The Secret Ugly Truth Of Wrestling Bookers
Triple H has entered his second booking peak. His WWE can scan to some as dry and plodding, but it is universal. He doesn't chase trends. There's a timeless quality to his booking style that can't really age. Long, long title reigns. Unconquerable heels challenged by undeniable babyfaces. That's the Triple H model. If you're in fashion, to paraphrase Ralph Lauren, you're going to one day be out of it - so Triple H is defiantly basic. Is this a savvy ploy at enduring success on Levesque's part? Or is he holding onto the Bloodline saga and the GUNTHER Intercontinental title reign to prolong the inevitable?
If he fails, and this is something interesting to think about, what then? The creative process of a major wrestling outfit might change drastically. Every promotion has and will experience a downturn in fortunes.
WWE will hardly scout the indies for the next great booking mind. The North American independents are completely screwed, for a start, but that isn't how TKO will do business. It's a new world. Vince McMahon is gone and in 40 years only fired himself from the position of head booker for a couple of weeks in 1995. The weeds called for him after Bill Watts had penned one block taping of Monday Night Raw. Vince never did that again (even if he pretended to do that in 2019).
Vince owned the company; Paul Levesque does not. There are no familial, personal nor sentimental ties between Levesque and Endeavor CEO Ari Emmanuel. Levesque is just a person doing his job and doing it well. For now. If he fails - and isn't implicated as having intimate knowledge of his friend, father-in-law and mentor's vile sexual misconduct - it won't matter how much WWE fans once enjoyed his caustic wit or emulated brawls. 'Papa H' will be done.
What would Endeavor do if or when this happens?
It's far more likely that they'll emulate the TV writing room model with a showrunner, and not a head booker, in place. This is closer to how it works now - the writers have actual long-term input and don't just write to Vince's whims in fear of him blowing a gasket - but without Levesque in place, in this hypothetical scenario, the WWE creative process might look similar to Arrow, or another action-adventure series, led for the first time by somebody whose primary interest was never pro wrestling. The very word "booker" might fall out of the lexicon entirely.
The wider point made here is true of virtually every creator; it's just accelerated within wrestling because it never ends.
The only solution is impossible. Wrestling is only paid-slash-tolerated by the TV industry because it never ends. Advertisers look past the general stigma, wrestling's lowbrow perception amongst the public, because it is a weekly money-spinner. Booking is a constant exercise in plate-spinning, and the plates will always break. The mythical off-season is the only means by which the booker can avoid burn-out.
The mythical off-season is a luxury wrestling will never be granted.
Every pro wrestling booker is fated to fail.