May 18, 2015
By Ryan Porzl
Vincent Kennedy McMahon is a man who will go down in history as one of wrestling's most successful promoters. After buying the WWF (now WWE) fron his father Vincent James McMahon in 1982, he took it from a regional northeast promotion and made into a national powerhouse. Within five years of his ownership, he became the king of American wrestling with the highly successful Wrestlemania events, the Saturday Night's Main Event specials on NBC, and some of the best wrestlers in the world. In fact, with the exception of 1996-1998, McMahon has largely been the top promoter in American wrestling and continues to be as of this writing. However, times have changed and so have the fortunes of the WWE. In recent years, McMahon has become the WWE's biggest detriment. Like the promoters of old, McMahon has had his share of success but as he's gotten older and he's clearly fallen behind the times. He's also shown a very stubborn attitude, someone who seemingly can't make up his mind, and is stuck in the past instead of looking to the future. These are things the WWE doesn't need right now. While it's been said that McMahon will likely run the WWE until the day he dies, everybody would be better off if Vinnie Mac decided to call it a career.
What better way to start out then by pointing out the obvious reason why Vince needs to retire which is because he's outdated. Seriously, look at the gimmicks that wrestlers run around with in the WWE. Some look like rejects from the 1980s and 1990s that don't fit in this day and age or didn't work already. In 2015, we still have top stars that are big, strong, handsome, All-American GI Joes like John Cena, Brock Lesnar, Randy Orton, and Roman Reigns. We still have Russian sympathizers like Rusev which is a gimmick straight out of the Cold War era while his valet Lana is based off of Brigette Nielson's character in Rocky IV which is a movie that came out in 1985. We have Los Matadores which is a matador type gimmick which already failed when Tito Santana did the "El Matador" gimmick from 1991-1993. We have The Authority as the evil bosses which the WWE has done at least once every year since 1998. We now have Curtis Axel pretending to be Hulk Hogan while Damien Sandow is now "Macho Mandow" and they're now teaming up because the guys they're parodying teamed up in the WWE more than 25 years ago. It's also not just the wrestlers. Look at the WWE Network. It has a show called "Too Hot For TV" which is hosted by Jerry Springer whose peak ended in 2000. Look at this years Wrestlemania as the feud between Triple H and Sting came off as Sting wanting revenge against Triple H because the WWE beat and bought WCW despite the fact that WCW ended in 2001 which is fourteen years ago.
Stubborness is another reason. In the past when Steve Austin caught on or The Rock didn't as Rocky Maivia, Vince saw that. He pushed Austin and he repackaged the Rock including turning him heel. Nowadays, Vince refuses to adjust. If something or someone isn't catching on, Vince just doubles down. When someone unexpectingly catches on, Vince doesn't go with it. In fact, if a wrestler catches on with the fans and becomes popular, Vince punishes them. Even though Vince says to his talent that the brass ring is there for them, his actions show it not to be the case. Look at Zack Ryder, Daniel Bryan, and Dean Ambrose. All got very popular by the fans by themselves without the WWE marketing machine behind and all got buried because of it.
Largely looked at as nothing more than a jobber, Ryder became one of WWE's most popular wrestlers by 2011 thanks to his use of social media. While the WWE seemed to get behind him by giving him the United States title, the push didn't last long. By early 2012, Ryder was given one of the worst burials in wrestling history. He quickly lost the US Title to Jack Swagger and never got a rematch. He was then part of John Cena and Kane's feud which saw him repeatedly get beat up by Kane and was part of an infamous segment where he was in a wheelchair due to his injuries his suffered from Kane and was then pushed off the RAW stage. He was then made to look like an idiot as he was paired with Eve Torres and continued to be with her even though he and everyone knew she was using him. Finally, he participated in a tag match at Wrestlemania and not only took the pinfall loss but then got lowblowed by Eve. Since then, he's back where the WWE wants him which is a jobber. On another note, the WWE has also purposely kept him off shows that were held in his hometown of Long Island, New York but that hasn't stopped people from chanting his name.
