SUBSCRIBE TO partsFUNknown: https://bit.ly/2J2Hl6q
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/partsfunknown
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/partsfunknown/
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/partsfunknown
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/partsfunknown/
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 [SAD MUSIC]
00:02 [DOOR SLAMS]
00:04 [SCOFFS]
00:06 It all grew back, and that's the last word we'll hear on the subject.
00:09 So, let's be honest, this video is all about not what happens when Vince retires,
00:14 but when Vince...dies.
00:16 And Ollie didn't want to put that on a thumbnail.
00:18 Can't imagine why the idea of the death of an autocratic, ruthless head of programming in a suit would upset Mr Davis,
00:24 but there we go.
00:26 And the truth is, Vince is gonna die at the wheel, isn't he?
00:30 And if he does, what happens to his passengers?
00:33 I'm Adam Hailing from PartsFarKnown, and look, I don't want Vince to die.
00:37 He's one of mankind's most interesting thought experiments.
00:40 He probably won't, because he's one of those invincible Republicans who refuses to die
00:44 out of spite or fear of what children will do to statues.
00:47 Point is, even after that some good S-word,
00:50 after attempting to ban his independent contractors making money off Cameo in a pandemic,
00:56 after firing a vast swathe of talent during that pandemic when he didn't need to in order to bump a stock price,
01:03 after embedding himself with a murderous civil rights dodging regime,
01:07 after attempting to own his wrestlers' real names without giving them employment rights,
01:11 after making a very transparent bribe to Florida government
01:16 in order to keep wrestling classified as an essential business during, again, this pandemic,
01:22 thereby endangering everyone who works for him,
01:25 despite all of that, look how silly he is.
01:29 And then, you know, you remember your favorite wrestling moments,
01:33 and then you just sort of let it go.
01:36 We're in this abusive relationship with Vince McMahon's wrestling.
01:40 It forever lives on the knife edge of being unwatchable, but also unturned away,
01:47 unturned away a bullable.
01:50 There's a perverse fascination in watching the best wrestlers in the world
01:55 waddle around with their bums out at the behest of an insane dinosaur raisin in a suit
02:00 who looks like he's powered by random jolts of electricity, but also molasses.
02:05 You watch and you wonder, is this going to be one of the five times a year
02:10 that WWE books something so joyous and surprising
02:15 that it almost justifies wave after wave of bewildering choices?
02:20 Is tonight going to be the night where we have another Firefly Funhouse match?
02:24 Or is it going to be the night where we have another Triple H celebration on SmackDown?
02:28 You just never know. And isn't it exciting?
02:31 Now look, talking about Vince McMahon's pros and cons in this intro could go on forever,
02:38 but instead I'll direct you to watch Luke's "Is Vince McMahon Actually Good?" video
02:42 because it's a brilliant summation of the geriatric Terminator's highs and lows.
02:48 Seriously, it's ace. Watch it.
02:50 What I will say right now is that under Vince's leadership, the WWE product is stone cold.
02:58 Not him. Jon Moxley summarised it best when he said at the end of his Talk is Jericho interview,
03:04 "Your creative process sucks. Change it."
03:08 And Vince likely won't. He'll be tearing up the script to roar
03:12 and hiring TV writers instead of tenured bookers
03:16 and creating an atmosphere of stifled creativity and paranoia
03:21 and outmoded storytelling tropes that manages to dim even the brightest star.
03:26 That's unlikely to change because he changed the wrestling world.
03:31 He won the Monday Night Wars. Bravo.
03:34 He's making more money now than he ever has.
03:38 So, f*** it.
03:41 The product is probably too well known to ever die from a business sense,
03:47 but it is totally dead from a creative standpoint.
03:51 And realistically, under Vince's watch, there's only one great storyline left.
03:57 One storyline to pique every wrestling fan's curiosity,
04:02 no matter how sick of WWE's bulls*** they are.
04:05 One storyline with the potential to take wrestling back to that place in mainstream pop culture
04:11 where it becomes water cooler conversation,
04:14 maybe not permanently, but certainly for a spell.
04:18 And that storyline is what happens when Vince McMahon goes.
04:25 I mean, let's say retires.
04:27 Oli is very clear he wants this video to be about when Vince retires,
04:31 but he won't retire, but is a bit ghoulish.
