HHH’s Promotion is What All Haters Should Want
It was recently announced that HHH was officially put in
charge of WWE Creative along with Talent Relations. Many hardcore fans have felt he has been
influencing both departments to his benefit for many years, but now this
officially anoints him as the man. It
also means he will likely be the guy to replace Vince when he finally steps
away, or let’s face it, and not be harsh, passes away. Many fans who follow the sport closely might
view this as a bad thing, but I think in the end this is “Best for Business.”
Once HHH was found to be dating Stephanie McMahon his career
was always going to be questioned. It’s
hard for a guy to date the daughter of the boss and not take heat from fans
about getting things pushed his way. The
early part of his career seemed to indicate that he was getting a little favoritism. If the WWE didn’t give him special treatment
then their writing certainly didn’t do his perception with the fans any favors.
HHH took a loss to the Undertaker at WM17. This is right around when the streak starting
gathering legs. He joined forces with a
recently turned heel Stone Cold Steve Austin post Mania and formed the two man
power trip. They were the top heels in
the company, but HHH was largely perceived to be second fiddle. At that point I viewed HHH’s major run as
over. I just didn’t think he could
create a compelling face or heel character after what he had previously been
through and I largely thought he had run his course as a top guy in the company.
He had Steve Austin nearly killed by a car, so how much more
hated can you make yourself? That view
seems small minded now as character runs have lasted a lot longer and stars
often reinvent themselves as things progress.
HHH was then injured and missed major time. What I didn’t expect was for the WWE to book
HHH as a face and crown him the Undisputed Champion at WM18. I think it justified it as a reward for his
work during the attitude era.
Sure the crowd seemed behind it at the time and his return
was well received, but hey anytime anyone comes back they get a great pop. We love the long awaited comeback
return. Yet, HHH was turned back heel not
to long after. Why, because he couldn’t
draw as a face.
This would begin an era where HHH was often one of the two
major champions. It also started bothering
me that it seemed he was after Ric Flair’s record of most titles held. That’s not a distinction a guy with HHH’s
backstage position should seek considering his marriage to Stephanie at this
point. Remember he was once given the
title by Eric Bischoff on Raw. Yes, he
was given the title, no tournament, or #1 contender match. That incident coupled with him being pushed
over and over started to wear thin on me as the 2000’s pressed on.
Many have pointed to HHH appeared to sabotage the careers of
many rising stars. Randy Orton who
seemed cut out to be one of the biggest Superstars of all time has had HHH
intersect with him three times where it really hasn’t benefited damaged the Orton
character. After Orton upset Chris
Benoit for his first title HHH turned on him and quickly won the title away
from him. Yet, Orton wasn’t given the
angle where he battles to get his belt back and eventually does with a big payoff. He was beaten and relegated to the side.
Orton took time to recover and rebuilt himself into an angle
where he was attacking members of the McMahon family including HHH’s wife
Stephanie. It was the build up to
WM25. Orton became the ultimate heel
attacking old people and women. He had a
track record of concussing many major super stars with his punt. He was squarely positioned to take the mantle
as top heel in the company.
The only problem was that Orton was strapless going into
WM25 and he won the Royal Rumble. The
tradition is for the major heel to gain the title and heat around Survivor
Series and then lose the strap at Mania to his major foil. It almost looked like the 25th
anniversary of the company’s biggest event was going to see them crown a heel
champion who attacked the owner and his daughter.
I can’t blame the WWE for not wanting that to be the end of
their centerpiece event, but what they did do was far worse in the end. HHH injected himself into the angle, but the
only way Orton would take him on at WM25 was if he was the champion, so WWE
booked HHH to pick up the strap at elimination chamber the month before. Now remember HHH had not been around as much
going into this, so he had very little heat or fanfare other than he was facing
the top heel and his wife had been attacked.
HHH took on Orton in what was one of the worst WM mains of
all time. The match had such a poor ending
I think many in attendance missed what happened. Orton was climbing back into the ring and HHH
gave him a punt. He poorly executed
that. He grabbed the sledgehammer with the
referee down and attacked Orton with it.
Because that’s what faces do they use Sledgehammers to beat guys they
are twice the size of. Then a slow sequence
occurs where HHH lands some punches while the referee recovers. Suddenly HHH lands the pedigree and Orton is
covered for the 1-2-3.
You couldn’t have booked it worse. I think the sudden ending shocked
everyone. Orton’s moment in the sun was
gone and the WWE was left with HHH who was at best a lukewarm face as their
champion. So a month later they had HHH
drop the belt in a six man tag to Orton.