Then there's Daniel Bryan. Like Ryder, Bryan wasn't expected to do much but he quickly gained popularity with the fans by 2012. The WWE turned him heel at one point but the fans still continued to cheer him. By 2013, he was unquestionably the most popular wrestler on the roster and when he was giving a title shot at Summerslam, the logical move was to give him the WWE Championship. While they did, they then proceeded to have Randy Orton cash in his money in the bank contract and won the title in an inpromptu match. From there, the WWE buried Bryan by having him constantly lose or get beatdown every week for two months and even teased fans with him winning the title only to be stripped of it by the Authority. While he would eventually win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at Wrestlemania XXX, it was only after the fans trashed the 2014 Royal Rumble after Bryan was snubbed from the Rumble match. Even after he won the title, he was booked as a coward who constantly ran away from rival Kane like an awful slasher movie.
Finally, there's Dean Ambrose. After the Shield broke up in May 2014, Ambrose seemed to be the one member that the WWE didn't have any long term plans for. Even after he began to catch on in popularity and selling merchandise, the WWE never got behind him and never thought of him as a main event act. In fact, he went on a ten month pay-per-view losing streak from June 2014 to April 2015 as he lost every pay-per-view he participated on. His feuds with Seth Rollins and Bray Wyatt were mostly one sided as he lost every encounter on PPV while his feud with Bad News Barrett went nowhere.
On the other side of things, Vince has shown that he'll continue to push someone even if they're not catching on. The best example is John Cena as he continues to push Cena as the face of his company despite the fact he's arguably the most hated fan favorite in history. When Cena was getting booed, Vince could've turned him heel or move him down the card a bit. Instead, he would continue to ram him down fans throats. Another example is Alberto Del Rio as he was pushed quickly and heavily despite the fact he never caught on with the fans. However, he continued to receive title reigns and pushes cause Vince was desparate for a Mexican superstar. Looking at these examples, you have to wonder how better the WWE and these wrestlers careers could've been if Vince listened to his crowds. I always wondered how bad things would be for the WWE if in 1997, Vince didn't listen to his fans. Can you imagine where they would be if Vince buried Austin instead of going with him? Can you imagine Vince insisted on the Rock staying as Rocky Maivia and continuing to be the white meat babyface? The WWE would likely be gone and they're careers would've went nowhere. How far could Zack Ryder, Daniel Bryan, and Dean Ambrose have gone if the WWE got behind them? Could Cena have been bigger if he turned heel when he was getting booed and eventually become popular like the Rock did?
Then there's the issue that Vince is a huge PR nightmare for the company. No, I'm not talking about the Kiss My Ass Club or Katie Vick because as bad as they are, there's much worse. The first is the way Vince has treated former announcer Jim Ross over the years. Like Ross' commentary or not, the stuff Vince did to him was downright cruel. In 2005, Ross was taken off TV to get colon surgery. Vince responded by doing a horrible skit where he mocked Ross and the surgery. The segment wasn't well received, it wasn't funny, and it did nothing for business. Things got even worse in June 2012 when on a segment for Monday Night RAW, McMahon did a mock impression of Ross which included him mocking Ross' facial features that he has due to bells palsy. The segment earned overwhelmingly negative reviews and what made it worse was the fact that the WWE was marketing their "Be a Star" anti-bullying campaign. To have the owner of the company making fun of an employee's illness at a time when the same company is trying to promote anti-bullying was absolutely embarrassing. Then there's Vince's physique which looks very unnatural and he's not afraid to show it off. In 2006 and 2015, McMahon graced the cover of "Muscle and Fitness". Now it's common knowledge that wrestling has had major issues with drugs and steroids to the point where dozens of wrestlers lost their lives to them. Meanwhile, McMahon nearly lost his freedom as he nearly went to jail on steroids. By the time the 2006 magazine came out, Eddie Guerrero passed away months earlier and the WWE instituted a wellness policy which included drug testing. So a WWE wrestler dies in a hotel room of heart failure at 38 and the company decides to create a drug testing program in light of it but how does this all look when the 60 year old owner of the company poses in a muscle magazine looking absolutely ripped? Think wrestling fans and the public will take this seriously?