04:34 So when he retires, but it's when Vince, you know, dies.
04:41 Which again, just want to point out, don't wish for.
04:44 No one should wish for the death of anyone.
04:46 But the point remains whenever and however Vince departs WWE,
04:51 that will be or has the potential to be the defining wrestling moment of its generation.
04:56 Again, it's an opportunity to bring back vast amounts of lapsed fans
05:02 and maybe, maybe even keep them.
05:06 It's an opportunity to present an idea of what WWE will become
05:11 and maybe even fix some of its most glaring problems.
05:17 So that being said, no pressure.
05:21 Let me have a go.
05:23 Yeah, it all grew back.
05:28 That's the last we'll say on the subject.
05:29 This is a tricky booking, not just because of taste issues,
05:33 although Vince has literally booked his own death before.
05:37 So I'm not hugely worried about offending the man.
05:39 Whenever Vince departs WWE, who knows when in the calendar year that will be.
05:44 So it's a little difficult to come up with a timeline.
05:47 So here's what I'm going to do.
05:49 This booking is basically going to be in two halves.
05:52 The first is going to be about the immediate fallout.
05:56 What WWE should do straight after it happens and how it changes the company,
06:01 including a lot of format changes the product has needed for a f***ing while.
06:06 And the second is the broad strokes of a storyline
06:09 that leads to the first post Vince McMahon WrestleMania.
06:14 So first of all, Vince is gone.
06:16 The first show after Vince goes opens with Stone Cold Steve Austin,
06:21 who cuts a promo that in terms of dialogue,
06:24 borrows from the one that Vince cut on him when he first left the company back in June 2002.
06:30 He said Vince is gone, but it's not quite good enough to keep up.
06:36 Vince is gone, but clearly the bastard will never, ever be forgotten.
06:40 Vince, to you, on behalf of the company that you helped build,
06:45 on behalf of every single fan that you helped entertain throughout the years,
06:50 all over the world, on behalf of us, Vince, I would like to simply say thank you.
06:56 Thank you. He cracks a single beer, leaves it in the middle of the ring, flips it off.
07:02 Why not? Same as that final beer that Vince left for him.
07:06 This is the other side of that coin.
07:08 The second player in the greatest wrestling rivalry of all time, echoing that last goodbye.
07:16 The rest of the show is going to be, I'm going to be honest, a clip show.
07:20 Vince's greatest moments and matches.
07:23 And you know what? There's a lot of them. Vince versus Steve Austin.
07:27 It's a Valentine's Day massacre. Vince versus Steve Austin on Raw.
07:30 Vince versus Triple H at Armageddon. Vince versus Shane. Vince versus Flair.
07:35 Vince versus Hogan. Vince versus Shawn Michaels. Not the God stuff.
07:39 You know, the match at WrestleMania. You get in-ring segments from Hogan, Rock,
07:44 Undertaker, Bret Hart, John Cena, Roman Reigns.
07:48 Throughout the show, you hype the main event segment. Triple H will be in the ring
07:53 and will address the future of WWE before every single commercial break.
07:58 Build to it through years and years of Vince.
08:02 Memories piling on top of memories throughout the years.
08:07 Basically a previously on WWE for all the fans who have left his company
08:13 from when he started in the 1980s through to now.
08:16 And then in the main event of the first post-Vince show, Triple H takes to the ring
08:20 with every single member of the WWE locker room present on the stage, leading down the ramp.
08:25 Triple H says, "Vince would hate this. For a man who, you know, walked like this,
08:31 he didn't want to be the story when it wasn't his time."
08:35 Well, it's his time now.
08:37 The McMahon family are taking time apart from WWE to be together,
08:42 but they thank everyone for their support.
08:44 But I do have a video message for the fans I'd like to play from Vince's son.
08:49 At which point on the TitanTron, you got a talking head from Hornswoggle
08:54 talking about how much he'll miss Vince.
08:56 Triple H says, "You at home may have hated that, but Vince would have loved it."
09:02 And in a way, that's why we're here today.
09:04 Vince had a certain way he wanted WWE to be.
09:07 A way that took WWE to being the industry leader, a global brand.
09:13 But also a way that over time has left people behind.
