The King of Wrestling Finally Topples Off the Throne
Vince McMahon Leaves Behind a Complicated Legacy
I’ve never believed Vince McMahon hated pro wrestling.
It feels important to say this upfront, as it’s become such a prevailing true-ism in the internet wrestling culture that many believe it to be settled law. But it’s hard to see Vince acting a fool on Tuesday Night Titans, all but drooling over the uber-gifted Shawn Michaels on Monday Night RAW, or performing his swollen heart out as the sport’s ultimate villain “Mr. McMahon” and truly believe he doesn’t love this shit to his core.
Vince McMahon loves pro wrestling. Loves it so much he’s internalized it, a walking, breathing husk given life by the spirit of wrestling, the human incarnation of everything good and twisted about this complicated industry.
That’s why it’s such a big story that he’s walking away from the company he built into an international force at the age of 76 after 40 years at the helm of the ship. Everyone in the industry joked that he’d likely work until he was inevitably found dead in the bowels of an arena somewhere, no doubt in the midst of devising new and ever-more humiliating ways for his performers to debase themselves on national television.
Instead, he’s found himself not-so-gently pushed to the side, as much a dinosaur as the art that decorated his walls, operating his business like a boy’s club in the era of pronouns and “Speaking Out.” In the past, he’d survived a number of horrific scandals, his company’s name credibly attached to accusations of rape, covering up a murder, pedophilia, drug distribution and any number of other grievances big and small.
He’d always walked away unscathed. But not this time.
“As I approach 77 years old, I feel it’s time for me to retire as Chairman and CEO of WWE,” McMahon wrote in a statement yesterday. “Throughout the years, it’s been a privilege to help WWE bring you joy, inspire you, thrill you, surprise you, and always entertain you. I would like to thank my family for mightily contributing to our success, and I would also like to thank all of our past and present Superstars and employees for their dedication and passion for our brand. Most importantly, I would like to thank our fans for allowing us into your homes every week and being your choice of entertainment. I hold the deepest appreciation and admiration for our generations of fans all over the world who have liked, currently like, and sometimes even love our form of Sports Entertainment.”
For me, as a fan, the lede was buried at the end. “Our form of Sports Entertainment” is how McMahon described his vision of professional wrestling. And, frankly, I didn’t love it.
A son of the south, I’d grown up on a diet of the Anderson Brothers, Michael Hayes, and Jimmy Valiant. On the Horsemen attacking Ricky Morton in the locker room, grinding his pretty face into the concrete, on making it “good" in a parking lot attack on my beloved Dusty Rhodes.
On beer bellies, blood and men who talked liked they wanted to hurt somebody and then, by God, went out and did it. On studio shows in front of 200 people, in arenas packed to bursting, on old ladies in the front giving the heels the business.
On rasslin. Yankee wrestling had Hulk Hogan. We had Ric Flair. And we wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
McMahon’s empire has grown to the point that multiple generations of fans have never known pro wrestling in any other form. They aren’t aware of other national acts, pushed around the country courtesy of the DuMont Network. They don’t know about Jim Londos packing stadiums, Lou Thesz and Gorgeous George playing in front of Hollywood royalty, or wrestlers like Frank Gotch and Gus Sonnenberg being national news 100 years ago. They don’t even know about wrestling on the iconic Channel 17, delivering the best workers in the sport up to a satellite in the sky and back down to a grateful nation.
They only know the brand. And that’s kind of a shame.
In 1983, WWF's All-American Wrestling debuted on the USA Network. It was the beginning of the end for pro wrestling as we liked it (more about The Territories here), a collection of regional fiefdoms, each running dozens of shows a month, an interconnected world of mystery and intrigue. Wrestling once contained multitudes. Now it reflects the vision of a single man. The territories couldn’t have survived the modern era. But the energy and feel of the business didn’t need to die alongside the delivery mechanism.
It’s this loss that makes McMahon’s legacy as a promoter so difficult to discuss. Yes, he created the largest wrestling company in the history of the world. He’ll rest easy in Florida in his retirement, swimming through Scrooge McDuck inspired vaults of gold, having successfully forced his will on an entire industry, breaking and vanquishing his enemies with a ferocity that has become legendary.
But what of wrestling? The truth is, the sport has never been seen by fewer people domestically. There used to be ten or more shows nightly across the country, more than a dozen television shows, hundreds of wrestlers working full time and distinct regional flavors. Now there is only Vince’s vision, hundreds of shows replaced by an equal number of camera cuts, the once vital and barely-contained fury of an outlaw industry reduced to cringey catchphrases and passionless faux-combat.
WWE is larger than it’s ever been? But rasslin? It’s never been smaller. That’s the promotional legacy of Vince McMahon.
Pro wrestling has been taken over by the funko pop/pro nouns in profile crowd. It’s no longer masculine outlaw shit but rather feminized theatre geek stuff. Not for me anymore, that’s why I find myself leaning more towards hardcore rap and mma for my masculine outlaw shit. It’s one of the few places left in culture where it exists. I used to get mad about this but I’ve just accepted it and moved on.
Latecomer to wrestling in many ways. Interest piqued in terms of the non-WWE promotions and how that variety has been lost. And curious where WWE goes next now that it’s not the Vince Review and Cabaret.