Then there's the problem of Vince not being able to make up his mind. Simply put, Vince has a worse attention span than people with ADD. It seems like he can never make up his mind or he's always changing it or loses focus on certain things. There has even been stories of Vince constantly changing and tweaking RAW all week long and all the way till hours before the show is supposed to begin. One minute, there is a certain wrestler every week for a month and the next, they're doing nothing. Look at Bo Dallas, Adam Rose, and the Ascension. One month they're on TV getting wins and being pushed and then are jobbers the next. Like them or not, this is still not good business. It's as if Vince can't stay focused on many wrestlers. It's like a child who quickly gets bored with a toy and wants a new one. Remember the Intercontinental Cup tournament? Probably don't and I wouldn't blame you since the WWE created it in January 2013 with the winner becoming the #1 contender for the Intercontinental Title and then cancelled it after the first round without even concluding it. That's a major problem in the WWE. It's hard to be a fan or get excited at times with the WWE knowing that Vince changes his mind all the time and things can get dropped at a moments notice.
Another reason Vince needs to go is the fact that he creates an awful atmosphere. It seems like every now and then we hear a report of Vince coming in with a terrible mood and can lash out at people. Not to mention that rumors have been circulating that Vince is also angry with the critical praise of NXT over the WWE since NXT is the developmental promotion. See in the 90s, while Vince could be childish, he still took the right route. When WCW was beating him week after week, he started listening to his fans and worked hard to improve his company. Nowadays, he doesn't go the right route and use NXT to inspire himself and his employees to work harder. Instead, he resents his own minor league company and is said to have a sour streak when guys and girls are called up to the main roster. Meanwhile, his locker room has also become frustrated by the praise and part of it is likely because they're shackled in the ring and on the mic while NXT talent have more freedom. The way reports have been, it's like Vince doesn't use NXT to better himself and his company but rather creates an "us vs. them" mentality and treats his own minor league as an enemy. If these rumors are true then the WWE doesn't need an owner treating one of his products as an enemy. A leader needs to unite not divide. Then there's the time he went on the Steve Austin podcast and blamed most of his talent for not catching on which angered much of his locker room. The last thing the WWE needs is a childish owner who blames others for his mistakes even though he gets final say in the direction of his company.
Vince also has a problem with moving towards the future. Legendary wrestling personality Jim Cornette put it best once when he said "you can't go forward if you keep going backward". Sadly, Vince can't or won't realize that the talent of the 80s and 90s is not going to work in 2015. For years, McMahon has relied on nostalgia as life support for the WWE. In the last decade, we've seen constant returns of aging legends like Ric Flair, the nWo, Dusty Rhodes, Roddy Piper, Paul Orndorff, DX, Ricky Steamboat, Steve Austin, and the Rock. Meanwhile, Kane, Big Show, and Mark Henry continue to be featured as main eventers despite the fact their primes ended a decade ago. He also makes an effort to have the Undertaker show up every year for Wrestlemania despite Taker being extremely broken down and only capable of one match a year. The Rock and The New Age Outlaws have also won WWE Titles in the last two years. McMahon is stuck in the old days and can't or won't move to the present. None of these aging stars have brought wrestling back to a boom period and even if they did, it wouldn't last long cause most can't wrestle anymore. Then when there is an opportunity to make a new star at an old star's expense, Vince doesn't do it. He had Shawn Michaels retire Ric Flair at Wrestlemania XXIV. He had the Undertaker retire Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania XXVI. He had Brock Lesnar end the Undertaker's Wrestlemania streak at Wrestlemania XXX. Outside of Seth Rollins winning the WWE Championship, Wrestlemania XXXI saw Vince choose to have aging names beat the up and comers. The Big Show won the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, Randy Orton defeated Seth Rollins, John Cena defeated Rusev to end his undefeated streak, and The Undertaker defeated Bray Wyatt. Meanwhile, we saw cameos of DX, the nWo, Ricky Steamboat, Bret Hart, Pat Patterson, Ron Simmons, and Roddy Piper as well as a 30 minute segment between Rock and Triple H where they teased a match.
