Wrestling Analytic 3: The pros and Cons of Vince Mcmahon (feel free to add)?

[TheWrestlingPhilosopher]

VKM is a man the younger audience and WWE sheep sees as visonary and older fans find to be the seed of the devil for killing "their wrestling". Much like my last analytic, let us take a objective look at Vince Mcmahon. Feel free to add on any pro or con

Pros: The man's gambling in turning wrestling mainstream is certainly valiant and commendable, as not many outside the businessthought that an art the masses consider phony and hillbilly would ever sucees in mainstream. Whether you agree with the methods or not, no one can deny that Vince Mcmahon has led wrestling to heights that 30 years ago would have been squacked at. If you look at how huge wrestling has been, it is incredible when compared to pre Vince Mcmahon. The only "huge" days wrestling enjoyed pre Vince were the Gorgeous Geroge era.

Another pro of Vince is he is a master at connecting with the times. Mcmahon alligned himself with the popular Cyndi Lauper to get wrestling mainstream exposure to get coverage to wrestlemania and involvment with Mr T to give the foundation for success in his boldest move. The Attitude Era was genious in that Vince saw that he had the talent available to pull off the edgy product which he knew would succeed, as he knew edgy product was successful as demonstrated by the gangster rap rise 2 years pre attitude era and also the Jerry Springer show. Vince has been able to connect to today through the recent Punk Cena feud predicated on internet beliefs, the overkill of twitter which while really annoying to us purists does parallel the current world. It is also to note that Vince is a genious businessman/marketer, as his promotion of Hogan in particular was genious as was Austin. Of course Austin had amazing talent for the character and promo work, and Hogan had tons of charisma, but Vince done well in marketing these men. Vince is a wrestling leader who does realize that he needs new stars to keep him afloat which is something so many promoters don't, and Vince acquiring talent got him to the top, the manufacturing of new stars put him over the steroid era and WCW, transitioned him through the agression era, and as the building of recent WWE stars like Miz, Sheamous, Punk, Bryan and others occur, Vince is setting himself up for coming years as he has always done.

However, there is 2 sides of every coin, and Vince has his cons certainly. First and most dominant is the fact that yes, Vince did acquire the talent needed in the beginning by offering more money than anyone else to the territories' top wrestlers since he owned the New York Market and tv slots, but in doing this, he crippled businesses and killed the territory system. This was ok for years, but those effects are finally being fealt as now wrestlers for the last decade come often straight from wrestling camp or some half butt promotion, spend insufficent time in a rinky dink developmental place, than are thrusted into the light without the promo skill, crowd interraction, psychology or general skill needed to get over, and hence Vince is hurt and I predict will be real hurt in 10 years. Had vince kept the territories somewhat alive, he would still be the juggernaut, but have a well to go to for polished wrestlers to find a better success ratio.

Continuing with the theme of cons of Mcmahon, Vince also has through love of bodybuilding and the infamous steroid scandal injected a stereotypical image fans get over wrestling. I have outlined before in answers to previous questions the effects of this image on the business, and for character restraint wont outline all theme here, but Vince knows ladies love the look and kids love the big muscled "good guys" as they believe kayfabe, hence parents buy the merchandice of the bigmen and make Vince the most profit, which Vince must look at since WWE is ultimately an entertainment business that happens to have a wrestling backdrop. Hence as Vince goes for look over talent, countless talents like AJ Styles that COULD have a franchise built around them for the next decade are passd over for robotic huge Mason Ryans, and when they don't have the skills to get over, Vince has essentially shot himself in the foot.

Vince has also really given wrestling a media black eye for not only the image portrayed, but some really questionable storylines like the Katie Vick incident, his fake death, the London Bombing incident (though the Hassan character had huge potential for being a major major heel), and Mae Young giving birth to a hand to name a few instances.

Last con is that Vince's ego has prevented many a dream match from happening, in turn huge business money and exposure wise has been lost, and many great names like Muta and Sting have never stepped in a WWE ring because of mistrust over Vince. Vince has always fealt that anyone not a WWE manufactured superstar is inferior as seen by how he handeled the influx of good but misued talent after the WCW/ECW

[Samurai Chef]

I see what you mean my dad got me into wrestling and showed me stuff from when he was a kid so I got to see a different style wrestling that only ring of honor really does and then it is half @$$ED.

I don't know what to add but you are right he may have screwed wrestling for good.

*edit*
I figured out what to add.

cons-
greedy

[Mr. McMahon]

pros :looks

cons: biceps, smells like divas

[VisualDreamer785]

To say the only "huge" days was Gorgeous George would be a misnomer as I do believe that Jerry Lawler did get national attention with his Andy Kaufman feud and World Class did have Kerry Von Erich as one of the top "heart throbs" in the business. So that would basically cover the appeal as to why WWF wanted to go mainstream when he saw these "regional" promotions got national attention....he just copied them. I would also say Gino Hernandez from World Class did get a few acting jobs on day time soaps back in the 80's that drew in the female fans.....which again drew in a certain demographic. So again after watching the success of these guys getting over with the general public....VKM decided that he had to get that "Hollywood" crossover appeal with celebrities. So what did he do.....hire Hogan who was in the Rocky 3 movie and try to get Mr. T involved in the major feud for WWF.

Pro: did what few could do take it to the mainstream

Con: at the cost of crushing and buying out all competition to setup a monopoly and the biggest con of all would be HE thinks HE is the main draw.

[yaheigh]

I'll give it a go. Very good analysis by the way. Here is a couple that I thought of that were not on your list.

