>The issue is Vince himself and his refusal to let anyone make
>final decisions.

He's kinda earned that right, no? Regardless of how he earned the spot -- and you've done a nice job kinda downplaying his accomplishments -- it's his spot. He's the Chairman, he's the Executive Producer of the show, like it or not, he gets final say.


>If you think about it Vince has been very lucky to get where
>he is and it was all just a couple good decisions.
>
>He had the idea for hulkamania which made WWF a household name
>and took it global

You simply can't reduce the work Vince put in (along with Hogan himself) to make that brand global to two sentences. You can't take the hustle and sweat equity he put in and reduce it to "a couple good decisions." Not to sound like some PR flack, but Vince had a vision and a plan, and had to convince an awful lot of people that it was worth carrying out in order to make it happen.

He came up with the strategy to take the company national, which actually was a brilliant and ruthless at the same time. He got the company on MTV. He got them on NBC. He persuaded the old school guys with ownership stake in the WWF (cats like Gorilla Monsoon and Arnold Skaaland) to go all in on his strategy up to and including Wrestlemania, knowing that had it failed, he would have been done.

And creatively, he knew enough about the business to push the right buttons in order to get people to come see the matches. You make it sound like Vince was just some dude who happened to be an announcer who saved up and bought the WWF just before the first Wrestlemania and took a blonde guy and got lucky when he somehow became a star. Vince grew up in and around the business; he knew enough about successful wrestling angles and booking and drawing. He didn't do it all himself; he had cats like George Scott and Pat Patterson helping out, but again, Vince knew what it took to get guys over in those days.

And BTW, Hulkamania was not a Vincent K. McMahon creation; the Hulk Hogan we all know and love was actually started in Memphis under Jerry Jarrett; when he went to the WWF, Vince's pops actually gave him the name Hulk Hogan.


>He basically fell into Austin and the Rock, he was busy making
>them boring until they developed their own characters.

This isn't quite true. I mean, people (rightfully) shit on them, but Russo and Ferrara were quite instrumental in helping those characters evolve, along with Austin, The Rock, and yes, Vince too. You can ask any one of them, and they'll tell you the same thing. It was a creative team effort.


>He gave
>them a medium to do it, but he did not make them like he made
>Hogan.

Hmm.


>DX was a result of best friends running with something and
>response to a great idea by the competition.

And who gave the go-ahead for DX to go forward? Don't say Shawn Michaels.


>Most of the attitude era was stealing from ECW and having a
>few guys who could really run with gimmicks and characters
>they made themselves.

This is true.


>What has Vince really done and created other than Hulkamania?

Wow. I mean, I believe in not drinking the Vince McMahon Kool-Aid about how he was a huge pop cultural force, etc, but still, I think he deserves a little more credit than what you're doling out here.


>He is in the position he is in because he is a good business
>man, made 1 amazing idea, got a lot of lucky breaks, but NOT
>because of his ability to create wrestling ideas.

Believe me, I have not been a big fan of Vince's decision making as of late. But the REAL problem isn't Vince's supposed small creative brain, it's the lame Kreative™ structure that's in place that allows him to lose his mind on a weekly basis, which results in a lot of shitty booking and poor decision making.

If you're saying that he needs to at least step back and let someone else have final say, then yes, I agree. But you can't draw that conclusion based off of, "Well, he's just a business dude, he doesn't know shit about being creative, he just got lucky," because that's not true, not even in the slightest.

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And at that moment, I realized some of you aren't doing this for the shits-n-giggles that you're claiming