Loss

Strange that nobody mentioned Eddie Graham, considering how influential he was in the 1960ier and 70ies. Or is that a case that people consider him more as a promoter than a booker (even though according to Kevin Sullivan Graham was pretty hands on with the booking until the end)?

He mentored the people that are considered to have the best wrestling minds in the early video footage era. Watts, Jarrett, Dusty.

I agree that it's been time for a while now to start preparing for a post-Cena landscape in WWE, but I don't get this desire from WWE to seemingly push him out before his time. Cena has gone along with it, but I can't figure out if it was that he started looking for outside work as a response to that, or if they started building up Reigns as a response to him getting older and starting to get outside offers. Either way, they were presenting him as "old" when he was still in his 30s, and the story with Reigns is something you'd think they'd be able to tell over multiple matches spanning 2-3 years. Reigns won the first match. I don't see the intrigue in them having another match since we've already gotten the payoff. This Wrestlemania will be the culmination of a three-year push for the guy having gotten big wins over every single person they can offer up with Brock being the only program with the payoff not given immediately. And that would have happened sooner if it wasn't for a change in plans.

Brock-Braun is why non-finishes exist. Matches just like this. There was zero reason for either guy lose at this point, so I don't get that at all. This is another match that shouldn't really be one-and-done. 

I like Reigns a lot and think he has absolutely proven that he belongs at the main event level, but I don't think he's salvageable at this point as the number one guy. I don't see any better options sadly, but they've made everyone hate him in a way that I don't see how there's any coming back. That they've stuck by him so long in spite of the crowd reactions and wellness violation and that he retired Undertaker and all of that -- it's hard to figure out what exactly they're going for. With Cena, it made sense because you could at least see how they were outwardly and intentionally booking him as a babyface for kids and women and a heel for their hardcore audience, doing things to get him over in dual roles. Cena was a moneymaker, and it clicked. With Reigns, it comes across more as Vince in a battle with his fanbase for the soul of the company, and it's uncomfortable.

A lot of the Watts booking doesn't age well, particularly before Jarrett's crew came in and popped the territory. Dundee turned things around with elements of Memphis booking and Eddie Gilbert kept it interesting doing the same, but take that stuff out and you have pre-1984 Mid South, which had some really good stuff and was successful, but wasn't nearly as exciting as a television product, which is Watts' primary case. 

Vince McMahon has many strengths as a booker, but I've always seen his bigger strengths as being a strong hypeman and visionary (read: promoter) and producer. He's also tremendous at thinking outside the box, the end result of which is the occasional blockbuster amidst a sea of failures. But overall, Vince runs away with the greatest promoter of all time title. It's not even close. In fact, he's so good at promoting that he's created the post-booking landscape that we live in now, one where it's less the angle or the match that sells the show than it is the chance to experience the brand itself. To me, Vince can craft angles and is good at it, but it's not his strength. He's better at coming up with concepts and laying out an overall direction.

I'll also throw out Dutch Mantell as a dark horse. Yes, his TNA run was horrendous (everyone's was, pretty much), but he created the hottest period in the history of Puerto Rico.

Ric Flair has lived the gimmick 24/7 for almost his entire adult life. I wish him the best, but it's a lot of self discovery to embark upon when he's nearly 70 years old.