Pros:
Lets face it. Many wrestling promoters have about as much on screen presence and mic skills of a slice of stale bread. Not the case with Vince. From a young guy working as an announcer to present day Vince honed his mic skills. Vince has proven himself to be better at playing the heel and drawing heat than many of the wrestlers he employees. I'll go so far as to venture that SCSA era wouldn't have been as successful as it was if Austin didn't have the perfect heel to play against - and that heel was often Vince. For what its worth, I have seen worse ring work that the work Vince did. Oh he was no Kurt Angle in there - but considering he's not a "in ring talent" he did good.

Another pro. Most people know that there have been a ton of drug related deaths in wrestling. Most don't know how may guys Vince has paid to put through rehab. It doesn't matter if they said bad things about Vince. It doesn't matter if they left Vince for another company. It doesn't matter if Vince let them go. All they have to do is pick up the phone and say, "Vince - I want help." He's paid for Scott Hall to go thru rehab numerous times. He was trying to get Test to go to rehab when test passed away. Ron Simmons is a one of many guys that is now clean due to Vince shelling out the $ to put him though rehab. It isn't limited to just rehab. Barry Windham recently suffered a horrible stroke. It was touch-and-go as to if he would live, let alone ever walk again. The bills were mounting quickly - but now he is getting the best care available. Guess who is picking up the tab.

One more pro - Vince values loyalty. He will sometimes "take care of" guys that have been loyal. There is a reason why guys like Capt. Lou or Fred Blassie were around years after their wrestling days are over. There is a reason other than her ability to draw heat why Vicki G has a job as a manager and a reason why many former wrestlers still work for Vince as road agents or in other roles.

A con - and this might just be another theme of some you listed. Vince can hate to admit when he was wrong. Sometimes he'll keep an angle or something going in the face of failure just because he still thinks its a good idea.

[The Dragon]

I've been a wrestling fan for 45 years. In the interest of full disclosure (not that my feelings about Vince McMahon are a secret) I see Vince McMahon as the devil who killed the wrestling business to replace it with his Hollywood parody he calls "sports entertainment". He turned a, uh, "respectable" pseudo-sport into a cheesy cartoon show full of superheroes and supervillains fueled by grade "Z" Hollywood shlocky melodrama. Those who only know the WWE have no idea what it was like to have a real wrestling business.

A few Pros and Cons of Vince McMahon:

PROS:

1. He's not afraid to fail...spectacularly. Vince really does have balls the size of grapefruits, and an ego to match. He will risk everything to push something he believes in. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

2. He is a marketing genius. That's the only time you will ever see me refer to Vince McMahon as a "genius". Vince is the greatest marketer in pro wrestling history, no question. He is the "P.T. Barnum" of the wrestling business. Couple that with the first thing I wrote and Vince did indeed make the WWE a world-wide brand and household name.

3. Despite his wealth, power, and accolades Vince does know when to listen to his subordinates. An example: Aligning the WWF with Cyndi Lauper was Captain Lou Albano's idea. Vince saw that marketing to the MTV crowd could be a big success so he took Albano's suggestion and made it happen. Vince has since aligned the WWF/E with various other entertainment genres, attempting to broaden the WWF/E's appeal, mostly successfully.

CONS:

1. He is an idea thief. Vince hasn't created, invented, or innovated anything in the wrestling business. He's just taken ideas from other promoters/wrestlers (without giving credit), put a slick coat of Hollywood glitz on them, put them on national TV, and taken credit for "inventing" them. Examples: Vince didn't invent the wrestling PPV, Jim Crockett did. Vince didn't invent multi-angle multi-camera TV wrestling shows, Fritz Von Erich did. Vince didn't invent syndicated pre-packaged wrestling shows shipped to various markets (including to other countries), Fritz Von Erich did. Vince didn't invent Hell In A Cell, Ole Anderson did. Vince didn't invent the Royal Rumble, Pat Patterson did. Vince didn't invent Triple Threat matches, Paul Heyman did. Vince didn't create the Attitude Era, Paul Heyman did. Vince didn't invent the Ladder Match, a wrestler in Stampede did. Etc etc etc.

2. Vince has no morals, ethics, or scruples. He wasn't willing to "win" by producing better TV and live shows, he pulled every trick in the book to kill the territories and put every wrestling company in North America out of business, not caring in the least about the thousands of people he put out of work, just to make sure he had no competition. I'm not talking about offering more money to the performers, that's fair. I'm talking about buying up local promotions' TV time and replacing their shows with his syndicated WWE compilation shows. I'm talking about running shows opposite smaller promotions on the same night in the same city and locking out every other wrestling promoter from various arenas around the country by getting the managers of those arenas to sign exclusive contracts with the WWF/E prohibiting them from holding wrestling shows that are not the WWF/E. I'm talking about locking in WWE performers to exclusive contracts that took away their rights to work when where and how often they wanted. You and I can have as many different jobs working for as many different employers as we want; WWE performers have that right taken away as a condition of WWE employment.

3. Vince has dumbed-down and shoved to the back the actual wrestling match, and with it actual wrestling skills and the art of pro wrestling, replacing it with cheesy grade "Z" shlocky melodrama written by failed Hollywood screenwriters, cartoon characters, catchphrases, merchandise-driven "promos", and punching & kicking. Storytelling (in the ring) has all but disappeared from the WWE. Instead, we have muscled-up actors reciting pre-written dialogue following directions in skits and in the ring. Very few in the WWE still have the ability to improvise on the fly should it be necessary; most of them just blindly follow "the script" no matter the circumstances or the audience reactions.

[Ninja King]

Dragon and rest of the answers here have a good point.