The Secret Ugly Truth Of Wrestling Bookers
Bill Watts is often used as the most pre-eminent example. The man whose Mid-South Wrestling (alongside World Class Championship Wrestling) pioneered the format and artistry of episodic wrestling TV was "washed" by the time he arrived in WCW in 1992. His antiquated approach to in-ring discipline quite literally clipped the wings of the high-flyers of the day. The man who booked the legendary "pressure bandage" episode of Mid-South Wrestling - the sight of blood loss has not felt more distressing since - wasn't made for the '90s.
Vince McMahon underscored this truism at least three times. His early '90s output was an absurd cartoon. His living action figures had long masqueraded as real people, but he took it to an extreme with the occupational gimmick. Then, after the Attitude Era ceased to be commercially successful, he produced yet more rancid material - sexual assault, mock-necrophilia, and, Jesus Christ, the trafficking of Stephanie McMahon - in a desperate bid to stay at the party. Then, when he reverted to the Hulk Hogan formula with John Cena - successfully - his next idea was to revert to the John Cena formula with Roman Reigns.
Vince Russo is the most extreme example. He had one philosophy: a swerve-happy hatred of in-ring wrestling that made no sense and was every kind of ugly, into which you were meant to be drawn by the insane pace and soapy shock value. It worked for two years. He, contributing to the slow agonising death of two companies, repeated the same insanity for almost two decades. Not to call the guy thick, but he's the antithesis of Albert Einstein.
Antonio Inoki was, in a very warped way, not too dissimilar to the two dumb Vinces. He had his own idea of what worked and tanked his promotion, NJPW, by taking it to a level of on-the-nose parody. He valued legitimacy above all else; this reached an unfathomable nadir when, in the Inokism era of the 2000s, he positioned his workers to get the hell kicked out of them in real fights by shoot mixed martial-arts killers. His inflexible value system almost destroyed NJPW in much the same way as Russo's one trick almost killed TNA. Now of course, Inoki was a vastly better booker than Russo ever was - but that underscores the wider point. It doesn't matter how good a wrestling booker is. All will fail irrespective of their success at some point or another. Most do exceptionally well to get to the five-year mark.
The wrestling booker has a finite amount of ideas with an infinite number of shows on which to apply them, and they can only do so much with the medium itself.
There is nothing better than pro wrestling when it's done well, to quote Bryan Danielson, but there are only so many ways to tell a pro wrestling story. Personal grudges and high-stakes sporting competition: the best stories are rooted in those concepts. The more ambitious a wrestling story gets, unless it's handled brilliantly (a rarity), the worse and more convoluted it gets. Consider the much-maligned end to MJF's AEW World title reign. MJF and Tony Khan opted for the core premise of betrayal, when plotting out the MJF Vs. Adam Cole saga of 2023, but made the fatal error of dressing it up with the mystery angle (which, outside of the Dark Order Exalted One reveal, has a 0% success rate). AEW over-thought the story. Cole hid in plain sight as the Devil by...pretending to fall out with Roderick Strong by making his coffee too hot.
CONT'D...(2 of 5)