Yes that’s right a six man tag. It didn’t make sense to me either. Why not just give Orton the belt at WM25 and
drive home a huge push.
Orton hasn’t recovered since despite the fact that he had
the belt after that and the other World title a bunch of times. It was a major blow to his career of when he
should have been really over. It took
until just recently when WWE created a crafty way to flip HHH and Orton heel at
Summerslam. It would have appeared that
WWE had revived Orton once again and he would be the heel face of the company for
the next few months.
Yet, they were able to botch that too with the confusing
relationship between HHH and him. His loses
to Daniel Bryan and his new found desire to whine all the time. I’m not sure Orton can recover from the
damage that has been done to him at this point.
Although HHH ruined the 2011 run of CM Punk for no apparent reason I view
the toppling of Orton has his career highlight for sabotaging another talents
run. You could probably point to the
damage he is doing to Daniel Bryan as career threatening as well.
Can you fully blame HHH for the Orton situation? I would say he deserves a blunt of the blame
and here’s why. If HHH does have
influence with Vince McMahon then he probably can convince Vince of things that
probably aren’t good for other guys.
After the mid 2000’s and the back to back WM losses to John Cena and
Batista, HHH could and should have become more of a part time. Injecting him into a massive storyline angle with
Orton where he holds the belt was going to do very little for WWE. The WM25 didn’t create a hallmark moment for
HHH or the company. HHH being a student
of the business had to know that it was bad business. In the new age of wrestling with smarter more
informed fans it’s very difficult to build heat. Orton had massive heat on him three times and
all three times HHH has been the on screen character to choke it away.
What benefit has that brought the WWE? Little if none. The Authority angle is a failure right now
because WWE is constantly shifting the focus to HHH and Stephanie, as they
quickly brushed aside Bryan and Big Show.
CM Punk has finally entered the angle, which seems a perfect fit for
him, but the initial promo with him and Stephanie was awful and if WWE plans to
draw out an angle with him and the Shield they are way off target on hoping
this will work out well.
HHH and Stephanie have major influence over the Authority
angle. If they can’t see why it’s
failing then they are more to blame then the superstars they are blaming for
the bad ratings. The angle could have
worked in many different ways. First
Orton has to appear to be dominant. He
can’t take loses or be made to look foolish.
WWE has done plenty of that.
Second Daniel Bryan can’t get over by making Orton look bad. The WWE needed to focus on keeping the two
apart for as long as possible. The
roadblocks should have been the shield and then maybe Big Show.
The angle was so easy to write, but WWE got too creative
making the Superstars look bad and having the Authority deflect any fault doesn’t
work. Then having the locker room out on
the stage week after week to be embarrassed didn’t help the situation as
well. What value did that serve the
ratings? Remember when HHH gave his
state of the Union the night after Summerslam?
A few months later the Locker Room finally stood up to the Authority
regime for the biggest pop the company hasn’t gotten in a while.
The next week HHH and Stephanie came out to say that they
were no longer going to be nice. Wait
wasn’t that what they were expounding to everyone the night after
Summerslam? The logic took major heat
off of them and frankly they have simply just been annoying ever since. What’s worse was the promo HHH cut on Paul
Heyman at a PPV a few weeks back. I don’t
know how HHH could have thought him pandering to the crowd and making Heyman look
bad helped anything. Heyman already has
heat with CM Punk. He didn’t need HHH to
interject, but maybe a good rule to follow is the massive heel of the company
should never be seeking fan approval during his run in that spot. This was so poorly contrived and confused to
the audience. Wait aren’t we supposed to
hate this guy worse they manager Paul Heyman?
It’s a major gaff by HHH and yet another demonstration of
how Paul Heyman is the best character in the company these days. Heyman manages 2 or 3 talents for the
company, one who makes periodic appearances.
He has not stroke, he lost control of the Shield, but the crowd eats him
up and he continues to be can’t miss TV.
HHH needs to take a lesson from Heyman it’s all about telling great
story.
Yet, HHH has always been telling bad story. Remember when HHH challenged the Undertaker
before WM27? It appeared that HHH was
concerned that in order to make people believe that he could finally be the guy
to beat Taker he would have to kind of forget a key detail about the past. He cut a promo where the fact that HHH had
lost to the Undertaker at WM17 was kind of glossed over. He presented it as if they had never met
before. Huh? How could you do that? Well that’s HHH for you. He also could have played the role heel, but
decided to stay face. Probably because
Shawn Michaels chose to do it the same way the previous two WM’s and he needed
to prove he could do that too. It didn’t
really seem to work out when he went for a sledgehammer during the match
because that’s what a face does right?