09:17 Vince was the chairman.
09:19 He earned the right for it to be his way or the highway.
09:22 But the boss is gone, and now we're going to do it my way.
09:27 As of now, I am the acting chairman of WWE.
09:33 Because you see, as much as it's tempting to just present the greatest hits of WWE and leave it there,
09:38 this shouldn't be a show just about the past.
09:40 This is a show about the future.
09:42 From this point forward, Triple H says,
09:45 Raw will be two hours in length.
09:48 The third hour of Raw will from now on be dedicated to replaying classic matches from Vince McMahon's WWE.
09:56 Secondly, from this point forward, the brand split is no longer in effect.
10:01 All superstars can feature on both Raw and SmackDown, and if they so choose, NXT.
10:07 What does that mean? For the championships, behind Triple H are two tables covered in black cloth.
10:12 He removes a cloth from one of the tables.
10:14 These are the titles that will now feature on NXT.
10:17 Men's NXT Championship, Women's NXT Championship, NXT Tag Championships, and North American Championship.
10:24 He takes the other cloth.
10:25 These belts will feature on Raw and SmackDown.
10:27 The Unified WWE Championship, the Unified WWE Women's Championship, the Intercontinental Championship,
10:34 Unified Tag Team Men's Championships, Unified Tag Team Women's Championships, and the Cruiserweight title.
10:40 And that's it. All other titles have been retired.
10:44 And one more thing. All of these titles are now vacant.
10:49 For each title, a tournament will be held, culminating at the next PPV, which will be a 10-match card, one match for each championship.
10:56 From now on, until the next PPV on Raw, SmackDown, NXT,
11:00 we will show you the single greatest wrestling roster on planet Earth, doing what they do best.
11:06 We will show you wrestling.
11:09 There are a lot of people who think that Vince McMahon was WWE, that when he left, WWE would crumble.
11:15 To them, I say, no chance in hell.
11:20 So let's unpack that.
11:22 First of all, Raw needs to be two hours long.
11:25 It bloody f***ing needs to.
11:27 Asking people to write a Lord of the Rings worth of wrestling every single week burns out writers, producers, and fans.
11:35 But the third hour makes money.
11:37 And you can't just magically make it disappear.
11:40 You know, TV contracts and all that.
11:41 So why not dedicate the third hour to classic WWE?
11:44 One of the good things that we got out of the pandemic is we got to see classic matchups again.
11:49 And you're just like, oh yeah, I remember that. That was good.
11:53 Take stuff that used to be on paper, you put it on TV.
11:56 I mean, who loves nostalgia more than wrestling fans?
11:59 And who's got a bigger nostalgic back catalogue than WWE?
12:03 Second of all, for anyone getting a New Blood Rising vibe from this book.
12:07 Now look, I get it, but this is WWE's hard reset.
12:11 It has to be.
12:12 Vince is gone.
12:13 WWE was Vince McMahon.
12:15 This is an opportunity to capture a bigger audience than it's seen in years.
12:19 So it makes the statement, goodbye Vince.
12:21 Look at all the stuff you remember.
12:23 It wasn't Vince, silly, but hello to the future.
12:26 To all of the new people watching, we are starting from now.
12:30 This is a new era and every single televised match from now on will matter.
12:36 You don't need to have seen anything before this.
12:38 We will tell you who these characters are.
12:40 We will tell you what these championships are.
12:42 We will tell you what these divisions are.
12:44 And I bloody love a tournament.
12:46 And the one thing we don't talk about really in terms of WWE is they are pretty bloody reliably great at booking tournaments.
12:53 The CWC, the Mae Young Classics.
12:56 I mean, one of their greatest pay-per-views ever, Survivor Series 1998,
13:00 is considered by some to be their best top to bottom booked show.
13:04 And it was just a long tournament.
13:06 Every match matters.
13:08 You can create unexpected stars.
13:10 It's the perfect birthing ground for new feuds because tensions are running so high.
13:15 The cost of failure is all-consuming rage.
13:18 You can pit brother against brother.
13:20 Blood feuds can be born out of jealousy and hatred and disappointment and hating yourself and taking out on someone else.
13:27 Also known as professional f***ing wrestling.
13:31 Also, WWE has up until now been so god damn wishy-washy when it comes to its divisions.
