Executive Meddling/Professional Wrestling

And in this corner, weighing in at 30 paper-pushers, the Executive Producer!


 * Soon after Kayfabe!Vince McMahon was blown up in a fiery limo explosion, confirmation came that USA Network executives told the WWE to perform a murder storyline, much to the consternation of the writing staff, Vince himself, and half the fanbase. This made them look like idiots, morons, and every other epithet in the book when news of Chris Benoit's murder-suicide hit the airwaves a few weeks later.
 * Among other things USA has been pressuring WWE into: more celebrity involvement and 3-hour Monday Night Raw broadcasts.
 * The 'E did however work the celebrity involvement into some genuinely amusing moments (such as John Cena being beaten by Kevin flippin' Federline, Steve-O being legitimately beaten for laughing during his match, and Donald Trump causing Vince McMahon's infamous "bald moment").
 * Of course, Vince himself is the source of much Executive Meddling in the WWE, such as when he canceled "The Blonde Bytch Project", a Blair Witch parody that was to star Stevie Richards and the Blue Meanie, on the grounds that he had never seen the movie, and therefore assumed nobody else had either.
 * He did the same thing to Paul Burchill because he had never seen Pirates of the Caribbean and assumed that a pirate should be a Heel. Later, he placed him into an incest gimmick character. That went about as well as could be expected -- the storyline never really developed, and Burchill vanished fairly quickly.
 * This was at least Vince's fourth attempt to do an incest storyline. His first attempt was to portray Ken Shamrock and his (kayfabe) sister Ryan Shamrock in an incestuous relationship (Ken refused). Then, when Stephanie McMahon became pregnant, Vince suggested that he be the on-screen father. When Steph vetoed that, Vince suggested her brother Shane McMahon be the father instead. Both Steph and Shane nixed that one. Most recently was the repackaging of Paul Burchill and Katie Lea as implied incestuous siblings. Given that Vince suffered both physical and sexual abuse as a child, most fans are of the opinion that he urgently needs therapy. They just wish it could be done in a quiet office instead of on live TV.
 * Vince McMahon wasn't the only one to try an incest storyline in the WWE, however. Former head writer Vince Russo fought hard to get Beaver Cleavage, a hypersexual take on Leave It to Beaver, on the air. It lasted about two weeks before Vince McMahon himself pulled the plug.
 * The storyline was done in by yet more Executive Meddling. WWE embraced the PG rating for all their television programming around the time Burchill and Katie Lea started appearing on-screen. The incest storyline was one of the first things to be nixed, leaving both with nothing to do before being moved over to the ECW brand.
 * Katie Vick. (Vince's own DVD has other members of the WWE saying how unfunny it was.)
 * Soon before WWE's ECW brand got underway, there were Internet reports that the Sci-Fi Channel had been trying to shoehorn sci-fi elements into this wrestling show. Cue "The Zombie" and other characters being soundly beaten by the Sandman upon the show's airing.
 * And of course, there was Muhammed Hassan. This could be looked at as Executive Meddling on both sides, as Vince chose to still air Hassan's "terrorist attack" on the Undertaker the same day that real terrorists bombed The London Underground (London's subway). UPN's subsequent edict that Hassan would never appear on the network again forced Vince to not only remove the character, but possibly re-book the main events at two pay-per-views.
 * The Montreal Screwjob. Arguably, one of the most notorious cases of Executive Meddling in WWE history. How justified or effective it was relies a great deal on whether you believe Bret Hart's or Shawn Michaels' version of the story, but as last-minute swerves go, it was a doozy.
 * It must be said that Vince is often the source of positive Executive Meddling. The reason the Attitude Era did so well was because Vince was there to filter out Ferrera and Vince Russo's bad ideas.
 * But at the same time, he's also probably squashed several good ideas as well, as mentioned above. The big problem is that since Vince keeps so busy, he's gotten quite out of touch with pop culture (read the "Blair Witch" example above.) Add that to an already large generation gap where a 65 year old man is trying to market a product to children and teens, and the What Could Have Been is astounding.
