This weekend was, by pretty much any definition, a top tier WrestleMania. Even if you put aside the attendance numbers and the viewership numbers which were great, the actual product WWE put out was really freakin’ good too. I had to expand my list of best WrestleMania 39 matches from 5 to 10 because there were just so many good ones. I was on an absolute high yesterday as I flew back from WrestleMania. Then I landed, watched the super mediocre Raw After WrestleMania show and then went online to see story after story about how Vince McMahon and his new mustache were allegedly tearing up scripts and rewriting segments even while the show was going on.
Wrestling fans are, of course, freaking out. That’s what wrestling fans do, sometimes for good reasons and sometimes because we’re excitable people that freak out. Big reactions are in our nature. But where does the truth lie here? Is everyone overreacting? Is this a really big deal? Let’s talk it out.
First though, some backstory about why this matters. Vince McMahon for decades ran WWE and was intricately involved in all the creative decisions. There were times in which that resulted in a spectacular product, as Vince is great at showmanship and sometimes has a really good eye for talent, and there were times in which it resulted in some really poor booking, as Vince would abandon storylines before they really got started and bury some talent he didn’t see main event potential in. Triple H took over last year, following Vince McMahon’s personal life scandals, and has shifted the product to focus a lot more on long-term storytelling. By all accounts, creative is usually finalized hours and sometimes even the night before shows, and storylines like The Bloodline vs Sami Zayn were given the chance to slowly develop over the course of months.
But over the weekend, a lot happened (in addition to WrestleMania). WWE was sold to UFC parent company Endeavor. Vince McMahon said publicly that he’d be involved with creative at a higher level but not in the weeds, and then fans were treated to this weird Monday Night Raw that had numerous last-minute changes and some strange segments. Seth Rollins, as an example, came out to do a promo and then never did one, leading some to speculate creative was changed in the middle of his segment. We also got a Brock Lesnar heel turn, Damian Priest chokeslaming Bad Bunny and Rhea and Bianca seemingly teasing a match down the road, among other things.
If you believe wrestling Twitter, last night was an all-time nightmare. Moving forward, we’re going to get twenty minute segments of Shanky dancing, and Austin Theory will be world champion within a few months. I mean that’s obviously hyperbolic, but it’s really hard to oversell the level of defeat and disappointment coming from hardcore wrestling fans who have loved what Triple H has done the last year or so while he’s been in charge. I get it. I really do. But let’s try to talk realistically about what we know and what we don’t know right now by asking a few big questions.
How Much Is Vince McMahon Going To Be Involved Creatively?
This is ultimately the single biggest question and the one that matters the most long-term. Given the overwhelming number of accounts out there, I think it’s pretty obvious Vince McMahon was at Raw, and I believe he almost certainly was making some changes to the creative process. The show had more last-minute changes from the circulated rundowns than we normally see and there were a few times in which the show felt like it had a weird pace. Something about it felt a little Vince-ish, which is a sentence that probably only makes sense to hardcore wrestling fans.
But it’s important to note here that we don’t know what he was actually changing. Most of the show looked very similar to what we saw on the early rundowns, and when people say he was doing re-writes on the fly, that could mean a ton of different things. It could mean he was changing out hospital for local medical facility and peppering in some more of his Vince-isms. It could mean the initial Roman/ Cody/ Brock stuff ran longer than expected so he was cutting time from later segments, which is part of running a live broadcast. Or it could mean he was like a mad scientist back there, throwing in new wrestlers, completely changing promos and screaming in Michael Cole’s ear about what to say. We just don’t know.
Honestly, I don’t care about any of that. I mean I do, but long-term, it doesn’t matter. Last night happened after WWE’s high profile sale, a day after WrestleMania, in the same city McMahon was already in. It would have been weird if he wasn’t backstage at the show. Vince has already said he’ll be involved creatively at “a high level”, and you could easily say Raw After ‘Mania is high level. To me, what matters long-term is whether Vince McMahon is going to be on the road and going to the majority of TV tapings. If he’s in Evansville, Indiana sitting in Gorilla and arguing with people over minor details of a third hour promo on Raw, then we have big issues. If he’s going to have conversations with Triple H (which has been happening already) and he’s going to show up to some major shows here or there, then that’s a totally different story.
Was Raw Really As Bad As People Are Acting Like?
Fans are acting like this was the worst Raw After WrestleMania in the company’s history. If you listen to some of the naysayers online, they act like everything that happened was the exact opposite of what Triple would have done, but if you actually step back and think about what happened on the show, at least some of the larger beats seem like obvious choices any competent person would have made. Let’s just go down the list real quick.
Damian Priest chokeslammed Bad Bunny through a table, setting up a Rey & Bad Bunny vs Dominik & Damian Priest match at WrestleMania Backlash in Puerto Rico. Bianca Belair and Rhea Ripley teased a confrontation and possible belt unification match down the road. Brock Lesnar turned heel and attacked Cody Rhodes, setting up a new feud. Riddle returned and set up a future match with The Miz. Roman Reigns signaled he’s pissed at The Usos over their loss at ‘Mania but didn’t directly address it. Raquel and Liv beat Dakota and Iyo.
Clearly, the above was missing another big surprise or two since people expect that for Raw After WrestleMania. And clearly, there were a lot of problems on the periphery. The entire Seth Rollins segment was weird. There was no mention of why Bayley wasn’t with Damage CTRL. Omos got a lot of time in the first hour for such an important show. I’m not arguing it was a great show or even a good show. But I fail to see how it was some long-term disaster that made a bunch of mistakes we can’t come back from.
Where’s My Head Ultimately At?
If Vince is really back, my biggest concerns (from a non-culture/ workplace standpoint) are related to 1) talent relations and 2) long-term storytelling. McMahon has great, long-term relationships with some WWE wrestlers, but there are many others who clearly did not enjoy working for him, specifically the last minute creative changes that were allegedly common under his leadership. It’s obvious some of the talent has thrived with more time to prepare and the additional freedom they allegedly get during promos under Triple H.
As someone who works with creative types all day, I think it’s important that you create an atmosphere in which people have enough freedom to work on something they’re passionate about. It leads to better work in the long-run. Not surprisingly, Fightful Select reported several talent reached out after Vince's actions on Raw and at least one indicated they'd ask for their release if it continued.
The long-term storytelling has taken a noticeable step up under Triple H. That’s not to say WWE never told a long-term story before. They told plenty and some were pretty good (KofiMania, as a recent example), but there has never been anything in WWE like this Sami Zayn/ Bloodline stuff. We need more of that, not less. We need multi-layered and complicated characters who can connect in ways that make you feel something, and sometimes last minute changes ruin long-term storytelling because then the details don’t add up. That’s what took down the nWo.
But as of right now, I’m not entirely convinced McMahon is actually going to be this involved in creative long-term. I still think there’s a very strong chance that he was at Raw because it was right after WrestleMania. I have a hard time seeing, at 77, him traveling 250 days a year to do Raw and SmackDown. I think he trusts Triple H, and while he’ll have his say on some major points, I don’t think this is as much of a thing as people are thinking.
But we’ll see. Deep down, I’m not even sure Vince McMahon and Triple H know how the next six months are going to go. We’ll all just have to wait and see. Expect wrestling Twitter to be louder and more opinionated than ever.
