Opinion by Da-Met

“Let me introduce to you… the new co-General Manager of RAW… Stone Cold Steve Austin!”

With those words, thousands of fans jumped to their feet to welcome the return of Stone Cold BAH GAWD ITS STONE COLD Steve Austin! And with that, last night’s RAW went off the air with a new General Manager… excuse me, a new co-General Manager… there’s two General Managers of RAW now.

Watching that, I couldn’t help but have the nagging feeling that… maybe… possibly… I’ve seen something like this before. It was the damnedest thing in the world, just a vague feeling of déjà vu.

I mean, this whole idea of an owner of some kind in a position of power… feuding with wrestlers making decisions… haven’t I seen this before? I just couldn’t place my finger on it… but after a little bit of thought, I realized, by golly, yes I have seen something like this before.

I’d seen it 15 times before…

1) Vince McMahon as the evil owner of the World Wrestling Federation
It all began with the real-life screwjob of Bret Hart in November of 1997, which turned a number of fans against Vince McMahon. From that point on it was very natural to slide Vince into the heel position as the evil owner that everybody hated, a variation on the WCW idea of Bischoff joining the nWo. At the time it was a brilliant idea that put Steve Austin over the top as a face. Five years later, dear god, we’re still living with the same storyline.

2) Shawn Michaels as the commissioner of the WWF
Here we go again. This time Vince appointed Shawn Michaels as his evil commissioner, to carry out his deeds and give orders. Eventually Shawn turned face and became a good guy commissioner, with his ever-present clipboard, making matches.

3) Shane and Vince as feuding co-owners
During Vince McMahon’s “face turn” in 1999, Shane McMahon became the heel and the two of them all of a sudden had owner powers and were feuding, such as how both Shane and Vince appointed themselves referees in the Austin v Undertaker match at Over the Edge 99 (RIP Owen).

4) Austin and Vince as co-owners of the WWF
Afterwards, the whole tired owner storyline took ANOTHER turn, when Stephanie and Linda both sold their shares in the WWF to Steve Austin. So now Stone Cold was co-owner of the WWF with his hated enemy Vince McMahon. GEE I WONDER WHY I WAS HAVING SUCH DÉJÀ VU watching RAW!

5) Linda McMahon as the CEO
So apparently, even without her share, which she sold to Austin, who eventually lost it back to Vince via a magical raising briefcase (confused yet), she is still the CEO of the WWF, and constantly popped in during 99 and in brief appearances throughout the last few years, including last night, to make big decisions. More on this in a bit.

6) The McMahon-Helmsley Regime
In late 99, Triple H and Stephanie McMahon got married in the storylines (soon to become a reality) and took control of the WWF. For the first few months of 2000, these two have an evil reign of terror. Yes kids, it was ANOTHER evil owner storyline, feuding with Foley and Rock this time around.
By the way, around Wrestlemania time, Vince, also the owner (oy) turned heel again…

7) The entire McMahon Corporation
…and joined the McMahon-Helmsley regime, so now this faction had HHH and Stephanie, who were running things, Shane, who had owner powers, and Vince who had owner powers…

8) Mick Foley as the commissioner
So one day in the middle of 2000, HBK returns and appoints a new commish, none other than Mick Foley. Well, he was a good guy commish, but it was the exact same deal, only he would feud with the heels.

9) William Regal as the commissioner
So at some point later in the year, Vince McMahon came back to television (…as the owner) and feuded with Mick Foley (…who was the commish) and fired him. I’m a bit fuzzy on the exact timeline here, but the end result was that William Regal became the commissioner of the WWF. So now we’re right back where we started, with a heel commissioner.

10) Shane McMahon as the owner of WCW
WWF bought WCW, and proceeded to blow the biggest angle in the history of this business. The WCW faction, which was portrayed as jobbers, had their own leader, who had owner powers in WCW (and who sold his WWF stock in order to buy them, which doesn’t explain why Vince wouldn’t just kick him out of the building once the Alliance stuff started, since Shane has no powers in the WWF, so he must have still had some kind of owner powers in the WWF, even though he already sold… …ugh, never mind.

11) Stephanie McMahon as owner of ECW
See above. Once WCW and ECW merged, now we had two McMahons serving as the evil decision-makers. Double ugh.

12) Vince McMahon and Ric Flair as co-owners of the WWF
Once the Alliance business ended, we were left back with Vince Mcmahon as the owner of the WWF… until Ric Flair appeared and revealed he bought the stock from Shane and Stephanie and now HE and Vince were “partners.”
… … …
Sound familiar? He was essentially the same character as Foley, except he said whooooo a lot and had rich blonde hair!!!

So WWE (the name change happened around this time) put an end to the co-owner storyline by having Vince regain control of the entire company… thereby negating the ENTIRE REASON the split… err I mean the brand extension… existed in the first place… forcing Vince to install “General Managers” of each of the shows. He appoints...

13) Stephanie McMahon as the GM of Smackdown…

14) …and Eric Bischoff as the GM of RAW.
So now both shows have their own owner figures, while Vince is the owner of them both, and Linda is the CEO above them all. All of them have the power to make matches and decisions…

15) Chief Morley
Then Eric Bischoff debuts Chief Morley, who is the assistant to Bischoff. Only HE can now make matches and decisions too. JESUS TAP-DANCING CHRIST!

This brings us to last night’s RAW, in which Linda McMahon appeared, overruled Bischoff (just like Vince did two months ago), and put a new co-GM on RAW, none other than Stone Cold Steve Austin.

So in summation…
Stephanie McMahon is the GM of Smackdown. Eric Bischoff and Stone Cold Steve are the co-GMs of RAW. Chief Morley is the chief of staff of RAW who also has “owner powers.” Above the four of them is Vince McMahon, who can overrule each of them. Above him (or at equal) are the board of directors (what the fuck) and the CEO Linda McMahon who can overrule all five of them. Vince made the GMs to promote competition between the brands, after he got control back from then co-owner Ric Flair, who bought the shares from Shane and Stephanie, who used the money to own WCW and ECW. While all that was happening, Regal was still the commissioner of the WWF, having gotten Mick Foley’s position, which he got to fill the void after the evil owner regime of the McMahon Helmsley Regime collapsed, and was given to him by former commissioner Shawn Michaels, who was appointed by Vince McMahon, who at around the time was the owner along with Shane McMahon who also had owner powers and were feuding, which turned out to be a hoax to fool Stone Cold Steve Austin, who turned the tables and became the co-owner himself by buying the shares from Steph and Linda (who was already the CEO), but lost it back to Vince, who must have somehow gave the shares back to STeph and Linda because otherwise Steph wouldn’t have had the shares to sell to Ric Flair to buy ECW while Flair became the co-owner…

Kill me now.

In conclusion, this storyline has been repeated in some form or fashion, over a DOZEN times in the past five or so years. Wow, I wonder why people think WWE is so stale? WWE should put this booking crutch atrocity to rest for good and find a new way to write their shows. It’s completely ridiculous now, a parody of a once-great storyline.

Last Edited: Wednesday, April 30th, 2003 - 03:53 pm EDT