 * One rumor floating around about the WWE right now is not so much executive meddling as much as TENURED Meddling. Some are arguing that younger talent is being buried so the older wrestlers (The Undertaker and Triple H especially) can milk the last few years of their careers for all they're worth. Some of it's minor (no one on the roster can have gear that looks like The Undertaker's.) However, some of it's more serious (some have argued that Triple H forced Chris Masters to keep doing the Masterlock Challenge, long after it stopped being entertaining [as if it ever was,] making Masters universally loathed by fans, and possibly torpedoing his career before it could get off the ground [he has yet to really build any momentum five years later.]) People are wondering why guys like Evan Bourne and Shelton Benjamin got nowhere fast in WWE, and many think it's this.
 * Raul D. Rice went into great detail to show just how much Executive Meddling Triple H did in the WWE, a few years ago.
 * And yet Taker has received nowhere near as much flak for this, even though he's also helping hold back talent in the women's division by having the WWE keep that belt on his girlfriend Michelle McCool. This might be even more Egregious because it buried the much more talented, popular and experienced Mickie James. Beth Phoenix may have been spared this only due to her ACL injury, so now they've taken to burying Melina.
 * The Undertaker probably gets little flak for using his pull in the company because of many stories, both true and false, about him keeping The Kliq in check during the New Generation era, especially around the time of the Montreal Screwjob.
 * There are several reasons why The Undertaker receives less criticism for this. For many years, fans have accused Triple H of using his meddling to further his own ego (As of late, that's not as true, see Rooting for the Empire for the whole story.) However, The Undertaker has more often than not, used his powers for good, not evil. Alongside the Screwjob above, he also allegedly interfered when Batista tried to have Mickie James fired. Also, it's not entirely clear if The Undertaker is forcing WWE to shill Michelle. They might be doing it on their own out of fear of losing either of them. Taker is one of the most universally respected people in the business, both as a wrestler and as a person, and McCool has developed into a very talented wrestler on her own when female wrestling is in something of a dry spell. Losing either of them would hurt WWE right now.
 * Hulk Hogan. Full stop. The guy was trained by Hiro Matsuda, himself well known in Japan and a shoot wrestler of some considerable skill. Looking at Hogan's non-WWF, non-WCW matches in Japan, most would swear they were looking at an entirely different wrestler. After all, who could ever imagine HULK freaking HOGAN pulling an ENZUGIRI on someone, let alone the Great Muta?! But believe it or not it happened in a match in Japan when he was in his fifth reign but wasn't competing for the WWF in the match. The match was a mix of technical and brawling from both wrestlers and it was one of the more entertaining matches either man has been in in the last twenty years. Hogan even points this out in his first autobiography. When he got to the WWF under Vince McMahon Sr. he was told to wrestle like a generic 'big man' character, and Vince Jr. wanted him to do the same when he returned to win his first world championship there, wanting to have Hogan wrestle like a generic power wrestler and get by on his, admittedly, massive amounts of on-screen charisma. By the time he got to WCW, American fans were so used to the style he was forced to use for over fifteen years in the US that it would have been largely pointless to show his actual skills this side of the Pacific, so he never did. Ahh, What Could Have Been.
 * It depends on when he's speaking and who he's speaking to, but the story at times has changed from "they wouldn't let me do it" to "they never asked me, so I didn't put in the effort." Much of the legend of Hulk Hogan in Japan is due to him having to work a lot harder (his American routine would not have gone over well in Japan, and in fact didn't in 1990 even against a motivated Stan Hansen and Genichiro Tenryu), and working against smaller, faster, more motivated wrestlers who could carry him (most of his American opponents were stiffs, with the main small ones, Piper and Savage, being more of Memphis-style cheap heat magnets as opposed to workhorses).
 * WCW, which was broadcast on Turner Networks, was occasionally forced by the higher ups to include Product Placement in their shows. Thus, Rick Steiner was forced debate Chucky, who shilled the upcoming Bride of Chucky movie. Later, Robert Wuhl of Arliss had a guest commentary spot - in-character as Arliss - which was made even worse by "Arliss"'s commentary being non-stop burial of the match he was calling (Randy Savage vs Kidman) and pro wrestling in general.
 * Turner Networks also forced WCW to keep their shows at a PG level, which made it difficult for WCW to compete with the more risque WWF. This was in theory not a bad idea - they were counting on WWF's programming alienating their sponsors and putting WCW at a more advantageous position. However, some of the changes were somewhat silly. For example, renaming "foreign objects" (a pro wrestling term for weapons introduced into the match" to "international objects".
 * They also nixed at least one gimmick before it started; Seven, a mysterious dream/SevenDeadlySins character, was introduced in promos the network felt uncomfortably close to child abduction.