The below article is actually a project on leadership. It was presented to a university in Europe, where information on professional wrestling is scarce. For that reason, certain things have been explained more simply than they are and certain negative aspects of Vince Mc Mahon Jr's chartacter have been disregarded to enable the preparation of a simpler project.

Author: Hakan Haktanır

Who is Hakan? He is a wrestling fan since the age of eight and maintains the Internet's only valuable website on professional wresling presented in the Turkish language. It is called Güreşmania and can be found at www.haktanir.org/gures/. He has worked as a researcher and journalist.

January 8, 2006

 

VINCE Mc MAHON JR.: THE LEADER IN SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT

1. Introduction

Irish whip, clothesline, spine buster, sharpshooter, belly to belly suplex, body slam, small package, atomic leg drop, the pedigree, the people’s elbow, the rock bottom, the stunner… The words and phrases come from the world of professional wrestling, which in time came to be known as “sports entertainment”. If you have never heard of them, then you have probably never heard of Vince McMahon Jr. either.

Professional wrestling, although never popular in Europe as compared to the United States, Mexico or Japan, has been around for more than a century. However, even in these mentioned countries, it did not enjoy mainstream popularity during the majority of its history. As a result, professional wrestling professional wrestling was not viewed as a profitable sport for promoters and wrestlers and was never believed to be an industry that could one day be worth billions of dollars. Wrestlers who speak of their experiences prior to the mid-1980s say that they would travel many miles squeezed in a small car to wrestle in the scheduled arena and earn their twenty dollars. They would sleep in the worst hotels and fight over twenty-five cents with their friends. They would wrestle in smelly arenas, in front of drunken and dangerous crowds.

Needless to say, only a true revolution of the wrestling industry could have enabled it to move beyond this state, which would at best reach mediocrity. However, such a revolution was easier said than done. Who could have come up with the necessary innovations and transform professional wrestling into a money-making machine and remove all the mentioned burdens faced by wrestlers and promoters? Who could have put their own money on the line and take a major financial risk for the benefit of the industry? Who could have brought people together and make them work for the common goal of transformation? In the early 1980s, these questions were hard to answer. Today, we know that the person who acted as a leader and brought forth all the required changes was Vince McMahon Jr. In the light of all he has accomplished, he can be said to be one of the most important leaders in sports and pop-culture history.

When one examines the early life of McMahon, he or she cannot say that he was the most likely candidate to act as a leader for the professional wrestling industry. He spent most of his childhood in a trailer, where he was raised by his mother and various step-fathers. At the age of twelve, he got to meet his biological father – Vince McMahon Sr. – who turned out to be a wrestling promoter and the head of Capitol Sports, which incorporated the Worldwide Wrestling Federation. Although Vince Jr. fell in love with professional wrestling, his father did not wish for him to get involved at first. Vince Jr. ended up attending military school and graduating from university with a degree in marketing.

However, he could not get away from this sport with which he had fallen in love with as a child. In 1971, seven years after graduating from university, his father gave him permission to promote the WWWF in Maine. A year later, Vince Jr. also started working as an on-screen commentator. He was successful in both of his roles. He became a poplar commentator and was able to expand the WWWF’s syndication from nine to thirty channels by the late 1970s (Slam Sports, 2005). In 1982, Vince Sr. became aware that he was dying of cancer and decided to leave the business to his son. Vince Jr. bought the company and turned it into Titan Sports and began his massive revolution of the WWWF (which he later shortened to the WWF), which would eventually have crucial consequences on the wrestling industry as a whole.

2. A Leader and His Breakthroughs

In my view, someone has to be more than just a good promoter or manager to be considered a real leader. A leader should be someone who comes up with ideas that serve as breakthroughs in the industry he is part of. It should be noted that in the early years after becoming the owner of the WWF, McMahon’s main goal was to change the nature of his wrestling federation, so that it could become more popular and be considered mainstream. In other words, everything McMahon did was aimed at an ultimate goal of changing the way people looked as wrestling itself. In this sense, I have chosen to examine his early attempts of making a breakthrough under two sections: (1) attempts at changing wrestling from being sports to sports entertainment and (2) attempts at changing wrestling from being a small-scale event to a giant attraction.

