:07:18 -0500

If you read wrestling blogs on the Internet, you're well aware that Triple H is a freeloader who simply married the boss's daughter to make himself champion.

Likewise, you would also know that the Kliq ran roughshod in the '90s over guys with talent, simply because it had the boss's ear.

Guys like Hulk Hogan and John Cena do absolutely nothing for the business, but Vince McMahon puts them at the top because they were and are his friends.

I can also show you blogs on the Internet that insist that 9/11 was a government conspiracy, and that the best way of giving birth is in ocean waters with the assistance of dolphins. They would have about as much validity as those wrestling "truths".

Wrestling bloggers fail to realize two crucial points.

1. Vince McMahon is, First and Foremost, a Businessman.

If you're not familiar with the history of wrestling prior to the rise of the WWF in the 1980s, let me provide you with some background. Rather than one national promotion like the current WWE, you had several regional promotions (territories).

It was considered an unwritten law that you would not take your promotion into another territory. You had your good promoters, and your bad promoters. Your good promoters (like Vince McMahon Sr.) promoted good business ethics.

Your bad promoters were unsavory characters who would knife you if they thought you were about to cut into their territory.

In that climate, Vince McMahon bought out his father when his father got ready to sell the promotion, and proceeded to start building a national promotion, buying out his competitors left and right.

He bought other promotions, and continued to expand. He took a marginally decent promotion and turned it into a billion-dollar phenomenon that is recognized around the world. He did so in the face of potential bankruptcy, death threats, and the U.S. government seeking to shut him down on several occasions.

In short, he clawed his way to the top against every single imaginable obstacle put into his path.

Do you honestly think that he's going to let his business go to hell because one of the wrestlers is whispering sweet nothings into the ear of his daughter?

As a matter of fact, Vince, HHH, and family members addressed those concerns on the "McMahon" DVD. They were concerned about the appearance of impropriety as well.

In fact, HHH dating and marrying the boss's daughter was a potentially horrible career move on the part of HHH.

What if they were to break up? Would there be any animosity that would negatively impact business? And, if they were meant for each other, what would everyone say about HHH?

The fact of the matter is that many people who comment on their marriage, and on nepotism in general, usually have never been in such a situation.

While there are some notable examples of nepotism getting someone to a place they don't deserve—Jeff Jarrett comes to mind—having a relative or friend in a position to influence your career usually is a hindrance, specifically because relatives have to be harder on you so that they don't appear to favor you.

Like I said before, Vince McMahon is a ruthless businessman. I can't doubt for a second that he wouldn't hesitate to show HHH the door if HHH didn't deserve his spot.

To put a finish on point No. 1, you have several well-known wrestlers and backstage personnel—Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Lance Storm, Chris Jericho, Shawn Michaels, etc.—who talk about HHH being in charge one day. They all endorse the idea, since they say HHH has one of the best minds for the business.

On the other side, you have Scott Steiner, B.G. James, Billy Gunn, and internet bloggers—folks who have never drawn a dime and have about as much wrestling ability as myself. Case closed.

2. Backstage Politicians Are a Detriment to the Business, and Wrestling Ability Should Prevail Over Everything Else

On the "Heartbreak & Triumph" DVD, there is a good moment where Shawn Michaels talks about his early days.

In those days—and I would also assume today—Vince McMahon had a makeshift office in the day's arena, and if you needed something, you waited in line.

Usually, you never got a shot, because the stars of the company like Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, etc., were notorious for ignoring the line and walking right inside.

One day, Michaels decided to do the same thing. When he went in, he asked McMahon what he needed to do to become a big star. He felt he was giving it his all but wasn't going anywhere.

He said (paraphrasing), "Anything I need to do, I'll do it. Just tell me what I need to do." McMahon's response? "You just did it."

Vince is a guy who's drawn to guys with a passion for the business, and with the sack to see what they want and go after it no matter what the consequences.

Let me give you an example. Let's say you're running a business, and you have a top-notch promotion and premium clientele who are looking to use your business. You have to choose between two employees.