13:36 Cruiserweights do great on WWE but they get squashed on Raw.
13:40 The brand split is important except when it isn't or when there's a wild card rule or a shuffle or brands under siege.
13:47 And nobody cares.
13:49 We don't care about your red shirt versus your blue shirt.
13:52 We know it's all WWE.
13:54 What these tournaments do is say, "Here is your main event scene for the men and the women.
13:58 Here is your mid card. Here is your tag scene."
14:01 The women's tag titles are essentially the women's mid card.
14:04 "Here are your cruiserweights which should be on the main roster.
14:07 I know they will work better in front of a full-sale crowd.
14:11 But on the main roster, they'll actually be different.
14:14 There will actually be a cruiserweight division.
14:16 80% of NXT are cruiserweights."
14:18 It cements those divisions in the eyes of the fans.
14:21 And also, without the brand split, suddenly all the divisions look way more stacked.
14:26 Each of the singles tournaments has 16 competitors and each of the tag tournaments has 8 teams.
14:32 And you may struggle, yes, if you were to do it right now, to find enough teams to fill out a tag team tournament for the men and the women.
14:40 But just hire more tag teams and women WWE.
14:44 The matches get longer and better.
14:46 The closer you get to the pay-per-view where you have 10 titles, 10 matches,
14:50 which then sets up your top champions on both the main roster and NXT,
14:53 gives NXT a main bloody focus, gives each division its internal hierarchy, internal feud,
15:00 top contenders next in line for a title shot,
15:03 all rooted in a slightly more cohesive, understandable, sports-based logic.
15:09 Which is not to say you have to go completely dry and base it all around rankings.
15:13 You still get your betrayals, high drama, you still have monologuing villains,
15:17 you can still have sneak attacks, but it's all in the service of a grander story and we know where it's going.
15:23 We know it's all heading to the pay-per-view and this is what's at stake and this is what's driving people.
15:28 This is your motivation, point A to point B to point C booking.
15:31 And honestly, WWE desperately needs a clean slate like this.
15:36 Everything's just become so jumbled and confusing.
15:39 You can get crazy match-ups in this tournament like Rey Mysterio vs Dominik maybe if it just happens like that.
15:45 Maybe you bring back some old stars to draw more eyes and put over the younger talent.
15:50 You can call the pay-per-view WWE...uh...New Dawn or something less.
15:57 S***, I haven't prepared this, it's not on the teleprompter. F*** it.
16:01 New Dawn, let's make it sound like a Twilight novel.
16:04 Now, I don't know when Vince will go, I mean he probably won't.
16:08 Again, he's powered by sheer lunacy and those batteries don't run down.
16:11 But when it does happen, the winners of these tournaments should be a mix of drawing power,
16:16 but also reliability, but also creating new stars.
16:20 Now, I don't know when it's going to happen, but this would feel like a bit of a wishy-washy booking
16:23 if I didn't at least come up with some champions.
16:25 So, let's say Vince was to go tomorrow, here's how I would book those tournaments.
16:29 Panning out NXT Tag Team Champions go to Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch.
16:33 They deserve them.
16:35 North American Champion, Kushida, because he's bloody brilliant of course.
16:39 NXT Women's and Men's Champion, can just LeRae and Johnny Gargano do that whole power couple thing?
16:45 Cruiserweight Champion, either Cedric Alexander or, perhaps better, Ricochet.
16:51 Make him the center point of an electrifying division.
16:56 You have so many guys to make a proper prestigious division.
17:00 Tag Women's, you've got Naomi and Shayna Baszler.
17:04 I think they would be a really fun odd couple.
17:06 Tag Men's, Sami Zayn and Nakamura.
17:09 Intercontinental, Aleister Black.
17:11 Women's Champion, Asuka.
17:14 And WWE Champion, I would have the final be between Heel Roman Reigns and Cesaro.
17:21 And I would give it to Cesaro.
17:23 Now I understand that Heel Roman Reigns is probably a bit more of a reliable draw with the mainstream,
17:27 so you could give it to him, but Cesaro makes that statement.
17:31 It makes that statement of "This is a new dawn."
17:36 But like, the brass ring is gone.
17:39 Vince's way of looking at stuff is gone.
