10 Biggest Promotion Killers In Wrestling History
1. Stephanie McMahon
WWE is in no danger of going out of business.
The Network's subscriber count is good, not great. Ratings have dwindled exponentially in recent years - but, with the exception of some scary weeks, the needle rarely dips below the high twos. House show attendance wavers, but is in a state of reasonable health. But, the revenue stream has never been more diverse. Merchandise flies out of warehouses. And, crucially, they dominate the market share to an immovable extent.
If WWE does go out of business, however, Stephanie McMahon will be primarily responsible.
Under her creative regime, from 2002 onwards, ingenuity - that other lifeblood of the wrestling business - has been outlawed. It was she who employed and continues to employ a team of writers. That they weren't good enough to make it in "proper" television says it all. Failures who fail to grasp the intricacies of the wrestling business may spell its end altogether. If Steve Austin was coming up today, some hack would have him call Kevin Owens "tater tots".
Everything goes through Vince, but Stephanie's modernisation programme has created so few genuine stars that WWE has had to rely on those he created - Brock Lesnar, The Undertaker, Triple H - to prop it up on a part-time basis each April. Surely, there's a lesson there...