The Wall Street Journal Vince McMahon Thread.

[AxB]

1 hour ago, Hamhock said:

“I haven’t read the lawsuit” is a variation of when a Senator/House Rep. wants to duck giving their opinion on what was said/done/written/etc. by [not naming who]…”I haven’t watched the video”, “I haven’t read the interview”, “I haven’t seen the speech”.

It’s bullshit then, and it was bullshit now. It happens often enough that just *one time* I’d like to see the reporter anticipate this avoidance strategy by immediately following up with, “no problem - here you go!” and handing them a printed copy of the lawsuit. “Summary is only a couple of pages - we’ll give you a few minutes for your thoughts on it.”

Football managers too. Whenever an Arsenal player got a red or yellow card, or conceded a penalty, Arsene Wenger would always say he hadn’t seen it.

Now if one of his players was the one being fouled, you bet your arse he would have seen it, and had a strong opinion on how the refs should do more to protect his players.

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

I honestly had also considered mentioning Wenger-vision. 

[Matt D]

I don't think this will be helpful to anyone but it'll probably be helpful to me, so bear with me. I didn't think I had a lot to say but now I'm on the other side of the Rumble (and a lot of people watching it like... it was any other Rumble) and the scrum.

Vince won. It's hard for me to even sum up just how much he won. When you look at what he wanted throughout his career, at the top of the list, it was respect from people outside the industry, and total and absolute control over the world he created. He probably didn't get the first half, though if you look at the TKO ribbon cutting ceremonies and how his peers on the board spoke of him, he kind of sort of did.

When it came to the control though? Absolutely. If there was a turnover of audience, and especially an enhancement with younger people in 84-85, in 97-99, and then over the last few years, this last one is the most insidious because it had social media to support it. I can't even imagine the sort of rebellion that happened in 2014 now and that was just ten years ago. I can't imagine the current audience even thinking that whatever they were fed wasn't the absolute correct thing in the first place. It's so telling how quickly they realized they should be singing along to Cody's song or how they do the "It's Clobbering Time" better than anyone else. Stories in the WWE aren't about human issues, not really, or if they are, they're all through the lens of the mythos Vince has created. They're detached from real life. Everyone's not fighting for money and glory but instead for corporate recognition. They're all fighting to be employee of the month, basically, because that is the loftiest goal as seen by all the wrestlers and the fanbase as a whole. It is dystopian down to the language and terminology and branding. And it's all supported by almost bulletproof revenue streams that aren't affected by how good or bad the product is, including, of course, Saudi money.

Here's where I'm at. When they stop calling the wrestlers Superstars, I'll start considering checking in on WWE programming again. Seems like a pretty good thematic line.

Edited January 29 by Matt D

[Andrew POE!]

Considering that it's possible that he was "Corporate Officlal #1" in the lawsuit, Paul Levesque's days of running the WWE may be coming to an end. His answer seems like he knows his goose is cooked but he's not sure when or how.

The other thing: I'm wondering if CM Punk didn't win because they knew what would happen if Pepsi Phil was asked the same questions and weren't sure if he would tow the company line or not. So give it to Cody Rhodes again so he can lose to Roman Reigns at WrestleMania again.

Edited January 28 by Andrew POE!

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

There are times to be a "positive vibes only" kind of dude, and last night wasn't one of those times. Triple H has been pretty famously obtuse about his surroundings (the one that sticks out to me because it's relevant to my personal interests is him saying he didn't know "joshi" was a real word a few months ago), but he did himself no favors with that press conference. All he had to do was say "there are active investigations and I cannot comment".

I doubt anything will come of it, but it is, how one might say, a bad look.

[Godfrey]

Cody at the scrum, from 411

On his reaction to the Vince McMahon allegations: “I know as far as the news is concerned, we were finding it out, reading the same things that you guys were reading. As you said, a dark cloud, certainly. As far as TKO, Nick Khan, and the board, clearly took it very seriously, acted immediately.

