Vince McMahon's Greatest Mistakes

There are many who believe that Vince McMahon is a genius. Becoming a multi-millionaire has to involve some sort of genius, correct? Running a hugely successful business that earns billions has to take some genius, right? Of course. Vince's business sense allows him to partner up with the right people, make solid decisions with investments(usually), and keep WWE as a global juggernaut. In that regard, Vince McMahon is very much a business genius(XFL notwithstanding). However, he approves a lot of the creative decisions that goes on WWE TV, comes up with his own ideas, and more often than not, they turn out horribly. Today, we take a look at Vince's worst creative decisions and why they were so bad. Let us begin...

*Vince wins the WWF Title
-Why? Just why? In September 1999, Vince was in the middle of his apparent face turn, just months after being revealed as the "Higher Power" in the Corporate Ministry. 1999 was a clusterfuck of a year in WWF, but this was the icing on the cake. Vince, caught in a feud with Triple H(while he was feuding with Stone Cold Steve Austin) took a match for the WWF Championship on an episode of Smackdown and proceeded to get his ass kicked all over the ring. As Triple H was nearing a victory, Austin interferes and laid him out with a stunner, causing Vince to get the win and become the new champion. The ridiculousness of the Attitude Era made this occurrence much more believable, but in essence, this was a completely stupid move. I believe this was done to push Smackdown's ratings higher, by featuring a title change on the show(it had just recently debuted), but why not have The Rock or Mankind win the belt instead? Triple H ended up getting the title back in a 6-pack challenge a week or so later after Vince vacated the title, making this whole thing even more useless. Surely, Vince would never allow himself to win a title again, right????

*Durag Chronicles as the ECW Champion

-2007 was a dark year for WWE. Benoit controversy put a damper on the entire year, along with The Great Khali as World Heavyweight Champion stifling business, but the ultimate worst had to be Vince McMahon as ECW Champion for two months. Reeling from having his head shaved after losing the ridiculous Battle of The Billionaires battle, Vince would not let his bald head be shown on TV. How did he cover his head? By using a good ol durag. Yes, a durag. Vince let his cape fly high in his feud against Bobby Lashley, resulting in hilariously terrible television. At Backlash 2007, Vince won the ECW Title(in an attempt to get a suffering ECW brand some more press and attention I imagine) and things proceeded to go downhill from there. Lashley as ECW Champion was already a disaster, but having Vince go over and win the title was even worse. ECW, after being rooted in the summer of 2006 as an alternative brand to RAW and Smackdown, never got off the ground truly and this only furthered the descent into the abyss. Which leads me to my next point...

*Vince Kills ECW
-As I just mentioned, ECW was now a third brand in WWE, and it got off to a terrible start. Characters like Kevin Thorn, The Zombie(RIP) and etc were given TV time(Not much, but enjoy to know this was going to be terrible) and essentially made a joke out of the ECW name. There was a lot of money in an ECW resurgence, with the right push, the right stars, the right balance of up and comers and known names. However, we got none of this, as Big Show was made the ECW Champion for months, for no good reason whatsoever. That reeked of a Vince decision. One man was gaining a lot of popularity in ECW, and that man was CM Punk. Paul Heyman had a vision to center the new ECW around CM Punk and with his popularity on the rise, that didn't seem like a bad idea at all. As December to Dismember approached in 2006, there was an Elimination Chamber match set with Heyman wanting Punk to eliminate Big Show early on and going on to win the belt to the delight of the crowd. Anybody with half a brain could see that Punk winning was the best option easily, right? Not Vince McMahon. He somehow believed that Lashley winning and becoming ECW Champion with a huge celebration was the best way to go, and Punk was eliminated very early on, to the anger of the crowd. The crowd also turned on the finish as Big Show vs Lashley was a match and feud that no one wanted to see. Vince blamed it all on Heyman somehow, and Heyman left the company, but the blame belongs on the man who made the idiotic decision: Vince himself. After that, ECW never really recovered, and I always felt like that somehow made Vince happy.

*Donald Trump Buys RAW
-2009 was a weird year. I'm not going to say too much on this one, but lord knows this was stupid. Somehow, Trump ends up buying RAW from Vince and making RAW commercial free the following week. How did that sale happen? Why did it happen? Storyline wise it made no sense and Vince ended up "buying RAW back", which left most of us just wondering.... Why???

*Mabel Wins King Of The Ring 1995
-Vince has always had a weird fascination with big men wrestlers, but even this one is confusing. Mabel(RIP), was formerly in the Men On A Mission stable/team and was seen more of a joke than a serious contender. He was not over with the crowd hugely, and his heel turn was quite boring. So, it was with great shock that WWF booked him to win the King Of The Ring and go on to main event against Diesel at Summerslam, one of the big 4 PPVs of the year. Business was terrible in 1995 for WWF and I imagine Mabel's push helped it get even worse... Speaking of which....

