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"Vince McMahon is a millionaire that should be a billionaire." - CM Punk.
Recently at the WWE Annual Shareholders meeting when Vince McMahon was asked about the reason for the company being public and he said that it was to make sure that the company went beyond "one man's vision."
Unfortunately for the viewers of the product he only meant it in a business sense.
At Extreme Rules, John Cena pinned Brock Lesnar on his first night back in the ring. The match was exceptional and brutal and everything that a post-UFC-Lesnar match should be.
It was also fucking stupid.
A former UFC heavyweight champion with off the charts charisma, believability and skill. Pinned. On his first night. By a guy who looks like he's taking some time off. Lesnar didn't even get to "injure" Cena and send him there.
The Badest Dude on the Planet was too busy crawling up the ramp on his hands and knees.
This made no sense whatsoever. They built a monster on their TV show to sell their PPV. They humanized their monster on PPV and sent him back to TV defeated. His first time out. Huh? There's possibly another ten or elven PPV's to go.
How utterly stupid is that? I don't even mean with regard to PPV numbers, merchandise, value for money, ratings etc. I mean just from a base storytelling point of view. How stupid was that?
If WWE is to be taken and consumed the way WWE wants to be taken and consumed -episodic TV, a soap opera for men, etc - then whoever wrote and agreed the end of that match needs to fired and/or retired.
This is no other show runner that would allow his writing crew to be so amateurish and wasteful and well…fucking stupid.
WWE love to tell us about their "Season Premier" and how their "talent" is "like…entertainers such as actors and actresses on television dramas, soaps or comedies…" They have a writing team and pitch meetings, they have producers and a director. But their writing is terrible by American TV standards. Even in comparison to the low reaching shows.
Yet anyone who knows anything about writing episodic storyline can tell you that WWE gets it wrong more times that they get it right nowadays.
Imagine other episodic TV shows marching down the same road with their shows - the Smoke Monster roars in the jungle and knocks shit down all over the place. Everyone on the beach wets themselves. Jack heroically finds him and hits him in the face with a shovel. Smoke Monster crawls off back to the glowy hole or whatever the fuck that was. IN EPISODE FOUR of the very first season???
That's right. Brock Lesnar - the rightful star of the show - has signed on for a full year. Think of it as a season. Four episodes in his gets beaten. He gets beaten and crawls up the ramp.
Where else would this happen on an episodic TV show?
Dexter finds the first note from the Ice Truck Killer. We're shown how ruthless and despicable the Killer is. Dexter then runs into his nemesis a couple of episodes in. We fear for him, wish him well, wonder how he's going to make it out alive…oh wait, Dexter nukes him in the neck with the sleepy juice. When the Killer wakes up he crawls back to his ice-cream truck. IN EPISODE FOUR!!! The Ice Truck Killer posts another note for Dexter explaining how dangerous a threat he is. We don't give a shit. Everyone gets fired and the show gets cancelled.
All the talk is around wrestling being a star driven industry, and it is, but like any TV show stars can be made by storylines. They can also be broken by them too. How many times can WWE and Vince McMahon be handed top notch money making programs only to completely misunderstand them, misread them or pull against them just to "fool" the marks?
The Invasion, Bischoff arriving, Austin v Lesnar, Goldberg, Nexus, CM Punk, Rock v Cena, all in recent years have been mangled and mismanaged to such a degree you begin to wonder if anyone has the balls to question "one man's vision."
Was there no one in the whole of the backstage assembly who questioned the finish of the Lesnar/Cena match? Mr. Preservation himself, HHH, was surely back there. If there was ever a man who saw money in wins and loses surely it was him. What did he think? What did the hundreds of combined years of experience of the "producers" think?
Even though he wasn't there last night - there's probably good money on Steve Austin having destroyed his brand new shed in frustration after the PPV went off the air. Even The Rock, who has taken more losses than any main-eventer in recent times, had to have shaken his head when he saw or heard about the finish.
Rock, Austin or Undertaker - how much money do you think was there to be made with either of those battling an undefeated Lesnar at Wrestlemania?
And what about Lesnar himself? What did he say? You'd have to imagine that the man who talked WWE into rewriting their usual contract would feel comfortable in speaking his mind. Or did he give a shit? Is he just this generation's Job Squad? Pin me, pay me? He knows there's more paydays. So does Vince.
But that's not the point. There are more paydays and they should all make great money. But they could have made, and been, so much more.
Vince is now wrestlings George Lucas. I'd swear if he could he'd digitally 'enhance' the Austin 3:16 promo he'd have Hornswaggle doing donuts on a unicycle in front of the interview.
He's a millionaire that should have been a billionaire all because he keeps ignoring the fundamentals of storytelling.
Find out who your main character is. Find out what they want. Create obstacles to keep them away from it.
Create conflict. Create conflict. Create conflict.
Looks like he has.
**************************************
Paul O'Brien is a writer from Ireland. His debut novel, Blood Red Turns Dollar Green, is a crime fiction story set in old pro wrestling territory days. It's currently available on amazon.com.
Paul can be reached at www.paulobrien.info | @tweetpaulobrien | www.facebook.com/bloodredturnsdollargreen
"Vince McMahon is a millionaire that should be a billionaire." - CM Punk.
