Why I Hate Vince McMahon

CM Punk (aka Phil Brooks) said it best when in his infamous shoot (wrestling slang for telling the truth outside the scripted story) live on Monday Raw when he said “Vince McMahon is millionaire who should be a billionaire but you know why he’s not a billionaire, because he surrounds himself with glad handing yes men…”  This past weekend I was a guest on the podcast “Agree to Disagree” with B. Meeks (link at the bottom) where we talked sports and a little bit of WWE and it was asked if I would be doing a “Why I Hate the WWE”, and I hinted at one coming up and here it is…sort of.  So in the words of former ESPN commentator Keith Olbermann “don’t take this completely seriously, I don’t mean it completely literally” but here is Why I Hate Vince McMahon.

Wrestler Types:  It’s not a secret that Vince McMahon prefers the “Body Builder” type when it comes to wrestlers whom he feels should get the most television time.  This in spite of many of these large men being less than charismatic as well as not being very gifted in the ring.  When these giants come into the WWE they are instantly promoted no matter how terrible they might be.  However, on the flip side guys like Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Chris Jericho, Daniel Bryan, and CM Punk had to claw and scratch their way to the top.  In fact all of these guys had built-in national fan bases when they came into the WWE, but no they were pushed aside for giants who no one had ever heard of.  This trend is still continuing, with the exception of heel Seth Rollins the WWE is pushing less talented and charismatic giants like Reigns and Ryback, where smaller more talent wrestlers like Dolph Ziggler and Dean Ambrose are relegated to mid-card hell.

CM PUNK:  While I’m on the subject of smaller wrestlers, Vince, “how in the fuck do you let CM Punk walk?!”  The WWE accidentally stumbled upon a gold mine when they let CM Punk walk out at the end of RAW on June 27, 2011 and air his grievances with the company.  He was already the independent darling but this moment threw him in front of the mainstream audience and they instantly fell in love with him.  This was the Summer of Punk and like a Game of Thrones summer it didn’t last just a season, it lasted for three years until Punk finally got fed up with Vince’s bullshit and bolted for the UFC.  Punk’s two main grievances for leaving was, one, never taking off, including when he was injured and the fact that he never got to main event Wrestlemania, even though he was the Champion during one of them (with might I add the match of the night against Chris Jericho), and who was in the main event?  John Cena and Dwayne (aka The Rock) Johnson.  When Punk left the internet was a buzz and everyone wanted him back and caused Vince to address it on Stone Cold’s Podcast (speaking of podcasts, did you hear I was on one, check the link below).  Punk was revolutionizing and winning over the fans who were straying in this John Cena TV-PG era of the WWE, but like anything good in the WWE that Vince didn’t create he didn’t care for, so when Punk walked he did very little to get him back and the rest of us suffered.

Ice Cream Bars:  Seriously where fuck are my WWE Ice Cream bars?  Those were the shit back in the day.  When ever I heard the ice cream man growing up, I’d grab a $1.25 and run after him to get my WWF Ice Cream bar.  The cake top, vanilla ice cream middle, and the chocolate on the bottom was a body slam of flavor.   They were the best and they were teased with a CM Punk shirt in 2012, but nothing happened… FUCK!

Superstars:  The term “Superstars” drives fans like me up the fucking wall.  These guys aren’t “Superstars” they’re wrestlers, the aforementioned CM Punk hated that term and always called himself a wrestler, and called what he did wrestling.  He wasn’t a Superstar or a sports entertainer, he was a (read the best) wrestler and he wrestled.  At some point near the end of the Attitude Era Vince shifted focus from “wrestling” and “wrestlers” to Sports Entertainment and Superstars.  Even though he made his millions off of pro wrestling and wrestlers Vince knew there was a stigma to those terms, and that stigma is usually fat, beer-slinging, rednecks and Vince (though he made a killing off them) no longer wanted to be associated with that culture, hence Superstars and Sports Entertainment.  The best part about all of this is that in the decade plus that Vince has tried to make this change and forced all of his announcers to use these terms, no one, and I mean no fucking person alive uses Superstar or Sports Entertainment outside of WWE employees.  Why?  Because these are two stupid fucking terms and it’s God Damn Pro Wrestling and they’re Wrestlers.  Give it up Vince, you can’t hide your roots from me.

