Vince McMahon is a true survivor in a business where most personalities are lucky to live past 60 without making a living signing t-shirts at conventions. Nearing 80 years old, the tycoon has managed to stay relevant, never mind that he is currently under investigation by the U.S. government. If his reputation is anything to judge by, he’ll shake the Securities and Exchange Commission’s probes as usual.
True to thesporthe is the face of, “Vince McMahon” isn’t even his birth name. To make it in this game, reinvention is the rule. One man turned professional wrestling from a bunch of guys struggling to sell out a high-school auditorium into a billion-dollar asset, in the process, turning everyday Joes into swaggering Hollywood leading men.
Even after amerger with the UFCandWorld Wrestling Entertainment’s (WWE)day-to-day operations headed by Endeavor — which owns a majority share — the McMahon family retains a tangible grip on the organization. If you ever wondered what inspired the steel-cage match at WrestleMania II, look no further than the politics of professional wrestling circa 1970. Against the odds, he took a shambolic sport held hostage by virtual mafia dons and flipped it into one of the most prized, beloved sporting enterprises in the entire world.
All the WWE needed was spandex, some steroids, and a couple of guys who could ad lib on the mic. There’s something about bludgeoning a man over the head with a folding chair that unites humanity and transcends race, creed, and language.
Step 1: Destroy “Regionalism”
The heyday of the WWE (formerly known as the World Wrestling Federation, or WWF) was marked by a proliferation of pay-per-view TV specials and national marketing that turned formerly parochial celebrities into icons with their own branded cereal, vitamins, and workout tapes.
Yet there was a time when you couldn’t wrestle outside your specific area of the United States without an invitation from the unofficial leader of that locality. “WWF was what was called New York,” former wrestlerKing Kong Bundy describedthe situation. Wrestling was small-time, provincial, and relatively impoverished in the late seventies. For decades, the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), a loose association of promoters, ruled the sport with an iron fist in the United States.
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New WWE owner and promoter McMahon choke-slammed the system and ignored the lines in the sand. Taking over from his father, McMahon dismissed his helpful advice, pops warning his son not to rock the boat. “My dad was not too thrilled with that,“he told Howard Stern, looking back on the takeover. The elder McMahon was trying to protect him as much as uphold the wrestling status quo. Vince, whomForbesonce accurately called a “war-ready carny,” was taking on the established powers. “Vince wanted to cross all those imaginary boundaries,”Hulk Hogan saidin an interview, reliving his terror. At the time, Hogan, real name Terry Bollea, told his friend McMahon, “This is going to be dangerous.” Hogan wasn’t wrong…
In the end, McMahon leveraged his power as the new owner in 1982 to stage events across the nation under his own company brand, a phenomenon that would soon branch out into films, music, andeven other sports, including two separate incarnations of the XFL, or X Football League (the X stands for nothing, by the way).
Step 2: Dodge Controversies and Bullets
It wasn’t all kittens and sunshine. The 90s were a brutal period for the WWE, the sport losing viewers, relevancy, and facing scandal after scandal. If you thought wrestling wasn’t a sport, you’re half right. The fights are rigged. The injuries and steroid abuse? Those are surely real. McMahon evaded a conviction for pushing steroids onto his staff in the 1994 United States v. McMahon trial, a moniker befitting a megalomaniac promoter who relished playing the heel. A few years later, he was in the hot seat again for his poor safety record, this time for continuing a live event after the fatal injury to Owen Hart, who died in the ring during a stunt gone wrong.
Throughout all the turmoil, he and his wife/CEO Linda needed to balance the books while stroking the raging egos of their employees. Despite being the boss, McMahon was frequently at the whim of his superstars. The Ultimate Warrior was let go after demanding to be made the promotional and financial equal with then-top-draw Hulk Hogan. McMahon responded by firing him, dressing him down in a letter: “You have become a legend in your own mind.” Tough talk from a man who played a caricature of himself on TV, using the WWE asa vanity project.
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All the enemies he had acquired in his decades at the helm almost cost him his life. Or so long-time wrestling insider and announcer Jim Ross claimed. After blowing up the NWA, some of the top brass of the rival organization allegedly floated the plan to assassinate McMahon. Should we take this anecdote seriously? Based on the $700 that was suggested for the hit, probably not. But judging on the NWA’s finances in the 80s, that might have been a fairly realistic sum. If that somehow wasn’t surreal enough, the NWA rights were later bought up by thebald guy from Smashing Pumpkins. Professional wrestling never fails to entertain.
Step 3: Maintain the Monopoly
The late-90s rebrand, known as the “Attitude Era,” saw the silliness of the 80s replaced with more T and A and posing in black tank-tops instead of neon-pink fringe. It was initially met with scorn from fans. Hogan, now with a rival wrestling league, was pelted with garbage by fans when his scheduled heel-turn came. The New World Order, as transparently desperate as it was, was the edgy image change that old stars needed to remain fresh as they jumped ship to Ted Turner’s (though AOL actually made the decisions) World Championship Wrestling organization (WCW).
The most full-proof plan to avoid being destroyed in business is often to simply purchase competitors outright (see Disney and Pixar). WCW was consistently outperforming the WWE in the mid-90s. By the new millennia, the roles reversed, the WCW stuck in the ditch, much to the delight of the WWE stockholders. For all McMahon’s panic over upstarts, he shook off each one, buying the biggest thorn in his side: the WCW.
After the sale, he owned all their film, trademarks, and contracts — though not all the WCW’s wrestlers were acquired in the fire-sale deal. In the financial cage-match, McMahon bested Ted Turner, and the era of WCW’sNitrosquaring off against versus WWF’sRAW Is WARwas over with a whimper. The sport’s never been the same since, even with the legendary exploding limousine bit, where he faked his own death.
McMahon and clan, whether through dumb luck or immaculate business acumen, have created and recreated a monopoly in pro-wrestling time and again, outshining domestic rivals while selling a quintessential American product to packed arenas in the Middle East, fostering new wrestling personalities like Dave Bautista, Randy Orton, and Seth Rollins. In his tenure, the relentless McMahon guided the WWE to new heights, overcoming each controversy, on and off the canvas. Which occasionally meansspurning lucrative dealswith sports broadcasters like ESPN in order to maintain control.
At his age, his significance in the company is very limited compared to just a decade ago. We can only guess what controversial moves and preposterous choices the next boss of the WWE takes if they hope to fill the void left by McMahon.
