That Time Vince McMahon ACTUALLY Stopped Booking WWE

That the cool new league of 2020 is borrowing liberally from early to mid '80s Mid-South is evidence of its timeless genius. Its genius, not his; Watts lost his touch as the '80s receded, getting in the way of himself and the younger talent by 1992 in WCW, implementing draconian rules that felt removed from the pulse he was once in sync with. He left under a racism furore in 1993, and resurfaced in the World Wrestling Federation in 1995 as head booker. Per the October 9, 1995 Wrestling Observer Newsletter, a meeting was held prior to In Your House: Triple Header that Watts was to assume a level of creative control unprecedented before or since. In a fantastic time capsule of a paragraph, Meltzer wrote the following in the same issue, which in no small part was the motive behind the unthinkable:

"At the meeting, McMahon blasted WCW saying their (sic) going on Monday nights wasn't good business. He said they could have put their show on Wednesday or Thursday and had the night to themselves and said by going on Mondays, they showed that it's more important to them to hurt the Raw ratings then draw big numbers themselves which he called stupid business."

It was a necessary change.

The tremendous storyboarding of 1994 - and the overarching emphasis on the vibrant athleticism of the New Generation youth movement - A) didn't work and B) had plunged to hokey fare overwhelmed by a cast of goofy characters and headlined by the gigantic and not particularly dynamic Diesel and Mabel. Business was dire, buzz nonexistent. This was less bad, and more of a dangerous predicament for the WWF; the abject failure to create new superstars had been compounded by the rising tide down south.

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