10 Unthinkable Masterminds Behind Legendary Wrestling Ideas
1. Turns Out The WWE Creative Process Wasn't Always A Failure
The cynical - and all too often correct - take is that, for much of the 21st century, the WWE creative process was entirely dysfunctional.
The crux of it was as follows:
1) The wrestlers, the artists, had next to no input nor agency, particularly if they weren't top stars. Even then, the most protected talents had to wade through a lot of complete b*llocks.
2) An overstaffed crew of creative writers were responsible for generating ideas, and they were hacks imported from areas of "real" TV (at which they had failed) who learned quickly not to pitch anything that Vince McMahon wasn't predisposed to liking.
3) Vince would hack their work to death and rewrite thee show to his liking regardless.
So basically, the people who couldn't voice the ideas of talent (because they weren't the talent) were responsible for coming up with deliberately sh*tty ideas, that were rarely accepted, to protect the roles that the wrestlers had a better grasp of.
The process actually worked once to incredible effect.
The Money In The Bank ladder match was Chris Jericho's idea; he recognised that a lot of great upper midcard talents had nothing to do at WrestleMania 21, and suggested a singles variation of the tag team ladder wars beloved by fans. He took this to writer Brian Gewirtz, who came up with the stakes: the winner was entitled to a World title match over the next 365 days at their convenience.
Jericho and Gewirtz took the idea to Vince, who liked it but suggested a prop, because of course he did. This however made sense: the briefcase scanned as a prize worth holding, symbolising Edge's threat as the next man to break into the main event bracket.
When things happened the way they were meant to happen, great things happened.
Astonishing.