 

On how WWE can prevent something like the Vince McMahon situation from happening again: “Looking at the future, I don’t know the answer to that, and I think somewhere there is really a basic tenant of, this crew, more than ever, from a roster standpoint, is very family, never seem anything like this. Most of the time, wrestling locker rooms, fighting, talking trash about each other, making fun of each other, sandbagging each other in the ring, all that nonsense. This team is very team based. And perhaps that’s the ingredient, everyone looking out for everyone, being accountable. And I know, for me, as a performer, a competitor, I’ve been through dark periods in our industry before and it might sound cheesy but it’s very reinforcing if you’re in my position that it’s a time when, hey, we got 50,000 people out here, I want to give them something else from this weekend that isn’t a terrible situation, terrible news, and I think we were able to do that and obviously as more news comes out, we’ll be seeing it just like you do.”

[Curt McGirt]

4 hours ago, Hamhock said:

“Summary is only a couple of pages - we’ll give you a few minutes for your thoughts on it.”

Followed by "We're waiting." And dead silence. 

That's when he either walks out or blows up and opens mouth, inserts foot. 

[Curt McGirt]

2 hours ago, Matt D said:

They're all fighting to be employee of the month, basically, because that is the loftiest goal as seen by all the wrestlers and the fanbase as a whole. It is dystopian down to the language and terminology and branding.

Mr. Orwell couldn't have written it any better

[Curt McGirt]

I can tell you what a bunch of the malarkey that comes out of him blowing up would probably be. It'd be exactly what McMahon would say (and our former president, for that matter), that this is a witch hunt, that "you people" (exact wording) have always been against wrestling... basically the standard defense for anybody who wants to get away with anything they want without any standards or actual control from an outside source being followed. And a whole pile of "well, I didn't do it". 

[Log]

@Matt D really nailed what I was trying unsuccessfully to articulate way earlier in this thread. All things WWE are Vince’s idea of what it should be. People talk like he thinks people should talk. People look like he thinks people should look. The whole presentation is his vision. It’s all done by him and for him. Hopefully that changes soon. I could see reasons why they shouldn’t go away from that. The company is massively successful. Why blow that up? But that’s why I have a hard time with it. 

[EVA]

Somebody could write a book about how Vince’s own body dysmorphia has influenced generations of young men.

[(BP)]

32 minutes ago, EVA said:

Somebody could write a book about how Vince’s own body dysmorphia has influenced generations of young men.

*stops doing Hindu squats while hauling myself over the coals for having a McNugget meal last night*

What do you mean? 

[Godfrey]

Vince has been pro wrestling's #1 enemy since he found out what his dad did. His influence on the industry and the artform has done lasting damage to how wrestling is presented and accepted and could take years to correct if they even want to

[Log]

13 minutes ago, Godfrey said:

Vince has been pro wrestling's #1 enemy since he found out what his dad did. His influence on the industry and the artform has done lasting damage to how wrestling is presented and accepted and could take years to correct if they even want to

Agree. But there’s also probably an argument to be made that, if not for Vince, we’re not all talking about pro wrestling here right now. 

[Cobra Commander]

Sure local monopolies fell apart in a variety of industries as businesses consolidated into bigger businesses (media companies, banks, gas stations) but clearly wrestling territories would have stuck around if not for one guy. Even if the territory with cable television was going into places left open after the Sheik’s territory went down. It’s just that the territory with TBS wasn’t particularly competently run so they went down quickly in the wrestling wars

I reserve the right to be skeptical that an assigned Endeavor babysitter/boss for the WWE (if they clean out the front office) is gonna produce anything that many of the very online people would want to watch and they might not produce anything that could retain their current popularity with WWE fans who have been watching at least since 2020.

But at least the media rights deals does keep them from just selling off the WWE part of the company so that they won’t have to bother with it anymore.

[Godfrey]

20 minutes ago, Log said:

Agree. But there’s also probably an argument to be made that, if not for Vince, we’re not all talking about pro wrestling here right now. 