Sports to Sports Entertainment

The first major breakthrough McMahon can be credited for is the successful application of “storylines” and “gimmicks”, or rather characters. As mentioned, he wanted greater attention for his product. He wanted to come up with a way in which a greater number of people could relate to wrestling, even those not necessarily interested in physical combat. McMahon knew that everyone liked a good story and thought that wrestling could be more interesting if there were stories behind all the fights going on. In other words, he decided to transform the sport from being one where two men would fight each other in a ring, to one where the fight would just be part of a much larger story, just like in an action movie. For this purpose, McMahon created various storylines involving love, jealousy, betrayal, brotherhood, hate, anger, etc. As a result, his wrestling shows started to concentrate on what was going on outside of the ring, just as much as what was taking place in the ring. The spectators at the arena and in front of their TV sets, got the chance to see various sketches, interviews and talk shows that gave them clues concerning a wrestling’s characters. In other words, they got to see who was arrogant, who was honorable, and who was simply crazy.

This brings us to the second and interrelated factor of characters. Until the breakthroughs made by McMahon, the spectators knew very little about the wrestlers they would see in the ring. However, McMahon saw it appropriate to give each wrestler a “gimmick”, or rather certain obvious characteristics concerning their physical outlook, their names, and their overall role in the storylines. For example, George Steele was a wrestler who had a great amount of body hair on him. Vince introduced him as George “The Animal” Steele. His character would act more like an animal than a man. The character could not talk and would destroy certain objects around the ring for no apparent reason. One day, in the storyline, George would come across Miss Elizabeth – the manager of another wrestler called Randy “Macho Man” Savage – and fall in love with her. He would stop acting like a crazy animal, but Elizabeth would still be intimidated by him. This would eventually lead to various matches between The Animal and Randy Savage, in which the former would generally lose the matches because he was distracted by Elizabeth’s beauty. This example clearly shows how McMahon successfully applied both storylines and characters into matches and kept people’s interest going on what would happen next.

Another example is that of Ted DiBiase. Before the breakthroughs of Vince McMahon, DiBiase had already been wrestling for quite some time in other federations but had never become a great star. McMahon transferred DiBiase to the WWF and pitched him an idea about a character called “The Million Dollar Man”. DiBiase liked the idea very much and debuted in the WWF as Ted “The Million Dollar Man” DiBiase. Before even making an in-ring wrestling debut, DiBiase would be seen in the ring, with his bodyguard Virgil, telling the spectators that everyone has a price. He would then prove his point by saying that he would pay a hundred dollars for any volunteers that would kiss his “sweaty” foot or would bounce a basketball until the number he ordered (OWW, 2005b). Through such sketches, his character quickly became a hated individual and a star. His stories continued in the following weeks and DiBiase eventually said that he would buy the WWF Championship title from Hulk Hogan, the champion at the time. Of course, Hogan would reject and this would lead to various matches either between the two or between Hogan and one of his former friends who was now “bought” by DiBiase to betray him. This is another example of how McMahon used storylines and characters to change wrestling from sports to sports entertainment.

From Small-Scale to Extravagant

As explained in the previous section, one approach McMahon used to increase the popularity of the sport was to change its nature. However, he also took a more direct approach in having wrestling watched by millions. The first step he took in this direction was the creation of an annual program called Wrestlemania. McMahon believed that just as American football had the Super Bowl, just as baseball had the World Series, and just as soccer had the World Cup, wrestling was in need of a similar giant program. Therefore, in 1985, he put together a two hour long program featuring matches between his best wrestlers, but he also filled the program with various celebrities that could gather mainstream attention. The main event was a tag-team match between “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff on one side and Hulk Hogan and Mr.T (famous from the movie Rocky III and the series The A-Team) on the other. The guest ring announcer for the match was Billy Martin, the former manager of the New York Yankees. The guest timekeeper was the world famous Liberaci, while the guest referee was none other than boxing legend Muhammed Ali (Slam Sports, 2004). Moreover, in the match for the Women’s Championship between Richter and Kai, 1980s pop-idol Cyndi Lauper would support Richter at ringside and the two would celebrate their victory afterwards to Lauper’s famous hit single “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”. Wrestlemania II, held a year later, also featured famous names such as Ozzy Osbourne and Ray Charles among others. In short, McMahon took the first shot at turning wrestling into an extravagant event with his creation of Wrestlemania.

In addition to being a breakthrough, Wrestlemania also provides perfect examples that show some of McMahon’s strong leadership qualities. First of all, the creation of a program with the magnitude of Wrestlemania involved major risks. In short, it was a do or die situation for McMahon and the WWF. There were no guarantees that a giant wrestling program would be successful. Nevertheless, Vince McMahon, being the leader that he is, took this risk and invested every single penny he had in this program because he believed in his dream. He could have just played it safe and continued to make small but profiting programs. Yet, he showed everyone that a real leader needs to take risks if he wants to make a difference.