Recently at the WWE Annual Shareholders meeting when Vince McMahon was asked about the reason for the company being public and he said that it was to make sure that the company went beyond "one man's vision."
Unfortunately for the viewers of the product he only meant it in a business sense.
At Extreme Rules, John Cena pinned Brock Lesnar on his first night back in the ring. The match was exceptional and brutal and everything that a post-UFC-Lesnar match should be.
It was also fucking stupid.
A former UFC heavyweight champion with off the charts charisma, believability and skill. Pinned. On his first night. By a guy who looks like he's taking some time off. Lesnar didn't even get to "injure" Cena and send him there.
The Badest Dude on the Planet was too busy crawling up the ramp on his hands and knees.
This made no sense whatsoever. They built a monster on their TV show to sell their PPV. They humanized their monster on PPV and sent him back to TV defeated. His first time out. Huh? There's possibly another ten or elven PPV's to go.
How utterly stupid is that? I don't even mean with regard to PPV numbers, merchandise, value for money, ratings etc. I mean just from a base storytelling point of view. How stupid was that?
If WWE is to be taken and consumed the way WWE wants to be taken and consumed -episodic TV, a soap opera for men, etc - then whoever wrote and agreed the end of that match needs to fired and/or retired.
This is no other show runner that would allow his writing crew to be so amateurish and wasteful and well…fucking stupid.
WWE love to tell us about their "Season Premier" and how their "talent" is "like…entertainers such as actors and actresses on television dramas, soaps or comedies…" They have a writing team and pitch meetings, they have producers and a director. But their writing is terrible by American TV standards. Even in comparison to the low reaching shows.
Yet anyone who knows anything about writing episodic storyline can tell you that WWE gets it wrong more times that they get it right nowadays.
Imagine other episodic TV shows marching down the same road with their shows - the Smoke Monster roars in the jungle and knocks shit down all over the place. Everyone on the beach wets themselves. Jack heroically finds him and hits him in the face with a shovel. Smoke Monster crawls off back to the glowy hole or whatever the fuck that was. IN EPISODE FOUR of the very first season???
That's right. Brock Lesnar - the rightful star of the show - has signed on for a full year. Think of it as a season. Four episodes in his gets beaten. He gets beaten and crawls up the ramp.
Where else would this happen on an episodic TV show?
Dexter finds the first note from the Ice Truck Killer. We're shown how ruthless and despicable the Killer is. Dexter then runs into his nemesis a couple of episodes in. We fear for him, wish him well, wonder how he's going to make it out alive…oh wait, Dexter nukes him in the neck with the sleepy juice. When the Killer wakes up he crawls back to his ice-cream truck. IN EPISODE FOUR!!! The Ice Truck Killer posts another note for Dexter explaining how dangerous a threat he is. We don't give a shit. Everyone gets fired and the show gets cancelled.
All the talk is around wrestling being a star driven industry, and it is, but like any TV show stars can be made by storylines. They can also be broken by them too. How many times can WWE and Vince McMahon be handed top notch money making programs only to completely misunderstand them, misread them or pull against them just to "fool" the marks?
The Invasion, Bischoff arriving, Austin v Lesnar, Goldberg, Nexus, CM Punk, Rock v Cena, all in recent years have been mangled and mismanaged to such a degree you begin to wonder if anyone has the balls to question "one man's vision."
Was there no one in the whole of the backstage assembly who questioned the finish of the Lesnar/Cena match? Mr. Preservation himself, HHH, was surely back there. If there was ever a man who saw money in wins and loses surely it was him. What did he think? What did the hundreds of combined years of experience of the "producers" think?
Even though he wasn't there last night - there's probably good money on Steve Austin having destroyed his brand new shed in frustration after the PPV went off the air. Even The Rock, who has taken more losses than any main-eventer in recent times, had to have shaken his head when he saw or heard about the finish.
Rock, Austin or Undertaker - how much money do you think was there to be made with either of those battling an undefeated Lesnar at Wrestlemania?
And what about Lesnar himself? What did he say? You'd have to imagine that the man who talked WWE into rewriting their usual contract would feel comfortable in speaking his mind. Or did he give a shit? Is he just this generation's Job Squad? Pin me, pay me? He knows there's more paydays. So does Vince.
But that's not the point. There are more paydays and they should all make great money. But they could have made, and been, so much more.
Vince is now wrestlings George Lucas. I'd swear if he could he'd digitally 'enhance' the Austin 3:16 promo he'd have Hornswaggle doing donuts on a unicycle in front of the interview.
He's a millionaire that should have been a billionaire all because he keeps ignoring the fundamentals of storytelling.
Find out who your main character is. Find out what they want. Create obstacles to keep them away from it.
Create conflict. Create conflict. Create conflict.
Looks like he has.
**************************************
Paul O'Brien is a writer from Ireland. His debut novel, Blood Red Turns Dollar Green, is a crime fiction story set in old pro wrestling territory days. It's currently available on amazon.com.
Paul can be reached at www.paulobrien.info | @tweetpaulobrien | www.facebook.com/bloodredturnsdollargreen