It was a terrible match with many low points and the next
night after losing HHH cut a promo as if he had won. This
was a terribly misbooked match and could have been done so much better. First just have HHH out for revenge for his
friend Shawn Michaels and his previous loss at WM17. Have HHH go full heel, a role that suits him
best, and attack Taker in the weeks leading up to the match. Also, have HHH put the idea out there that
the Taker is slowing down. People would
eat that up and start to maybe believe it was time to lose. It makes interjecting the sledgehammer ok,
but no that didn’t happen. Shawn
Michaels made a mistake by coming right back for a rematch. HHH was smart and waited ten years. Is that better?
So the next year they repeated the match, but to try to
improve it they added the Hell in a Cell, which unless you are going on top of
is never all that good anymore and Shawn Michaels as the ref. If Michaels super kicked Undertaker and cost
him the match in doing so that would have shit on the entire streak. So, because we knew they wouldn’t do that he
didn’t really serve a purpose unless you have him turn on HHH, which would have
really set up for something good down the road.
In the end HHH is 0-3 versus the Undertaker at WM’s.
So looking back on all that, why in the world would it be a
good thing that HHH is new head of creative and talent for WWE? Well because it finally puts him in a
position of accountability. If HHH
ascends to the head of the WWE and replaces Vince then we are probably never
going to see a really good WWE because clearly HHH is a guy who can’t separate what’s
good for him from what’s good for business.
He truly doesn’t live up to the moniker what’s best for business.
If HHH stays in this role then ratings will drop. He clearly can’t tell what the right thing to
do is. If ratings drop and buyrates drop
then the stock price will drop. This will
cause the REAL executive board to take action against Vince putting pressure on
him to make changes. They are not going
to want Vince to step aside, but be more involved. At that point Vince is going to realize the
product has slipped and he’s going to turn to people that he has used in the
past during better times to get things going in the right direction.
I would expect Mic Foley, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Bruce
Pritchard, and Michael Hayes to again have major creative influence. Also expect to see Good Ole’ JR back in a
meaningful behind the scenes role. HHH
and Stephanie will be pushed into corporate positions where they have less
impact on the creative side of the product.
I don’t’ think it’s actually wishful thinking. HHH has lost the underlying confidence of the
locker room. Who could ever trust him
looking at his above listed track record?
Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, Edge, Jericho, and Randy Orton are just
a few guys that have had bad experiences with HHH. That’s just to name a few and the ones we
know about. Most guys will not talk bad
about HHH and they have good reason not too.
He doesn’t appear to be as savvy as Vince and know how to forgive. Also most guys are getting legends checks
from WWE. Where will they land if not
with WWE? So why spoil a good thing and
vent on HHH for what he really is.
Remember back to the CM Punk promo that made him in
WWE. He was told to go out there and
speak truthfully. He had some issues
with the way Vince handled a few things, but he specifically named Stephanie
and HHH as major problems. Why would he
do that if there wasn’t some truth in what he was saying? There was major truth in what he was
saying. In the end money runs thicker
than blood. WWE is public traded and if
at some point the company starts really losing money you will have major
problems. The axe will fall and Vince
has never struggled to make tough decisions.
So having HHH in charge is a good thing. He will either reverse the habits he has developed
over the years by producing a good product or people will execute the right to
change the channel. The bottom line is
he can’t continue with the behavior of the past. He will either change or be pushed aside,
which are both good things for WWE fans in the long run.
It’s not all doom and gloom for the WWE. If the rumors of Shane leaving because of a
rift between he and Vince over Stephanie and HHH’s roles then it will likely be
Shane who seeks to come in and save the day.
I think this would be a very positive thing for the WWE. I’ve often wondered if Shane wouldn’t be a
bad guy to take over TNA though. Now wouldn’t
that be interesting.
The TLC PPV is fast approaching and a very strangely booked
unification bout has been scheduled.
This looks cleverly like a chance for HHH to cash in on the much lauded
heel turn for John Cena. Orton is failing
as the major heel and the weird way the build up to this has occurred makes
total sense. It would shoot some life
into the company and setup a match between CM Punk and Cena at WM30 that would
be very fitting.
A John Cena heel turn can either be the major step in the
right direction the WWE needs or a massive nail in the coffin. If Cena is booked properly he could be huge
and turning him back might actually get him over with the crowd as a face. If booking him blows up and they lose him as
a major draw then the WWE is sunk. I
think HHH will look to do this because right now something big needs to
happen. Look for this to be the defining
early decision of HHH’s hopefully short tenure.