Michael Cole:  Speaking of announcers, fucking Michael Cole is just the worst.  He’s so bad in fact IGN.com Wrestling Wrap Up writer Matt Fowler has coined “God Damn You Cole” or “GDYC” and it has taken wrestling fans by storm.  At any WWE event you’ll see several GDYC signs in the crowd, usually in a very television visual part of the arena.  I like to think of myself as a damn good detective (I have read enough Sherlock Holmes and Batman, so yeah I’ve got cred) but I can’t for the life of me figure out why Cole is so shitty.  It could be the fact that I grew up with the greats like Gorilla Monsoon with Bobby Hennan, Vince (not the best) but he was better than Cole and had Mr. Perfect, Randy Savage, and Jerry Lawler with him, and lastly Good Old JR Jim Ross with Lawler, so when you throw Michael Cole in there he’s shitty by comparison.  There is also the fact that most of his lines are fed to him by Vince himself and well Vince is so far out of touch that everything he tells Cole to say if just fucking terrible.  However, I think all of that is wrong, I think Michael Cole is just the fucking worst because he’s himself.  His timing is always off, he calls out the wrong moves, and his constant “Vintage” call when a wrestler uses a move they’re known for is the most annoying thing on the earth.  He’s more annoying than Geoff Lambert.  Fuck, Coles voice and his shrills when he gets excited, he’s just fucking terrible, in the words of Fowler, “God damn you Cole”.

John Cena:  I don’t hate John Cena, in fact I like John Cena (screen grab that, I actually said I like something), but the idea of John Cena drives me up the fucking wall.  And it’s not the “Never Give Up, Hustle Loyalty Respect” idea of John Cena.  No, it’s the idea that the WWE can’t seem to function without John Cena.  Vince will argue that there is no one to replace him, but there is.  There has been CM Punk, Daniel Bryant, Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, Dolph Ziggler, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  All of these guys and then some have shown they are just as good or better than Cena in the ring and on the mic but, and I’ll concede this, with the exception of Bryan, they aren’t as kid friendly as Cena, which is where a lot of the dollars comes from.  However, Punk did prove during the Summer of Punk that a more adult champion can move the merch as he did out sell Cena constantly for that time period.  The right guy with the right push can eclipse Cena, the only problem is that if rating start to dip Vince gets worried and throws Cena back in the main event picture which kills the rise of the younger talent and therefore stifling creative and hurting the long-term for the WWE.

The Last Two Royal Rumbles:  Man oh man did Vince fuck up the last two Royal Rumbles and in the process possibly killing two wrestler’s (um I mean Superstar’s) careers.  Let me take you back to the Royal Rumble of 2014.  Coming out the following August would be Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy which had former WWE Superstar Dave Batista in his breakout role of Drax the Destroyer (side note, former WWE wrestler CM Punk will be writing a Drax comic this fall for Marvel, so that’s weird, oh and also Drax is an intergalactic wrestler in it, so yeah comics everyone) so Vince thought, lets bring Batista back, have him win the Royal Rumble, go on to Wrestlemania and win the title and then we’ll piggy back off of Marvel’s success and get all the monies.  Pretty sound plan, but here’s the thing, this was doomed to fail, why you might ask?  Well because the previous summer at that aptly named Summerslam internet darling Daniel Bryan and his “YES” chant was so over (a term in wrestling meaning the most popular) that he was finally given a shot at John Cena and the WWE title, which he won and the arean fucking erupted with the ear-piercing screams of thousands of men orgasming all at once.  Then bad guy Randy Orton comes down cashes in his Money in the Bank contract (too much backstory there I can’t do all the work for you, you’re a grown person you know how google works look that shit up yourself) and in 8 fucking seconds (with the assist of Vince’s son-in-law Triple H) Randy Orton takes the title from Bryan.  This pissed a lot of people off and Bryan never did get a fair shot at the Orton or the title.  Fast forward to the Rumble and Batista (who was a good guy at the time) winning the Rumble to a cavalcade of boos, not just because Daniel Bryan (whom everyone wanted to win) didn’t win, but because he wasn’t in the fucking rumble at all.

This of course set off a shit storm of fans booing Batista (which got him the nickname of Boo-Tista) and fans just straight up shutting down matches with chants of “YES YES YES!” (Bryan’s catch phrase) caused Vince to do a 180 and put Bryan in the main event at Wrestlemania and he eventually won the title and the fans were happy, for a bit.  The problem here is that in his road to Wrestlemania Bryan hurt his neck and shortly after winning the belt he had to drop it because he couldn’t wrestle.  This leads into the 2015 Royal Rumble and the cluster fuck booking of Vince McMahon.