The first employee is a salesman who sits there every day, goes out and does his best, but never tries to help the business by giving ideas or imparting to you the passion he has for your business.

The second employee is a salesman who is eager, always has ideas on things the business can do to grow and bring in new customers, and shows you his passion through his words and deeds.

Which guy would you promote? I don't know about you, but I'm going to give the promotion to the second guy.

One of the reasons the Kliq was so big was because they were guys with a 24-seven passion for the business, and Vince saw it.

The four or five of them (Vince excluded) rode up and down the roads together, they flew together, they were always talking about the business, and they didn't hesitate to approach Vince with ideas, and Vince liked that.

Jericho's current—and most successful—character was his own doing, and simply having the balls to propose it to Vince.

When WWF hired Mick Foley, they originally wanted him to be Mason the Mutilator. Foley had the sack to propose his own ideas, thus turning the character into Mankind.

The Stone Cold character was a result of Steve Austin watching a HBO documentary on a serial killer and coming up with a "cold-hearted bastard" outlook on life. He proposed it to McMahon and the creative team, and the rest is history.

Many of the most successful gimmicks or lines were simply a wrestler who took the meager scraps from the creative team and ran with them.

While I think the creative team and WWE management might have a serious dislike for some of the wrestlers, they are usually willing to give anyone a shot, so long as they prove that they're serious, that they're good, and that they don't need to be held by the hand in order to be successful.

McMahon isn't going to put someone in there that can't draw money. As much as some of us "wrestling purists" would love to watch nothing but five-star classics, the fact of the matter is that WWE, like every other promotion, is a business. And the first rule of business is to make as much money as possible.

Whether you like it or not, John Cena draws money and crowds. Hulk Hogan drew money and crowds. HHH draws money and crowds. They are in those spots because they are the people the audience wants to see.

If there are no people paying no money, there will be no show, which then means no Kofi Kingston, or CM Punk, or Randy Orton, or any one of a number of other superstars who I consider to be great enough to make me willing to tolerate John Cena, thus proving that "backstage politicians" serve a purpose as well.

At the end of the day, it's McMahon's call, and it's McMahon's business. He's not going to put a jobber into a permanent main-event slot simply because he knows a friend.

But, McMahon might be willing to give that jobber a shot at proving that he is more than just a jobber. The jobber simply has to be willing to go out on a limb and take a chance, and be willing to possibly fail in order to prove he can succeed.

Wrestling bloggers need to calm down. McMahon isn't always right, but he is right way more often than he is wrong.

Step back, calm thyself, and take a rational look at the situation. Then, if that fails, realize that you're sitting in your boxers writing words for an audience that is, at best, 1/1000th the size of Raw's viewership, and that McMahon will be swimming tonight in a pool of self-earned $100 bills, a la Scrooge McDuck.

I think Vince has everything under control.

Read more Vince McMahon news on BleacherReport.com

Sheamus Gets a Shot at Cena's Title, But Is It a Good Thing?

Chris Mueller AKA The most interesting man in the world — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:12:28 -0500

Well internet wrestling fans, we have been asking for it for years and now it has happened. Finally the WWE is pushing a new young talent into the main event picture. And that person is none other than Irish Bruiser Sheamus. The question I have is, is it too early?

Sheamus debuted with WWE on June 30th with the ECW brand. Since his first appearance he has impressed with his dominating style and natural heel persona. His record remains untarnished with a loss so far, and now he is set to face Cena at TLC for the WWE title.

Now this could end up being another Kozlov vs. HHH situation; we think it's a one on one match and then it turns out to be a triple threat match because it would have been a boring one on one match. What surprises me the most was the fact that he has only been in the WWE for five months and already has a WWE title match on a PPV.

This may rub some guys in the locker room the wrong way as plenty of them are years into their contracts and have yet to see a world title match even at a house show.

I think WWE may be using this to silence people like us here at BR, the people who say they dont push the new talent. They are basically saying "Oh yeah, well look who we're pushing now" back to us.