Finally, Vince should go because he's honestly too embarrassed to be in the WWE and professional wrestling. Everybody that knows Vince and pro wrestling knows that Vince and his head of production Kevin Dunn are ashamed to be involved in wrestling. While it wasn't bad in the 80s and early 90s, Vince seemed more and more obsessed in convincing himself and everyone that the WWE is not a wrestling company. Since the 90s, Vince has considered wrestling a bad word and makes sure none of his wrestlers or his announcers use it. Instead he insists that WWE is "Sports-Entertainment" or an "entertainment company", that his wrestlers are "superstars", and his female wrestlers are "divas". Pathetic examples of Vince's obsession include the time when the WWE decided to induct Drew Carey into the WWE Hall of Fame. After a website questioned why Carey was being inducted into a pro wrestling hall of fame, the WWE immediately flipped out. They proceeded to email the site and demanded they correct themselves because they say and I quote "We are no longer a wrestling company but rather a global entertainment company with a movie studio, international licensing deals, publisher of three magazines, consumer good distributer, and more". In 2014, McMahon was a guest on Steve Austin's podcast and when Austin uttered that dirty w-word, McMahon immediately pounced and said "sports-entertainment". He then said at one point that pro wrestling is what his father did.
I don't care what WWE owns and their other projects. It's a wrestling company. The New York Yankees have their own television network which is the YES Network and not only does that not make them a "global entertainment company" but the Steinbrenner Family doesn't consider the Yankees an entertainment company. They acknowledge that the Yankees are an American major league baseball team. Nintendo sells merchandise around the world that features their signature characters and franchises. Super Mario Bros. has been turned into cartoon shows in the 80s and 90s along with a movie in 1993. Same goes with Legend of Zelda and Donkey Kong. Nintendo of America owns a major league baseball team in the Seattle Mariners. Yet in spite of owning a sports franchise, selling merchandise, and getting involved with TV and movies, they never considered themselves a "global entertainment company". At the end of the day, Nintendo is still a video game/electronics company and they know that. Vince can deny it all he wants but go out and ask any non wrestling fan what the WWF/WWE is and if they heard of it then 10 times out 10, they'll say it's that wrestling company. Not one will call it a "global entertainment" company or a "sports-entertainment" company. Ask them if they heard of Vince McMahon and they'll say he's a wrestling promoter. When Vince dies, most of the attention the mainstream media will give will be about his time in wrestling and the few times they talk about something else, it'll be ridiculing him on the XFL.
While this may not seem like much then consider this. How does this look to both wrestling fans and non-wrestling fans when the owner and his right hand man/head of production are so ashamed of what they are that they keep trying to say it's not what it is? In the mean time, Vince has also been so obsessed with shaking off the "wrestling promoter" label that he's tried and invested time and money into outside projects that most fail miserably. He's done rock concerts, boxing fights, bodybuilding federations, bodybuilding supplements, football leagues, and nightclubs/restaurant in times square. Each of them cost money that the WWE likely lost, they lost time because the TV shows had to waste time promoting them, and they lost their leader because Vince is not always focusing on the WWF/WWE product. Meanwhile, there's WWE studios that release movies starring WWE wrestlers. This means that the creative team have to drop everything with someone and write them off TV for at least a month because the talent is filming a direct-to-DVD movie that probably can't be good enough to be a D-movie. Look, if Vince wants to focus on other outside projects then that's all cool but he should be focusing his time, money, and energy into those projects instead of running the WWE where he's not putting everything in and he's juggling everything. Look at Lorenzo Fertitta. He was the president of Stations Casino and ran it with brother Frank while the two eventually bought the UFC and created Zuffa as the parent company to run it. In 2008, Fertitta resigned as president from Stations Casino so he could work full time with Zuffa and the UFC. If Vince wants to badly work on these projects then he should step down from the WWE so he can focus everything on them while people who want to be in wrestling can handle the wrestling.
I think it's safe to say that Vince has had his success and will go down in history as one of wrestling's greatest promoters. Unfortunately, his legacy is also doomed to be the same as the promoters he ran off in the 80s in that he stuck around too long and couldn't change with the times. I'm personally convinced the WWE will never enjoy another boom period so long as Vince is at the helm. The sooner he steps down, the better the WWE's future can be and I'll say it in a way that Vince can understand. As far as the WWE seeing another boom period under Vince, there is "No Chance In Hell".
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