17:42 And we have new--this can be a literally new beginning for so many oft-overlooked stars.
17:48 That is the immediate fallout, what WWE does as soon as Vince goes.
17:54 This is the long-term storyline, which is between Triple H and Shane McMahon.
18:00 Because you have to. You have to do it.
18:03 It's a soap opera.
18:05 The story is, does WWE stay in the McMahons as a family company,
18:09 or does it for the first time ever pass into the control of someone who, yes, is also a ruthless businessman,
18:15 but is also directly responsible for what was, before its COVID era, the best wrestling promotion in the world, NXT.
18:22 That's my personal opinion. Don't come for me.
18:25 This story runs from Rumble right through until WrestleMania.
18:29 The night after the Rumble, on Raw, Shane McMahon returns and demands control of his father's company.
18:35 He has cajoled Linda into signing her shares over to him, which means he has 50% ownership,
18:41 same as Triple H and Steph's combined shares.
18:44 But he says, "Triple H is not a McMahon. He cannot marry the company out from under me.
18:52 This is a family company, the product of the American dream, not him."
18:56 Triple H humiliated and embarrassed me while he was taking time away from the company
19:01 by playing that video of Vince's son, and I refuse to be embarrassed.
19:06 I refuse to be embarrassed anymore.
19:11 Triple H tells him, "Shane, it's over.
19:14 While you were away creating Chinese streaming services or buying your 50th pair of f***ing sneakers,
19:22 I never left. Unlike Austin, unlike Cena, unlike The Rock, unlike Hogan,
19:30 unlike every single person that Vince made into a star, I didn't go off to a rival company.
19:35 I didn't go off to try my luck on TV or in the movies.
19:39 I stayed, and I proved myself with NXT, what I could do, my vision for wrestling,
19:46 while you were nowhere to be seen."
19:48 The two men agree to a match at Elimination Chamber. It's a street fight.
19:51 And this ends with both men doing a Shane McMahon style dive from some scaffolding,
19:56 and the match ending with both of them being wheeled out on separate stretchers
20:00 in front of their separate crying families. Delightful.
20:04 The feud then continues with both men agreeing to put their shares in the company,
20:09 on the line, winner take all, in a match at WrestleMania.
20:13 Whoever wins becomes the new chairman of WWE, but with one condition.
20:17 Stephanie is not prepared to watch her husband and brother kill themselves for this company.
20:22 She's watched enough McMahons bleed for WWE.
20:26 Steph only agrees to throw in her shares with Triple H.
20:28 If both men promise to not wrestle each other, instead they both must select a champion
20:33 to fight for them. They agree, which leads to Fastlane.
20:37 The big drawing point of that pay-per-view is that both men will sign the contract
20:41 and reveal their champions. Triple H's champion is Seth Rollins.
20:47 The man he selected to be the first NXT champion, the first champion of his baby.
20:52 The man he selected to be the next star from the shield.
20:55 The man who he pinned the entire company on when he was in the authority.
20:59 The man who helped kick Triple H's ass at WrestleMania.
21:03 The man who more than anything is the embodiment of this new era of work-rate wrestling.
21:07 Honestly, like, 2018, yeah, he got stale in 2019 with his Universal Champion run.
21:12 But in 2018, Seth Rollins was the f***ing man.
21:16 Every single match he had was the best match of the night.
21:19 Shane McMahon's champion is The Rock.
21:24 One of wrestling's biggest stars, one of Vince's greatest successes,
21:27 a huge name in pop culture, the biggest actor in the world,
21:30 both metaphorically and of course, literally.
21:33 But also the face of WWE's reliance on its past.
21:36 The face of movie stars coming in at the expense of young stars.
21:40 So yes, Seth Rollins vs. The Rock would be a huge draw for mainstream fans of WrestleMania,
21:44 but also this is a statement that's being made.
21:47 Now, originally, I was going to have this be The Undertaker,
21:50 because he's always been Vince's guy.
21:53 As a gimmick, he's the embodiment of WWE's past.
21:56 Even if fighting for the name McMahon might not be the best thing for the company to do,
22:00 you believe he would be honor-bound to do it.
22:02 But also, he's finally retired, let him be retired for f***'s sake.
22:07 Although this would also make a really good retirement match, wouldn't it?