I've heard that argument before and I personally don't particularly buy into it. If Vince hadn't consolidated wrestling into a national business somebody else would have, he was just more ruthless and opportunistic than others (and had one of the wealthier parts of the country as his base so he had a natural advantage). Between all the other territories and Ted Turner willing to spend money I think it would have survived in one form or another and maybe it wouldn't have become so cartoonish to boot

[odessasteps]

Like cockroaches, the business will always survive on some level, even if it’s just at county fairs and fire halls.

[Cobra Commander]

Yeah TNA/Impact is a testament that the only way for a wrestling company to not exist is for it to stop trying to exist

[SirSmUgly]

I don't think Vince won, in the sense that he is in his own personal hell (and IDK if Rovert is in the know, but he's certainly making claims online that Vince is like Logan Roy at his last birthday party with none of the kids around, which I wouldn't be surprised to learn was true). He wanted to run his company and do what he wanted with no scrutiny until he was dead. He didn't get to do that. It's small consolation to us because he's rich and destroyed a lot of lives with no punishment, but to him, I'm sure it's hell.

I think pro wrestling, like most things that can be commodified for profit, was always headed toward corporatization and ultimate enshittification and that Vince being the one to do it is ultimately meaningless in the scope of things; it doesn't count as a win for Vince, really, in that his vision was always capricious and would have ended up somewhere else had he lived forever and stayed in power. In fact, I think you only see this sort of corporate-branded show after they go public, so as usual, it's more about the corporation being death to creative flexibility and innovation than anything Vince may or may not have done w/r/t his creative vision of what a modern wrestling show is 

[Raziel]

29 minutes ago, Godfrey said:

I've heard that argument before and I personally don't particularly buy into it. If Vince hadn't consolidated wrestling into a national business somebody else would have, he was just more ruthless and opportunistic than others (and had one of the wealthier parts of the country as his base so he had a natural advantage). Between all the other territories and Ted Turner willing to spend money I think it would have survived in one form or another and maybe it wouldn't have become so cartoonish to boot

I love how everyone forgets that Crockett was just as bad a buying up territories as Vince was, he just wasn't as bad at outright poaching talent ahead of time.  Once could argue that Vince won the Expansion era because he had Hogan and didn't overextend himself teh way Crockett did.

[Log]

I don’t necessarily mean that Vince is the only one who could’ve done it, but he probably was the only one who could’ve on the level he did. Like, I don’t see Crockett getting involved with MTV or selling NBC on their product. Yeah, WCW beat them for a while, but it was the Hogan turn that kicked that into motion and you need “Vince’s” Hogan to have existed for it to work. 
 

Ugh. Here I am defending Vince. Jesus. I need a shower. 

[Cobra Commander]

I figure wrestling forums in the non-Vince alternate universe would be closer to Kayfabe Memories/Wrestling Classics with a tinge of CZWFans

It wouldn't be roller derby since wrestling's pre-80s peak was way higher than roller derby's peak, but it'd be a lot more niche.

[SirSmUgly]

29 minutes ago, Log said:

Ugh. Here I am defending Vince. Jesus. I need a shower. 

I don't think it's a defense of Vince so much as it is a statement of fact: Vince had a completeness of (business) vision and a series of advantages that no other promoter had and used those things to make pro wrestling, even if it was merely his limited vision of what that could be, a national concern. Then, he took it corporate as soon as he had the path to go public. Those are just facts. 

Edited January 28 by SirSmUgly

[Cobra Commander]

I wasn't alive for it, but I suspect people weren't just saying in early 1984 "you know what void exists in popular entertainment? pro wrestling".. instead Vince just stormed in and they had a certain amount of fortune (Captain Lou/Cyndi Lauper and Mr. T) and then a bunch of people decided to watch pro wrestling

[(BP)]

Yeah I think someone else may have attempted to nationalize, but what Vince really did was create a relationship between wrestling and pop culture. It’s had its ups and downs but that relationship has meant everything to professional wrestling as a whole ever since .