PWP Nation’s Bruce Hart talks about what could have been with the Vincent J. McMahon Legacy of Excellence Award.
Greetings.
When the WWE announced a while back that it was introducing the annual Vincent J. McMahon Sr. Legacy of Excellence Award, to be presented at WrestleMania, I initially thought it was a great idea.
First off, Vince Sr. was, without question, one of the giants of our industry, having been the founder of the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF), which was the precursor to the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and the present World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and his roots in the business, along with his father Jess’s went back for close to a hundred years.
Not only was Vince Sr. a builder and visionary, but, by all accounts, he was a man of integrity and a true gentleman who treated the wrestlers extremely well and was also somebody who conscientiously endeavored to cast the wrestling business in a positive light.
As such, I figured the Vincent J. McMahon award would not only be a fitting way to honor him, but that it would also be a nice way to honor the potential recipients, most of whom, I assumed, had made monumental contributions to our business.
Initially, I wondered who they might choose to honor, because there’s been so many seemingly worthy candidates, including, among others: Pat Patterson, who was the WWF booker during the 1980’s and one of the integral players during the formative years of WrestleMania and the subsequent rise of the promotion. Sam Muchnick, the longtime president of the National Wrestling Alliance, during the so-called glory days of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s and one of the key players during the remarkable resurgence of pro wrestling in the 1950’s.
Toots Mondt who was one of the founding partners of the WWF and business associate of Vince Sr. and who played an integral role in the rise of the wrestling business, especially the New York promotion back in the day; or any number of other iconic promoters, such as my father, Minneapolis promoter and AWA founder Verne Gagne, former NWA promoter and subsequent major player in the WWF Jim Barnett, or others, such as Don Owen, Eddie Graham, Jim Crockett, Frank Tunney, Fritz Von Erich or Dory Funk Sr.
I also figured that there were any number of legendary wrestlers, past and present, who might be good candidates for the award, including: former WWWF champions, like Bruno Sammartino, Bob Backlund and Pedro Morales; iconic former NWA champions, such as Terry Funk and Dory Funk, Harley Race, Jack Briscoe or Lou Thesz; or any number of celebrated WWF/WWE superstars, such as Hulk Hogan, Shawn Michaels, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Mick Foley, recently retired Daniel Bryan, or perhaps one of my brothers, Bret or Owen, to mention just a few.
Having said that, I was confident that the Vincent J. McMahon Legacy of Excellence Award had the potential to become something really special – kind of like the Heisman Trophy in college football, or the Kennedy Centre honors. I also figured that since the annual WWE Hall of Fame inductions have generally been done in a very classy manner, this would be along those lines, but even bigger, better and more prestigious.
I originally understood that the winner of the award would be announced in conjunction with the Wrestlemania weekend in Dallas, much like the WWE Hall of Fame inductions, and was therefore somewhat surprised when the WWE instead announced a few weeks back that it would be making the presentation on RAW on February 22. I wasn’t sure why they didn’t just do it as part of the Wrestlemania/Hall of Fame weekend, which would have made sense, but regardless of that, I still figured that they’d do it tastefully and with due respect.
That, unfortunately, didn’t prove to be the case as, on Monday Night RAW the whole thing degenerated into an ill-conceived farce with WWE CEO Vince McMahon announcing that the award would be going to his daughter Stephanie McMahon, for no explicit reason. From what I hear, Stephanie’s actually a pretty nice person, but since she’s been cast as a spoiled, conniving, mean spirited rich bitch, with little or no redeeming moral qualities, none of beyond that, her body of work, in the ring and behind the scenes, has been relatively insignificant, certainly in comparison to the names I previously mentioned. None of that did much to legitimize the supposedly prestigious Vincent J. McMahon Legacy of Excellence Award, which, one would have thought, was the primary purpose of the whole charade.
Anyway, after Stephanie had been presented with the award, Shane McMahon, who’s been absent from the WWE scene for years, strode to the ring and launched into a diatribe, denouncing her as an unworthy candidate, which elicited a huge roar of approval from the crowd. At that point, while I thought the whole charade had been pretty convoluted and contrived, I, nonetheless, figured that perhaps Vince might salvage things by rescinding the award from Stephanie and perhaps announcing that it would be going to some more deserving recipient.
That didn’t prove to be the case though, as Vince, instead turned heel on Shane and and summarily informed him that he’d be having to wrestle the Undertaker at WrestleMania in a “Hell in a Cell” match, with the stipulation being that if he lost the match, he’d be disowned and lose his place in the company – none of which made any sense, given that both Shane and Taker are faces and that there’s no pre-existing heat or issues between them, that I know of.
Maybe I’m applying too much logic to the whole thing, but I can’t imagine other legendary promoters, like, say, Fritz Von Erich, Verne Gagne or Dory Funk Sr. endeavoring to have some vaunted monster, such as Abdullah the Butcher, King Curtis or Bruiser Brody destroy their own kids. I can only imagine if, back in the day when I was booking Stampede Wrestling, I had come up with something along those lines and was proposing to my dad that he order some diabolical ass-kicker, like the Stomper or Bad News Allen, to destroy my brothers, Owen or Bret.
One of the first things I learned when I became a booker was that no matter what storylines, finishes, angles or whatever you were endeavoring to orchestrate, the ends ultimately need to justify the means – or, putting it another way: whatever the hell you do, it should make sense and be for a discernible purpose.
In assessing that whole illicit charade last week on RAW, I have no idea what the hell the desired effect was and if you were to ask whomever concocted it, I doubt that they could give you a rational explanation, either. All it did was make a mockery of the Vince McMahon Sr. Award, insult the intelligence of the marks and invite more derision and ridicule upon our business.
Here’s hoping that the geniuses in Connecticut who are responsible for it can somehow unload it in a plausible manner, although I’m not holding my breath. We shall see.
On that note, I’ll call this a wrap for now, but will look forward to joining you all next week for more Hart Murmurs. In the meantime and in between time, take care.
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Also, you can listen to Bruce Hart’s radio show, “Hart Beat Radio,” on the PWP Nation Radio Network every Saturday afternoon, where he talks about the business today and interviews his famous friends like Terry Funk, Ric Flair, Bob Backlund and many others.