22:11 Going out with Vince, sort of.
22:14 No, The Rock, let him be retired, I don't want to see the man die.
22:17 You can have it be The Undertaker if you think that makes more sense to you,
22:20 but I'm having it be The Rock.
22:21 Now, this is not explicitly heel vs. face.
22:24 Both men have legitimate reasons, kayfabe or otherwise, why they should run WWE,
22:29 but in the meta sense of, you know, who will actually make the company better,
22:32 Triple H is the face, because he created NXT, not Raw f***ing Underground.
22:37 Behold your legacy, Shane.
22:39 For the champions, it's face vs. face as well.
22:42 Seth Rollins becomes face for this, because, you know, he believes in what WWE could be.
22:47 He's been very vocal on how much he likes WWE on the Twitters.
22:51 The Rock is not going to turn heel.
22:53 The Rock agrees to fight for Shane because he doesn't owe Triple H a damn thing,
22:59 whereas he owes Vince McMahon everything.
23:02 At WrestleMania, Seth Rollins vs. The Rock, fans may be divided.
23:07 I mean, obviously they like The Rock, but, like, in terms of the future of the company,
23:11 I'm assuming they'll be on Seth's side, but you never know.
23:14 And actually, that is a good conversation to have.
23:18 It's a divisive conversation, because a lot of our cherished memories of WWE
23:22 are big, stupid, Vince-style wrestling.
23:26 Like, yeah, the hardcore contingent love the kind of work rate,
23:30 the exciting, pulse-pounding wrestling that, you know,
23:34 that Seth Rollins, you know, is sort of the architect for.
23:37 But also, we do miss those stars, when stars were huge stars.
23:43 Because of some cheating from Shane McMahon, it looks like The Rock is going to beat Seth,
23:48 the referee goes down, and The Rock turns around
23:52 into a stone-cold stunner from Steve Austin.
23:55 It's a little snapshot of The Rock vs. Austin at WrestleMania X-7,
24:01 the main event of WWE's masterpiece in the Vince McMahon era.
24:06 And of course, it's one last "f*** you" from Steve Austin to a McMahon.
24:12 Seth hits a stomp on The Rock, pins him, one, two, three,
24:15 Triple H becomes the chairman of WWE,
24:19 the new Dawn is here,
24:24 and Triple H takes a backseat role.
24:27 Like, he becomes William Regal in NXT, essentially.
24:30 Like, he's a face who comes out, settles disputes,
24:34 fans are generally happy to see him.
24:37 He can cut a promo whenever he needs to,
24:39 but generally, heel authority figures are done for a long time in WWE
24:45 because all of those authority figures, all those roads, lead back to Vince.
24:50 He was the one who perfected heel authority figures.
24:54 Everything after him has felt like someone just trying to recreate that Vince magic,
24:59 and Vince is gone.
25:01 And so, we have this new style, we have this new era,
25:06 two-hour Raw, third hour dedicated to the classic WWE,
25:11 so there is something for fans to remember.
25:14 Clearer divisions, hopefully new and fresher stars
25:18 arising out of these grand tournaments,
25:21 and more cohesive and understandable booking,
25:25 given that hard reset from when Vince finally departs.
25:31 And that is how I would book Vince McMahon essentially dying.
25:37 Not how I would book him actually dying.
25:40 No, that was terribly worded.
25:42 How I would book Vince, how I would book WWE reacting to Vince McMahon's death.
25:46 I'm not booking Vince dying in real life.
25:49 That's not, that, let's end this video.
25:52 Thank you for watching.
25:53 If you disagree on how I think WWE should handle sort of the changing of the guard,
25:58 what happens when Vince goes, let me know in the comments.
26:00 Don't forget to like, share this video around.
26:02 Tastefully, please, I'm really not looking to upset anyone with this one.
26:06 Please subscribe to Parts for Known.
26:08 We have lots of videos that aren't about real people dying,
26:13 like QuizzleMania, and also actually Good Explained, No Rules 5, loads and loads.
26:19 So, thank you very much for watching.
26:21 Please subscribe, and jam that jam.
26:25 It's all real.
26:27 I'm a natural blonde. Natural.
26:29 - Cool.
26:29 (sighs)
26:31 Yeah.