*Diesel holds WWF Title For A Year
-Kevin Nash has pretty good mic skills when he wants and can even be charismatic. Diesel, however? Bland as hell. So, it was pretty mind boggling that Vince wanted to give Diesel the WWF Title for a year long reign. I had envisioned that we'd see Diesel take on guys like Owen Hart, Shawn Michaels(he did), Bret Hart(he did), Razor Ramon, Jeff Jarrett and a few other solid workers in his big feuds to cover up the fact that he wasn't really good in the ring. Diesel's title run started with an 8 second squash on Bob Backlund(let the forcing of Diesel begin), and continued with a match against Bret at the Royal Rumble. It then continued with his match against Shawn at Wrestlemania 11. So far, so good right? Well, after Wrestlemania 11, we saw Diesel do shitty business against Sycho Sid, Bam Bam Bigelow, Tatanka, King Kong Bundy, Mabel(as previously mentioned), and a fucking pirate gimmick named Jean Pierre Lafitte. How was any money supposed to be drawn with these matches?? Diesel's title run is one of the worst in history and the numbers reflected that as well.

*The Nexus Lose At Summerslam 2010
-This is more of a Cena decision than Vince decision, but Vince is the man who approves what happens, so this is definitely his fault as well. The Nexus were taking out legends, making a name for themselves and there was excitement about the Nexus vs WWE stars elimination match, and the consensus was that Nexus had to win to legitimize them and make the storyline even bigger. Edge, Jericho and the rest of the stars seemed onboard with losing to Nexus, but Cena selfishly refused and Vince went right along with that plan. With that loss, Super Cena and Vince killed the whole Nexus storyline and momentum, wasting what could have been big money on the table.

*The Great Khali As World Heavyweight Champion 

-I mentioned this earlier.... And yeah.... What the hell? It seemed like 2007 was a very rough year creatively for WWE because this was a terrible idea. To make matters even worse? We were treated to a Batista vs Kane vs Khali match and a Khali vs Batista feud..... Thanks, Vincent. Speaking of 2007....

*Hornswoogle is Vince's son
-Are you fucking kidding me? Seriously. Are you fucking kidding me? The storyline, which was stupid to begin with, was intended to be Mr. Kennedy's push to the main event, but after he was suspended for 30 days, WWE had to go a different route. So, somewhere, in the plans for changing the storyline, the answer became Hornswoggle as Vince's illegitimate son, and Vince approved it. I know 2007 was a tough year, but good lord. What the hell were you thinking, Vincent Kennedy McMahon?

*Katie Vick

-Why Vince let this happen, I'll never know. I'm sure he found it funny, but its one of the worst things ever on WWE TV. The less said about this, the better.

*The Invasion Storyline
-I'll end off with this one, though there are so many, many, many, more I could reference. This was money in the bank just waiting to be withdrawn. The long awaited WCW vs WWF Battle. The big battle to settle all the scores. Vince had bought WCW and ECW, and instead of buying it and considering it buried, he used it in his storyline against Shane leading up to Wrestlemania X-7, as Shane revealed he bought WCW from his father. This was not terrible, as Vince could have used this angle to have Shane eventually give the rights to the company(storyline wise) over to Eric Bischoff, as he brings in the NWO to help WCW get rid of WWF, once and for all. WCW with Shane behind them, led by Bischoff, with Hogan, Nash, Hall, X-Pac, The Giant(Big Show turns on WWF), DDP, Booker T versus Austin, Rock, Taker, Angle, Jericho, Kane, and HHH would have been complete money. All Vince had to do was let the angle rest for 6 months and do it in 2002, as opposed to rushing it in the summer of 2001. What followed was WCW/ECW combining with Shane and Stephanie at the helm(over Heyman for some reason) to take out WWF. Somewhere in all this, it went from WCW vs WWF to WCW and ECW forming an alliance to take out WWF, and having Austin jump ship to the alliance(why??). The angle lasted a total of 5 months, completely wasting potential, money, and a long term storyline that could have added pieces as it went along. Say WCW was losing their upper hand in the battle against WWF in 2002 and Scott Steiner made his return to help them. Or even Goldberg appearing during a WCW vs WWF brawl to the shock of the crowd and spearing HHH and Undertaker out of their boots. There was so much that could have been done, but of course, Vince McMahon, his ego, and lack of creative genius cost the WWF/WWE big time.

While Vince's stupid decisions have led WWE to miss out on great moments and money, they have inspired my next column, as I will rebook the Invasion storyline in detail with how it should have happened piece by piece. Until next time..

-True