Views From The Turnbuckle: Triple H And Vince's Excellent Adventure

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With Triple H seeming to consolidate more and more power within WWE, a debate has popped up amongst wrestling fans. The debate is multi-faceted, and really there is no right or wrong answer. With WWE churning out a frequently criticized product, many fans have become to question the management of the company. The most popular narrative is that Vincent Kennedy McMahon, conqueror of the wrestling world and the driving force behind one of the world's most successful entertainment companies, has lost his fastball and no longer has a great connection with his audience. On the other hand, Triple H, who clearly is going to be the heir apparent to Vince, along with his wife and Vince's daughter, Stephanie McMahon, has built up a sizeable reputation as someone who "gets it" and if it were not for Vince always getting in the way, WWE would be turning out a grand product that would be selling like hotcakes.

We are supposed to be talking about Triple H, but it is impossible to talk about HHH and his management potential without also talking about Vince. According to news stories that pop up seemingly every day, there is a rift within WWE, with many talent concerned that Vince is "losing it" and that many the segments and booking decisions that fail should be accredited to him. If you took everything at face value, you would figure that at this point, Vince is a raving lunatic, unable to tie his own shoelaces, let alone produce a product that entertains the masses. These reports are done very hush-hush, with mostly anonymous sources and few sources actually going on the record. In Vince's defense, several performers have had nothing but kind things to say about him. In Chris Jericho's most recent book, he states that Vince has been the best boss he has ever had and that he couldn't imagine ever working for anybody else. Jericho has a reputation as being one of the most honest performers out there, and in his book he discusses having very heated interactions with Vince, yet he still respects him immensely as a boss.

Building onto the narrative, some fans and even some of these anonymous backstage sources have implied that if Vince was out of the way, Triple H would be producing a much better show. But if Vince McMahon were to step down tomorrow and go into a secluded retirement, would the product really change that much? Vince clearly has a ton of faith in Triple H, and would he have that much faith in a guy who felt significantly different than him about the product? Triple H has been a member of the WWE for two decades, when he was 25 years old. Everything he has learned during that time period has been influenced by Vince to some extent. When Vince finally hands over the reins for good, it would be improper to suspect a revolution of the product.

Since each segment or match on in WWE doesn't feature a credits roll, it is pretty much impossible for the fan to know who was in charge of producing/writing it. We simply don't know if Vince, Triple H, or another person was responsible for a certain segment, making it impossible to properly attribute an individual with producing good/bad segments. There can be backstage rumblings of so-and-so dropping the ball and whatnot, but the truth is that unless you were directly in the trenches during the development of the ideas, everything has to be taken with a grain of salt.

What we can at least reasonably attribute to Vince and/or Triple H is the segments that they personally appear on. It is probably safe to say that Triple H has a tremendous influence on The Authority angle and everything that has transpired with it. So looking at that as Triple H's real litmus test for what it would be like if he was running the whole shebang, he isn't necessarily setting the world on fire. The Authority angle has been dragged out much too long in most fans eyes, and it has become somewhat of a running joke amongst hardcore fans that every Raw has to begin with a 20 minute promo by Triple H and Stephanie. For someone who is frequently accredited with having a more traditional, old-school philosophy for booking, HHH has done an awful lot of talking over the past year and a half. Obviously, it is unrealistic to expect HHH to wrestle 150 times a year, and the primary focus of his role is going to be cutting promos, but still, The Authority has spent a lot of time talking on WWE programming, most of the time wind-bagging along with promos that don't say much and typically end up making matches that fans have already seen before, or are uninterested in. If The Authority is WWE pulling up the shade on the creative future of WWE, the view isn't exactly beautiful right now.

While The Authority has left a lot to be desired, something that Triple H has unquestionably succeeded in is NXT. While Vince has had his hands on everything in WWE in one way or another, it is widely believed that Triple H has been flying solo with NXT for the most part. NXT has been the diamond in the rough for WWE from a quality standpoint, the show routinely features better matches than what Raw and Smackdown typically showcase, and the promotion has been met with a lot of critical acclaim. With NXT being HHH's pet project, a lot of fan have used it as an example as too why a future without Vince is highly desirable.

While Triple H's influence has certainly been extremely important in the success of NXT, there are many other factors at play that make NXT so enjoyable. Every talent on the show is motivated to become better, hence why they are in development in the first place. Nobody is complacent to coast off of their spot on the card, because everyone is looking up at the big show. Because all of the talent is young and mostly new to WWE, there is far less politics and in-fighting backstage, making booking much easier. When guys reach the top of NXT, they move up to the big time and they are replaced by new stars. In WWE, when someone reaches the top, they stay there for the next decade. There is nowhere else to go, and because there is only so much room at the peak, the same guys get oversaturated and become stale. Lastly, and probably most importantly, NXT only has one hour a week to fill on TV. This is drastically different than WWE, which has a 3 hour flagship show, another 2 hour B show, and 2 supplemental shows, each an hour long. There is simply no time for 20 minute promos or goofy gimmicks. The talent has to come to show prepared to work in the most concise way possible. They have to come out, make their point, and get out of the way for the next segment. It keeps things from getting stale and it also keeps creative relaxed.

So what is WWE going to be like when Vince steps down? The answer is that we don't really know, and we won't until it actually happens. While there are certainly some positive indicators so far from what we can gauge from Triple H, it is very important fans do not forget what WWE is and its history. WWE is never going to look like anything else except for WWE, which is both a blessing and a curse.