Vince McMahon's moments of genius...

Mr.Nice Guy

I put this question to the folks at PWInsider and figured I'd get some of your thoughts too.

Now we know Vince McMahon often gets criticised for his creative ideas (deservedly so in a lot of cases). There was the Katie Vick storyline, the lousy Alliance storyline, his plan to have an incest angle with Stephanie's child etc however it's worth pointing out that he has made some really shrewd creative moves too over the yeaars. So with that being said, what are Vince McMahon's top 5 creative moments in WWE? Below are my thoughts:

1. Wrestlemania - Revolutionised wrestling giving us the greatest moments of all time and even WCW at its height couldn't outdraw this PPV.

2. The Undertaker character - Perhaps Vince's best idea for a character and according to Taker Vince was the guy who was behind the satanic evil Undertaker of the attitude era so for that I give him credit.

3. Mr McMahon character - Everyone thought Bret Hart would benefit most from the Montreal Screwjob but Vince did a great job of using the incident to create the most hated character in wrestling.

4. Pushing 'Real American' Hogan - Vince did what his father would not do and pushed Hogan to the moon thus making Hogan the most renowned wrestler worldwide.

5. The attitude era - While you can say it was inspired by ECW, nonetheless it was a brilliant move by McMahon to move the company away from its traditional routes and to allow for a more edgier style - DX, Stone Cold, The Rock etc. It helped bring about the end of his two competitors.

Those are my picks for Vince McMahon's top 5 creative decisions. What are yours?

Vince135792003

Without going into specific angles, I think Vince's strength is not necessarily that he's a wrestling genius (although he'd definitely be high on a lot of peoples voting slip in that category) but that he has the confidence and courage to just go for things he thinks will work. Not everybody has that and he's been like that his whole life. He's prepared to take a chance.

He's not afraid of trying things knowing that, it only takes one big success (like Hulkamania or a Steve Austin) to cancel out a whole lot of failures (King Mabel 1995, Diesal year long title run, Katie Vick, God etc..).

Jerichoholic

Wrestlemania wasn't really his idea. Starrcade was basically the same thing and had been going since 1983. He just copied it and got lucky.

Vince135792003

Jerichoholic wrote:

Wrestlemania wasn't really his idea. Starrcade was basically the same thing and had been going since 1983. He just copied it and got lucky.

I think it would be unfair to say he just got lucky. Vince McMahon just promoted the hell out of it, in a way that the NWA never did with Starrcade.

And although he did copy it in a sense of it being his biggest show (like Starrcade) and having it on CCTV (like Starrcade), he presented his wrestling product in a much different way to the NWA that made it much more appealing and maybe even acceptable to average America.

To compare, Starrcade had 45000 CCTV for its 1985 show. Wrestlemania had 380000. Vince mightn't be able to promote anything else. But he sure knows how to promote wrestling. And although luck can always play apart, I think his promoting ability has to be recognised too.

shinzon

Vince mcmahon is at his best when his back is against the wall, there would have been no attitude era if wcw didnt come breathing down what was then the wwf's neck

top 5

1) Dragging wrestling out of the dark ages by getting rid of the old regional territories system and creating Sports entertainment rather then supposed real wrestling

2) Pulling out of the TBS deal to show WWF Programming with ted turner when he did, and also selling jim crockett promotions to turner, after all no ted turner no WCW no monday night wars, no attitude era

3) My personal favourite which i believe may be vinces finest moment was when Eric Bischoff strode out onto the stage at Raw, the person who set out to destroy WWE, now worked for that self same company, who couldnt fail to be impreseed and fascinated by that

4) The same could also be said of bret hart for the most part, we all know the WWE were ready to destroy bret hart by releasing a DVD in the same vein as the self destruction of the ultimate warrior, but at the last minute who would have thought that vince and bret could come to a compromise and produce the bret hart story

5) Last but not least is vinces instinct for character creation, ok for the most part there hit and miss (red rooster bastion booger anyone), but who else could take a mid carder that was floundering in wcw turn him around and make him Stone Cold Steve austin, the undertaker, the rock, HHH et al


Shin

fatal

Vince135792003 wrote:

Without going into specific angles, I think Vince's strength is not necessarily that he's a wrestling genius (although he'd definitely be high on a lot of peoples voting slip in that category) but that he has the confidence and courage to just go for things he thinks will work. Not everybody has that and he's been like that his whole life. He's prepared to take a chance.

He's not afraid of trying things knowing that, it only takes one big success (like Hulkamania or a Steve Austin) to cancel out a whole lot of failures (King Mabel 1995, Diesal year long title run, Katie Vick, God etc..).

you said exactly what I would have said....vince has said that he has NEVER regretted any business decision that he has made which shows how confident he is about his decisions.Those "bad" decisions that he has made have definitley raised alot of eyebrows but then he has turned around with major success that he probably would not have achieved if he didnt have the courage to go forward with such ideas and those have made him a very rich man indeed

fatal

shinzon wrote:

3) My personal favourite which i believe may be vinces finest moment was when Eric Bischoff strode out onto the stage at Raw, the person who set out to destroy WWE, now worked for that self same company, who couldnt fail to be impreseed and fascinated by that

That would have been one of the moments where,when eric stood on the raw stage,vince said to himself "who won in the end mother****er?" and it was certainly Vince McMahon.The very guy who was about to put him out of business failed and put himself out of business