Second, McMahon got everyone in the WWF and all the celebrities involved in Wrestlemania to believe in him and follow him with their own free will. He got the people involved to work for the common goal of taking professional wrestling out of small arenas and into giant stadiums, as well as the TV screens of millions of viewers. At that time, it could have been very simple for people like Liberaci or Muhammed Ali to say that they wanted no involvement in this project. After all, none of the celebrities were in need of money. Yet, they were convinced by McMahon and his leadership skills. Of course, following the success of the first Wrestlemania, many wrestlers of other federations – Dusty Rhodes and Ric Flair to name a few – were also convinced of his leadership abilities and decided to join the WWF shortly after with their own free will (Slam Sports, 2005). These people clearly did not believe that McMahon had just gotten lucky or that his future plans in wrestling would fail. They were aware of the breakthrough he had brought to the industry, saw him as a true leader, and were ready to follow him in his future endeavors.

Coming back to the point that McMahon changed the industry from being small to extravagant, it should be noted that following the success of Wrestlemania, he found other means to greaten the scale of wrestling. He practically brand-scratched in any way possible, creating the world’s first wrestling cartoon show and the first wrestling related music album. The WWF started mass production of anything from lunch-boxes to t-shirts, from action figures to stickers, etc. Although this may at first sound like nothing more than a huge advertising campaign aimed at increasing the scale with which wrestling was promoted, it can also be considered to be another major breakthrough for a whole different reason. Before McMahon, wrestlers would simple earn their money by wrestling. However, with the introduction of the mentioned merchandises, wrestlers could not get royalty fees from the sale of t-shirts carrying their name or from the action figures in their likeness. Thus, as a leader, McMahon not only changed the nature and the scale of the industry, but he also created additional sources of revenue for everyone involved. In this sense, I believe that another one of his great leadership qualities was “being able to see the larger picture”.

3. A Leader in a Dynamic World

As noted in the previous sections, I believe that a leader should make breakthroughs in the industry he is part of. However, perhaps a quality needed in a leader which is just as important is to truly understand the need for being dynamic. Vince McMahon understood very well that to keep the attention and interest of the audience, new innovations were always needed. In this sense, one of his approaches to meeting the needs of a dynamic world was to constantly introduce new programs with unique content.

In 1987, three years after the first Wrestlemania, he came up with the idea of a second program, called the Survivor Series. In this program, wrestlers would form teams composed of five wrestlers and would battle each other until all of the wrestlers of one team were eliminated. The remaining wrestlers would be called “survivors”. The same year, he also introduced a tournament called the King of the Ring, in which sixteen of the best wrestlers in the federation would meet each other in a knock-out style tournament and the winner would be called “king” for a year. In 1988, he introduced a program with a totally unique concept, called the Royal Rumble. In the Rumble match, thirty wrestlers would come to the ring (one every two minutes) in a random order determined by a draw. To be eliminated from the match, a wrestler would need to be thrown over the top rope (a wrestling ring has 3 ropes) and to the outside. This elimination method, contrary to the traditional methods of pinning or making an opponent submit, would continue until there was only one wrestler left in the ring.

Another type of dynamism McMahon paid attention was the desire of the fans to see new types of matches, in addition to new programming. As early as the second Wrestlemania, the WWF had introduced the “steel cage” match, in which the only way to win the match was to exit from the cage before the opponent, either by breaking the door or climbing to the top of the ring. Since then, many other types of matches have been introduced. One that especially stands out is the ladder match, first introduced at Wrestlemania 10. In this match, the championship belt would be hung above the ring by a wire from the ceiling. The only way to win the match would be to climb a foldable ladder and untie the belt before the opponent. This whole setting brought further excitement to wrestling and met many of the fans’ desires, especially the increasing desire to see more foreign objects being used in matches. In this respect, the ladder would be used as a foreign object to hurt the opponent on many accounts. McMahon understood that the spectators of the 1990s desired to see more violence in comparison to those of the 1980s. He came up with many match types such as first blood (first wrestler to bleed loses), last man standing (two wrestlers fight until one can no longer physically stand up for 10 seconds), street fight (permission to use many foreign objects), etc. It should also be noted that with the creation of another character called the Undertaker, McMahon also introduced matches such as the casket match (goal was to throw opponent in a casket and close the lid) and the “buried alive” match (goal was to literally bury your opponent alive, in the storyline and under the control of various camera tricks, of course).

Along with the dynamism he brought with new programming and new match types, McMahon should also be credited for successfully changing the overall theme of the WWF to meet the needs of the day. As noted, as times changed, so did the spectators. Therefore, McMahon believed that the characters and storylines had to adapt themselves to the changing times and the changing desires of spectators. For example, in the mid-1990s, McMahon realized that the average spectator was much younger than in the 1980s. Therefore, keeping in mind that many of these teenagers had an “attitude problem”, he coined the period to follow as the Attitude Era of the WWF and introduced wrestlers such as “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and “The Rock” who would constantly undermine authority. It was only suiting that Austin would chug down loads of beer and give everyone “the middle finger” upon winning his matches or he would beat up many authority figures in the WWF, including Vince McMahon.

