I'm So Over the Heel Authority Figure

Vickie with Ziggler
Photo Credit: WWE.com

If I never hear Vickie Guerrero screech "EXCUSE ME!" again, I can die a happy man. It's nothing against her as a person. I still get ticked when people make fat jokes at her expense when she's obviously not fat anymore (even when she was, c'mon now). And it's also not like she's not getting massive reactions with that harpy's shriek. She is. It's just the reason she comes out with that high-pitched, high-volume vocal attack is because she's about to make yet another decree screwing over a babyface wrestler and favoring a heel, most likely her in-character boyfriend, Dolph Ziggler.

The problem with this set-up is that the WWE doesn't seem happy just to have Guerrero garner heat for her charge through promo work, something she has shown time and again she can do as long as said charge isn't a total slug like Eric Escobar. She has to be making the rules. It's a tired mechanism from an era whose heat has died out a long time ago. When Vince McMahon was putting the screws to Steve Austin in 1997, it was something new, something patently absurd but effective, mainly because McMahon owned the company and could do whatever he wanted to do. The problem is that every heel authority figure that followed McMahon (and to be fair, Eric Bischoff as well, who turned heel and joined the nWo as an on-screen authority figure a year before McMahon unleashed "Mr. McMahon" on the world) has seemed watered down by comparison. It's old hat.

In fact, it's become so old hat that it's not really effective anymore. Sure, Vickie gets gobs of heat, but it isn't an event when an authority figure tries to screw the babyface over in some fashion, it's commonplace. Fans expect it to happen, so the only role the GM serves is as a promo. To me, that seems weak, as you shouldn't need to be an authority figure to promo for someone.

I've made it no secret that I long for the days of Jack Tunney. Of course, that's not happening, mainly because Tunney's dead, and if he were the GM, he'd be stipulating that all losers must surrender their brains over to him as he'd obviously be a zombie. In all seriousness, there needs to be a return to that paradigm, the commissioner who doesn't feel the need to be a dictator but rather a mediator and interpreter of rules. It would force writers and bookers not to lean on a rickety old crutch such as that and create heel stars through their own merits. It would also bring more realism to the product, and in an age where MMA wipes the floor with pro wrestling, more realism is definitely needed. I mean, who would want to work for a company where the boss is such a biased, cheating dickhole anyway?

Trust me, Vickie Guerrero doesn't need to be a corrupt authority figure to garner heat for herself or for any wrestler she manages. The WWE would be wise to just stop having authority figures meddle in everyday aspects of their show's operation and try something new. Who knows, maybe it might help bring along another boom, since that boom is not going to happen with the same old shit happening now that happened in 1999.

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