12 WWE Booking Mistakes Vince McMahon Made Personally

Crazy ideas he was determined would work.

Vince McMahon is the creative genius behind Wrestlemania. However, regarding other things that Vince is the "creative genius" behind, that's actually an incredibly small number of things for which he is deemed almost solely responsible. Yes, outside of wrestling there's things like the XFL that get bandied about as key McMahon mistakes. However, when it comes to WWE, outside of Wrestlemania, Vince has absolutely had more epic moments of complete failure than successes. In the current era, much ado is made over Vince being "an out-of-touch 70 year-old man." However, when Vince was a 50 year-old man and 60-year old man he was as much (or even more) out of touch than he is now, with a series of creative decisions made exclusively by him that leave much to be desired in terms of actual success. Of the literal thousands of creative decisions that Vince McMahon has personally made in his 30-plus years as WWE Chairman, there are certainly more than 12 of them that were incredibly bad. But these were the absolute worst...

12. Fandango

Curtis Hussey was signed to WWE in 2006, and though a talented performer, languished in developmental for seven years while numerous other performers passed him by. However, it was none other than Vince McMahon who saw the wrestler then named Johnny Curtis and thought..."male ballroom dancer," and what followed was the debut of Fandango. Though what we know now of Curtis are fans everywhere throwing fingers in the sky and dancing around, back in 2013 he had an entrance that was more grandiose than the original concept of MVP as a pro football superstar. From a shower of golden pyro to separate entrance staging, to doing the a tango-style step with a professional dancer, it was certainly unique. Fandango feuded with a returning Chris Jericho into Wrestlemania 29, and in defeating him and getting a bigger push, actually saw Fandango's popularity grow with fans, but for humming and purchasing his catchy entrance theme and for very little regarding Curtis' in-ring abilities. Since his initial boom, Fandango's settled into the "win/loss/win/loss" sea of midcard mediocrity and not been the massive heat garnering heel that McMahon originally expected Fandango to become.
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Contributor

Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.