See like CM Punk, Daniel Bryan was never supposed to be a star, he’d be a midcarder and that was that.  However, the fans were like “fuck that noise” and through persistence the fans elevated Bryan and Vince fucking hates that shit.  He tells us who is supposed to be a star and we bend over and take it.  So with Bryan Vince wanted to kill the Yes Movement in once fell swoop.  So leading up to the Rumble Bryan was cleared to wrestle again and announced two weeks before the even that he’d be in the Rumble.   He was in the Rumble and he lost, to Roman Reigns and the fans who loved Reigns the night before booed that man like no ones business.  It got so bad that the WWE sent out the Rock (Reigns’ cousin) to quell the fiery rage of the fans.  Well that didn’t fucking work as the fans booed the hell out of the Rock (something thought impossible), and this all happened because Bryan (who never lost the title) was in the Rumble and didn’t win, which is what everyone (and I fucking mean everyone) wanted.  The general thought is that if Bryan wasn’t going to win why have him come back two weeks before the Rumble, just keep him on the sideline, bring him back the next night and all is good.  Reigns stays popular, Bryan crawls his way back to the top.  Everyone wins.  Why wasn’t this done?  Because Vince is a fucking ego-maniac and because he didn’t create Daniel Bryan’s fame he didn’t want him to have it and thought he could crush it (much like he thought with CM Punk) and well Vince, you were really fucking wrong.

Erasing History:  The WWE is a publicly traded company and one that likes to appear squeaky clean.  So when something controversial that happens with their personnel in the real world and not in their scripted universe they scrub that person from history.  The first real incident of this happening was with the wrestler Chris Benoit.  A little back story if you’re not familiar is that Benoit (for reasons unknown) snapped one night and murdered his wife and child before killing himself.  This is horrific and as a father absolutely mind-boggling to me as how a parent can do that to their child.  When news of Benoit’s death (which surfaced hours before Monday Night Raw was to air) the WWE quickly put together a tribute show to him and canceled the in ring action, this is of course before the details surfaced.  After it was found out what Benoit did the WWE erased his existence from not only the WWE but their formal rival WCW (whom they had purchased a few years prior).  The WWE lists all those who have won their titles and when you come to Benoit’s reigns they are listed as vacant, in fact until recently if you looked up a WWE or WCW Pay Per View with Benoit on it his matches were edited out.

And recently a tape surfaced of Hulk Hogan going on an apparent (I say apparent because I haven’t listen to the tapes) racist rant and the WWE has since fired him and erased him from the site.  Both the Benoit and Hogan erasing is disturbing because the WWE made a lot of money off of these two men and erasing their legacies is a bit hypocritical and a disservice to the other wrestlers who had great matches against Benoit and Hogan.  Chris Jericho (who considered Benoit to be one of his closest friends) said his ladder match against Benoit was not only one of his best matches but he considers it one of the best matches in WWE history (and he’s not wrong, that fucking match is great), but until recently it was almost impossible to find that match.

What the WWE has done here would be similar if MLB erased Ty Cobb (who is just a terrible person) or the NFL erased OJ Simpson (who is somehow worse than Ty Cobb) from their histories.  Yes Cobb was a racist but still one of the best hitters the game as ever seen, and yes OJ Simpson is a murderer (I don’t give a shit that he was acquitted, he fucking did it and everyone knows it) but they still existed and they still played in their sports and you can still watch old Bills highlights and I guess listen to radio highlights of those Tigers and enjoy the game but condemn the man.  The same should be for wrestlers as well.  Why deprive Jericho fans of one of his greatest matches because his then best friend would go nuts and become an evil person.  We’re all reasonable people he we can separate the person from the sport.  You might say “well what about the children, someone think about the children” and first I’d say calm down Helen Lovejoy, and secondly I’d say don’t fucking tell them who the other person is.  “Dad, who is that wrestling Jericho?”  I don’t know son, some guy, he disappeared and was never heard from again.”  Bam done, and my kid has no idea the legacy of a psycho and he still got to enjoy a match by one of his favorite wrestlers.  The world is not a PC place and people we thought were once great turn out to be pieces of shit.  In those cases we shouldn’t erase them (because we really can’t) but that doesn’t mean we’re praising them either.

So there you have it, the reasons Why I Hate Vincent Kennedy McMahon, you can disagree with me all you want but I you’re wrong and I hate you.  However, if you’d like to know more about me, and why wouldn’t you, you can follow me on the Twitter @jomac006 or learn about my awesome writing career here https://www.facebook.com/fjoshuamccain?ref=hl , or if you’re a fine lady you should swipe right on Tinder.

Also as promised here is the link to the podcast, check it out, give it at like and subscribe.  https://www.spreaker.com/user/7984356/agree-to-disagree-w-josh-mcclain

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