Do You Really Miss Him?

Exploring fans asking for Vince McMahon back

Every year since 2021 during the Road to WrestleMania, and shortly after, Tonya has contributed some thoughts about WWE. (To sample some of her previous work, check here.) You can find her at @TheWitchMilitia on Twitter. I’ve added a couple thoughts of mine in this one since which are noted below..

Earlier this year, I gave my own personal assessment of how Triple H has fared as Chief Content Officer. In summary, I think he is doing an average job; not great but far, far better than his predecessor, Vince McMahon. While this appears to be the majority opinion of most of my fellow fans in the Internet Wrestling Community, there has been a very vocal section of fans who have expressed a desire to see Vince McMahon back in control of the creative direction. I always suspected that this sentiment would grow the longer Triple H was in charge, simply because the nature of a lot of wrestling fans is one of a contrarian. However, as the sentiment grows and is expressed more and more, I decided to explore exactly where this is coming from. Here is what I found:

TKO Holdings Group has given WWE a very sterilized and corporate feel. This can be felt in advertisements for the promotion but more so in the paid sponsors for WWE. In the past, sponsorships from other companies were done in a way where it never felt like it was pervasive. . Tie-ins to matches were done in comedy bits that were off to the side, in a segment you were meant to forget as soon as it was over, such as the KFC battleroyal segment. The way Vince handled the sponsors seemed as if it was something he HAD to do and never wanted to really interrupt HIS show too much with it.

Now? Sponsors are EVERYWHERE. There are ads taking centerstage on the match card graphics, right in the middle of the photo instead of off to the side and small in print; the ring is covered in logos for other products, as well as the ringside area. But the most egregious of all the ad placement in my opinion is the Slim Jim table, that, when it is pulled out, commentary seems obligated to remind us that it is, indeed, the Slim Jim table, in case we missed the table being decorated with the company’s logo. All of this makes the show feel like the actual entertainment is secondary to making sure all the various sponsors get their TV time. I can only imagine what a lapsed fan who decides to watch a show now could think of it. Doing this makes it feel like the worst parts of professional fighting events. Nobody other than the people making money off these sponsors think this is an improved look to the show.

         Another loud complaint from fans about TKO specifically is the overall greed from the company. WrestleMania becoming a two night event was welcomed by the fan base initially, preferable to a seven hour one day event. Now those two night events see fans paying thousands of dollars for an experience where the seats purchased are in the nose bleeds. Quite a few WrestleMania regulars expressed how much more expensive it has become since the TKO buyout. (Editor’s Note: I went to WrestleMania 40 and was able to get a decent enough seat, albeit in the upper deck, for like $250, and spent maybe $1,500 total for the whole trip – night 2 ticket, hotel for the weekend, train to and from Philly, food, a wrestler meet and greet, and even a ticket to Supercard of Honor that Friday. For me, WrestleMania 41 was entirely out of the question by comparison financially.)

The elephant in the room here, of course, is that Vince McMahon has been accused of serious crimes. These fans expressing wanting him back are ignoring the fact that he was able to do so in part because of his position in WWE. And it comes across as they do not care as long as they can be entertained by their favorite TV show or have affordable WrestleMania tickets. While that may be true of some of them, I feel the reason for the sentiment is more nuanced than that, which is why I decided to investigate.

There are two themes I came across from weeks of scrolling through comment sections on social media. The first is a lot of nostalgia for the high points of the NXT Black and Gold era that lead certain fans to have expectations of Triple H booking the main roster that honestly were not realistic. So many seem to think his booking is vastly different. It is not. He has always had five to six matches for big shows. He has always had long, drawn out angles that eventually became redundant and convoluted. He was more competent with booking the women than Vince and he had the benefit of booking men who were already stars outside of WWE.

So old Black and Gold fans have become disillusioned because they thought they were about to get that old feeling back, when they can only remember the good parts of Triple H’s booking, which is still there, by the way. Triple H’s booking is predictable. To the point where you can tell when something is done last minute. It is glaringly obvious. Vince did everything last minute, for the most part, so there was a level of unpredictability that does not happen now. No surprise winners; no title reigns out of nowhere. 

Which leads me to the next theme I found, one that I had not seen coming. I saw one fan refer to it as flanderization. For those who are unaware, flanderization is the process through which a single element of a character’s personality, often an originally mild element, is inflated in importance over the course of a work until it becomes the character’s primary trait. This, of course, is based on the Simpson’s character, Ned Flanders. 

There are a few current WWE characters that I can agree this was done to, in a way. I mean, there is a reason people call Jey Uso, the YEET Man. The fans feel that characters they got to know and like in NXT, such as Tiffany Stratton and Bron Breakker, had a lot of depth and have been reduced to one catchphrase or action.  While I can agree on that, I do not think this is a Triple H problem; it’s a WWE problem. The reason the Bloodline story was so captivating is because of the character work. That character work is a rarity with this company in general and usually only happens when the talent pushes for it.  

There is a lot of revisionism mixed with nostalgia with the sentiment that Vince ran the company better. I think I understand where that is coming from. Vince, for all his faults, was running a wrestling company. For all the lore that the man did not like wrestling and just could never be successful at anything else in entertainment, I think people are now seeing how a wrestling company is run when the people running it don’t actually care about wrestling or the wrestlers themselves. Former WWE wrestler Baron Corbin stated that TKO only cares about numbers and that is the difference in company leadership now.

I do not think most are just ignoring what Vince did, rather they want someone who operates on a human level in charge of the major decisions and not a corporate entity. Corporate entities are soulless. Despite his many, many, many faults, Vince does appear to have one of those. I do still think it is very tacky and heartless for fans and some of the wrestlers to express how much they love and miss a man who has been accused of sex crimes. Most of Vince’s alleged victims are still alive. They do not need to see viral tweets about how great he was, at anything.

Wrestling fans are reactionary, which is understandable given the nature of the medium. The business thrives on immediate fan reaction. This pattern of missing Vince or missing the way he ran the company reached its height after a string of wrestlers not being resigned or being released from their contract, with the most shocking being R-Truth, who had been with the company for twenty-five years. It was well known that Vince had essentially promised him a job for life. Due to backlash, Truth was resigned and given a huge angle out of it but the incident has left a very sour taste in the mouths of fans.

Businesswise, WWE is doing as good as they ever have been. But the goodwill Triple H had when he took his position is gone with the WWE fanbase. He is either seen as incompetent or unable to do what he wants because of TKO, neither of which do much for him. I suspect if complaining gets too loud about the booking, he will be replaced at the first sign of business going down. And if that happens, Heaven only knows who TKO will put in charge but, since they don’t seem to understand what makes wrestling fun, it’s doubtful it will be much of an improvement . Because, one thing is certain, Triple H actually cares. His successor may only see numbers, which will get fans farther and farther from the WWE they recognize.

        But maybe it’s too late. TKO buying WWE signaled the end of a human touch to the most mainstream wrestling promotion in history and perhaps nothing will get that feeling back. You don’t miss Vince. You miss one of the last mainstream brands not being corporate content ran solely on numbers and algorithms. Even if TKO sells, it will be to another corporation that wishes to maximize profits. What does this mean for the wellbeing of pro wrestling? Only time will tell. But I personally hate it. 

My take: I find the ad placement annoying but other than the ‘Fireball Ladder’ and ‘Slim Jim table’ I can live with it. The skyrocketing prices are a different concern; pricing your most loyal fans out of a lot of things is never a good long term business strategy. Neither is the stock price above all philosophy that seems to be governing a lot of the decisions now. Like Tonya alluded, we won’t know how this is going to play out until the inevitable downturn in business comes.