10 Worst Things To Ever Happen To Wrestling Creatively
6. General Managers
The authority figure trope worked because the overbearing corporate order was the perfect antagonist to get Steve Austin over as a hell-raising renegade.
After that, a pointless role - an offscreen figurehead or championship committee served wrestling perfectly well without exposition nor contrivance - became worse than formulaic. The idea of a suit telling the talent what to do and putting a stop to their lame, poorly-acted bickering - to set up a match tonight - gradually changed the image of the professional wrestler from outsize character to wooden machine cog. No wonder there was so little electricity in the post-Attitude Era.
Their very presence alerted you to the fact that this was all a sham. There would be no show without them; the talent, theoretically, would have prattled on all night, stuck for what the f*ck to do after 20 minutes.
Imagine, because it worked at WrestleMania III, Vince going back to André on pay-per-view after he'd strapped Randy Savage and the Ultimate Warrior. It would have stank worse than his legendary sh*ts, the stench of which accurately describes Constable Corbin.
The new alternative is just as bad...