10 Times WWE Actually Admitted It Sucked
4. Why Did Ruthless Aggression Happen?
The function of a pro wrestling promotion is to effectively promote stars.
A pro wrestling promotion must be a failure - it must suck - if it fails to achieve this base remit.
In June of 2002, Vince McMahon, with Steve Austin pissed off and the Rock bound for Hollywood, strutted to the ring and admitted he didn't have any stars on the books. This was a strange admission of a promo that doubled as a b*llocking. He asked an entire ring of talent to show him "ruthless aggression" - "Who among you has that quality?" he pined - and their very positioning in the scene provided him the answer. They were, monopolised and marginalised, now part of a new system that punished them for showing ruthless aggression at 7:45PM, when Vince asked for it at 7:10 and had since changed his mind.
Vince was compelled to script this segment, and re-label a misfit generation of greenhorns and journeymen, because he'd monumentally botched the WCW Invasion angle.
This scene was the byproduct and tacit acknowledgement of it: This is a company with no true main event-level players, Vince effectively said, in a year in which he got even got Hulk Hogan wrong.
Perhaps I shouldn't have had 'Taker teabag DDP, he ruminated.