Not necessarily a question posed by a small portion of WWE's smaller-than-ever audience, but certainly one that ran through the heads of your author as a younger fan alongside any others that had no interest in Ice Hockey and/or came from a country where the sport barely registered.
The company were no strangers to narrow-mindedness in their characterisations during the company's nadir, but 1996 saw a sea change at large that left behind the exhausted gimmicks Vince McMahon and his inner circle were devising at the time.
The aforementioned ascent of Stone Cold Steve Austin was driven first by a profanity-laden promo of literally biblical proportions. The man that stared ice daggers down the lens as he talked about Jake Roberts' psalms and John 3:16s was no Chilly McFreeze. He was a real human being with - at that time, ostensibly ugly - real human traits, not a fake human being working a gimmick. Or, for that matter, a part-time job.
If newly-installed Vice President Of Talent Relations Jim Ross had helped furnish McMahon's roster with potential stars, The Chairman himself had to get out of his own head and book them better than the clowns, dentists and binmen that had come before. Gimmicks sold t-shirts but characters (particularly ones played by competent wrestlers) sold tickets. The company had been on thin ice for too long.
Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for 10 years. Alongside the production of daily written, audio and video content covering WWE and AEW, he also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years.
As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot on the UK's wrestling podcast charts with over 10,000 episodes and 70,000,000 total downloads. He also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House!, Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast, and has guested on long-running Sunderland AFC podcast Wise Men Say.
With WhatCulture, he has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. He has also been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana, 411Mania and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling.
Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in music and culture magazines The Crack, Pilot as well as Sunderland AFC's premiere fanzine A Love Supreme. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it every other Saturday at the Stadium Of Light, and at Cribs gigs nationwide.
