What does everybody want? What does everybody need? No folks, it’s not head (perverts), it’s the one, the only – Stephanie McMahon! Those of you who have been longtime readers of my stuff will know that I am a huge anti-internet “journalist” advocate. To be quite frank, I can’t stand 90% of the internet journalists for too many reasons to list here. Of those reasons, the two that I will tap for this article are the fact that they truly believe that they could be better bookers than the ones that the WWE currently has and the fact that the internet wrestling community doesn’t seem to want to admit that it is a land of FANS, not wrestling insiders.
So let’s start putting it all together. The internet journalists bitched and moaned forever that Stephanie was the worst part of every show that she was on…her screeching voice, her annoying demeanor, her bitchy attitude – these all added to the complaints. There were other issues such as the fact that Stephanie was a terrible dramatic actress on screen that added to the internet’s revolt of her. And, as is tried and true in the land of internet wrestling, enough bitching and moaning was done to make the WWE do something about it. After a good year of complaining kiddies on the internet, the WWE decided that their head booker, Stephanie McMahon, should lose a “Loser Leaves Town” match and thus bring joy and merriment back to the WWE.
Want to know the HONEST results of this removal? Well, as soon as she was gone, ratings dropped (even with Triple H as champion again), the storylines started to become less intriguing, and revenue dropped. Is this all attributed to Stephanie’s leaving? Of course not, but anyone who says that her loss on screen played no part in the downturn is out of their minds. This situation shows the fickle nature of Vince McMahon yet again…he tends to ultimately cave in to what the internet says (about 80% of the time). The big, bad, smart, better-than-thou internet community called for her removal for a long period of time and the WWE gave in. Why would the WWE pull their most hated antagonist off of their television programming? You got me on that one…
I used to LOVE watching Stephanie on screen! She was the bitch that took the place of every evil female valet in the past 10 years. She was a diabolical pain in the ass that added the ultimate hate to WWE’s variety shows called RAW and Smackdown! No one will admit that Stephanie played an integral part in the WWE before she took her leave of absence, but then again, those who won’t admit it are most likely the ones who fought for it and had to stick their tails between their legs when she came back to run Smackdown!
So there you see the reason why I can’t stand internet journalists who think that they are better bookers than what the WWE has…and you can also see why the internet community is a land of FANS and NOT insiders. I am self-admittedly a FAN of wrestling. Sure, I know a few independent wrestlers (some who used to be in the WWF, WCW, and ECW) and yeah, I might BS with them about wrestling whenever I get a chance to see them, but that does NOT make me an insider! There are kiddies out there on the internet who take themselves too seriously…but I digress.
Why do I like Stephanie McMahon? It’s simple really. As a fan of sports entertainment or wrestling or whatever you want to call it, I like to see a balanced card. Stephanie brought both the female valet back to the main event level (not as a wrestler, but an entertainer) and at the same time she did it so forcefully that she could really be seen as a mega-heel. The last woman to honestly achieve this level of hatred doing what Stephanie was doing (you know who) was the Sensational Sherri Martel. Those of you who remember vintage Sherri remember the screeching, the facial expressions, the underhandedness, the deception – she was the quintessential evil valet. Before her was Woman (Nancy Sullivan) and there were a few before her, but in today’s wrestling market – Stephanie is IT.
One of the reasons why I think that Stephanie had a backlash from her performance is the fan base. A lot of the fans that cried for her to go are fans that were slowly moving away from the WWE as the Attitude era began to crumble a few months ago (why will no one admit that yet). With the fall of what the WWE held true for over 5 years and rode into its highest success ever, fans that jumped on the bandwagon during this time began to moan and bitch about what they wanted to see…and Stephanie wasn’t it. Did she mess-up her role? No. Did she piss the wrong people off? Well, since she is part of the wrong people to piss off, that would be kind of hard to do.
Stephanie was simply a casualty of the changing tides in the wrestling business, but being the great performer that she is, she is enduring into the “Ruthless Aggression” era and doing a DAMN fine job at her role. Anyone who would openly and continually complain about her current performance as the General Manager of Smackdown should have left the ranks of WWE fan back with the removal of Stone Cold (on his own insistence). This is NOT the Attitude era and it’s not the Showtime era by any means…it’s a time of ruthless aggression and Stephanie plays that role VERY well.
As always, feedback is welcome, but I prefer it to be legible and coherent. Thanks.
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