I for one am happy to see a guy like Sheamus get a title match, but I'm sure it's no coincidence that not more than three weeks ago HHH was touting Sheamus as the next big thing in the WWE and what do you know? He wins a battle royal eliminating all but three contestants to get his title match.

I genuinely thought that Randy Orton or Kofi would win, but now I see that they are planning on taking their feud further by having had Kofi eliminate Orton from the match.

Sheamus winning was certainly a nice surprise.

Having Ventura say there is a conspiracy to keep Cena as champion shocked me even more than Sheamus becoming number one contender. The fact that WWE even let that be part of the show is a good sign to me, showing they are making strides to ready the young guys for their spots at the top when the current leaders are gone.

Sheamus has everything Vince likes in his champions. He is built like a bodybuilder, he is taller than most guys in WWE and he moves like he weighs 50 pounds less than he really is. His heel persona is great and he is better than most rookies on the mic. Seeing his rise to stardom reminds me of how Lesnar was pushed in the WWE at first.

Sheamus vs. Cena in a tables match is new, it's interesting, and it may even mean the end of Cena's reign as champion. I'm not sure if the WWE has enough confidence in Sheamus already to have him lead the so called "A brand" but putting him in the title hunt is good for the WWE.

Read more Vince McMahon news on BleacherReport.com

Let's Not Focus Only On Sheamus Challenging Cena, But On WWE RAW Itself

Joe Burgett — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:42:03 -0500

With everyone talking about Sheamus going head to head with John Cena for the WWE Title, I wanted to focus on RAW itself. See, I have no issue with Sheamus in the World Title hunt, at least for one PPV.

I mean think about it, who else could they put in there that we haven't seen before? Orton? Triple H? Shawn Michaels?

Then you have people such as The Miz and Jack Swagger who seem to be in a small feud together, so they are out. Of course Kofi Kingston has one going with Randy Orton, so both of them are out.

Obviously, Sheamus was a smart choice both for the sake of the fans and the sake of the show.

I was talking about this great Irishman down in FCW called Sheamus for some time now and when he finally made his debut, I was excited.

I mean this guy was the FCW World Champion, and he was kicking butt and taking names down there. He was far better than anyone there and deserved to be on a main roster.

He was put on ECW and did well, then went to RAW and since he has been there, he has gone roughshod on all he has faced. The issue is that it has been against smaller people and no-name wrestlers.

Then he took out The King, which was not a match, but a cheap shot outside the ring.

I thought RAW was great. When Jesse "The Body" or now "The Governor" Ventura was announced, I was not really expecting a wonderful show.

But if you ask me, we saw a great one. Ventura is easily near or at the top of list for my favorite guest hosts. I personally like a guy who speaks his mind and doesn't care what people think.

He did that and it was great. There were two things that stood out to me that I thought were quite stupid, though:

One thing was that Mark Henry was in the Breakthrough Battle Royal match. Now don't get me wrong, I like Henry. However, the rules that Ventura made said that no former World Champions could be in the battle royal.

Now, he broke the rule for Randy Orton. However, people forget that Henry was a former ECW Champion. The WWE has been saying its a World Title, but then they do things like this, contradicting themselves.

This is an excerpt from Matt Hardy's WWE Profile page on WWE.com:

"Apart from his sibling, Matt has achieved success in solo ranks as well, including United States, Hardcore, European and Cruiserweight Championship reigns. The greatest achievement, however, came in 2008 when Matt triumphed in a Championship Scramble Match to capture the ECW Title; his first taste of World Championship gold."

Now, the WWE says right here that the ECW Title is a "World Championship", yet they totally contradict that by putting Mark Henry, a former ECW Champion, into the battle royal.

By the way, Hardy actually won the title from Henry, as Henry was the ECW Champ going into the Championship Scramble match.

The match last night was said to only be for people who have never held a World Title.

Maybe instead of putting him in, you could put another SmackDown Superstar in the match-up, as R-Truth was the only one. And by the way, he was the first eliminated.

Now, Henry didn't win, but it did prove one thing; the ECW Championship is not a World Title and the WWE needs to just come out and say it. The signs have been there for so long anyway.

I mean look at the title for starters, it's platinum or silver if you will. They changed it to give us a new belt, which I have no problem with, but the old ECW Title had gold all over it, where as the new belt is only silver.

Therefore, having the ECW Title is just as big for someone as the Intercontental or US Title, as it is mainly a secondary title.

It's silver, showing us that the title is not a World Title, the gold if you will. As we all know by watching the Olympics, the silver is second place, never first.

Leaving from that little spill, we now go to the last segment of the night. Now, this segment was the contract signing for the WWE Title at the TLC PPV. Cena and Sheamus are in the ring and we all know that something will happen.

I expected the heel Sheamus to put Cena through the table. That was a bit obvious to me, but the thing I didn't expect was what Ventura had to say about Cena.

He said that it was a conspiracy theory in the WWE to keep the WWE Title belt around Cena's waist. He went on to say that Cena was the perfect yes-man, while he was never like that and because of it, he never got World Title matches.

To me, this is stupid for the WWE to do. Cena already gets flack from the fans for things like this.

People do not like that he is in the World Title matches a lot and the WWE is entertainment, so its not like its a real sport where a conspiracy could happen to keep one champion.

If you check all of Cena's World Title matches for the title or to retain, he wins them clean if he is set to win.

So, for the writers to have Ventura try to sell his new show even more so by having him say it was a conspiracy between Cena and the WWE to keep the title on him because he was their yes-man, is stupid.

It made me very irate because the WWE uses Cena as their top guy because of what Ventura was saying true, but because he sells. Some people may have gotten tired of his character, but he still sells a lot of merchandise and is cheered everywhere he goes.

There is a mix of boos sometimes, this is true. But, he still does quite well. He sells moves as good as any other in the WWE other than Shawn Michaels, but seriously, not a lot of people can do what HBK does. Just look at the match he had with Hulk Hogan to see how much he sells.

A lot of the criticism is not fair toward Cena and people forget that he is only doing what he is told to do and because of that, he is rewarded for it. People like Ventura never got a World Title shot in the WWE because he didn't belong in them.

The dude was not nearly as good as the people in the matches. So, the WWE could care less what he was saying, in fact he was put on the mic because he was entertaining.

The reason he was never a World Champion in the WWE was because he simply was not as good as people such as Hogan, Sheik, Hart, Andre, and others.

I know the WWE is scripted entertainment, but you are killing Cena's character when you cross certain lines like that. He is already suffering with the fans from the lack of character depth you have given him, why hurt him worse?

Some are going to agree that he gets in the World Title hunt a lot, but so does just about all of the people in them.

How many times did we see Orton in the World Title hunt? Just about all year, pretty much since he came back from injury in 2008, he has been in the hunt or was the WWE Champion.

Then you have Triple H who was in them a lot, as he always is. Undertaker is in them a lot, CM Punk has been, Chris Jericho has been, and countless others.

This is why I like that Sheamus is going against Cena at TLC, because it gives us some new meat in the title hunt.

For idiots to come out and say Orton or anyone else who has been in the hunt or have been champion all year should be in the title match should really punch themselves in the face, which will hopefully snap you out of whatever stupid trance you are in.

Finally we are seeing some new feuds, be thankful about that. This could be the only time it happens all this year or next year.

Of course. people who know the WWE should know now that these are probably going to be the feuds that last all of 2010. So while they may be new and fresh right now, they may be old and stale by June when the same are still going on.

While RAW was good, there are things that made sense, then other things that were so stupid, I thought 3-year-olds were writing the show. Which some would say has been the case all along.

Seriously, this makes me want to see B/R Writers run one show and show the WWE how it's done. I'm just saying.

Read more Vince McMahon news on BleacherReport.com