Another tweak McMahon implemented to keep up with times was moving away from unrealistic characters such as The Animal, The Ultimate Warrior, the Warlord, etc. and concentrating on making characters more believable. Needless to say, the youth of our current time are less gullible than the ones before. The needs for realism can also be linked to the United States going crazy over “reality TV” in the same time. Many wrestlers started debuting in the WWF under their real names, but of course McMahon always gave them a character to portray. For example, in the late-1990s, McMahon convinced Kurt Angle – Olympic gold medalist in amateur wrestling in the 1996 Summer Olympics – to wrestle professionally for the WWF. Kurt Angle agreed and debuted under his real name and carried his gold medals around his neck to the ring (OWW, 2005c). The character he was assigned by McMahon was to constantly remind people that he was an Olympic champion, until they got tired of hearing him blow his own horn. Other attempts at reality included the WWF’s “Tough Enough” competition, which was a reality TV show aired on MTV, in which people who wanted to become wrestlers would participate. They would be trained each week by real wrestlers and the viewers of the show would get to cast votes on who should be eliminated each week. WWF’s second reality TV program was called “The Diva Search”, in which beautiful young girls who wanted to become valets (escorts who have roles in storylines) for the WWF would compete.

Overall, it can be said that McMahon fulfilled the leadership quality on understanding dynamism perhaps more successfully than many of the other leaders and chief executive officers of his time. From day one, he thought of new programming and new match types to ensure that the dynamic needs of the spectators were met. He understood how the world, the US in general, was changing and what people were interested in now that they were not in before. He knew very well the direction his company needed to be headed in. In this sense, he showed an excellent leadership quality by analyzing his surrounding and taking the necessary actions.

4. A Leader Faced with Competition

The last factor I wish to examine to show further qualities in McMahon’s leadership is how he reacted when he was faced with a very dangerous competitor. In 1993, Ted Turner, the multibillionaire owner of Time Warner/AOL decided to get into the wrestling business. He purchased World Championship Wrestling, which was a smaller federation in comparison to the WWF, and set his goal to beat WWF in the ratings and possibly to put it out of business altogether.

Ted Turner employed an ambitious man called Eric Bischoff and gave him full use of his check book and instructed him to use all the dirty tricks he could think of to beat WWF. As a result, the first thing Eric Bischoff started to do was to employ any WWF wrestler whose contract would expire. Bischoff offered them higher salaries and less working hours. In just a few years, WCW had hired names that had become synonymous with the WWF, such as Hulk Hogan, Macho Man and Ric Flair, who were all former WWF champions. Bischoff even employed the WWF announcers Mean Gene Okerlund and Bobby Heenan. On one episode, Bischoff announced that he had transferred WWF’s Women’s Champion and called her out. The women’s champion came with her WWF championship belt in her hand and threw it in a garbage can. The WCW had clearly declared war on Vince McMahon.

Bischoff’s dirty tactics were not constrained to stealing WWF stars. He decided to put WCW’s weekly program Monday Nitro at exactly the same time as WWF’s program Monday Night Raw. Knowing that WWF’s programs were taped earlier, Bischoff made his program live and gave the viewers the results of the matches that would take place on WWF’s show. By doing this he wanted to leave no reason for the wrestling fans to watch a pre-taped show. The extreme warfare between the WCW and the WWF came to be known as “The Monday Night Wars” in the following years. Vince McMahon suddenly faced a major challenge: a federation with a larger checkbook and dirty tactics. If he had not been a good leader, the WWF would have gone bankrupt only after a few years of competition with the WCW.

As a leader, the first thing McMahon should be applauded for is that he did not give in or give up when faced with a powerful competition. Rather, he weighed the pros and cons of the two federations. He quickly came to the conclusion that the WCW did not have a long-term vision and that they were after weekly ratings. McMahon, on the other hand, cared about the future of his wrestling federation in general and was not after short-lived rating successes. Thus, while the WCW tried to shock the viewers with important weekly happenings, the WWF invested in the future. McMahon successfully analyzed that the WCW had bought a lot of former WWF superstars who were mostly in their forties or late-thirties. He assessed that because of this, WCW could not benefit sufficiently from all its young talent waiting to become famous. Therefore, WWF’s policy was to create new young talent and transfer any WCW youngsters who were not getting enough air time (WWE 2004a). This long-term tactic did pay off in the end for McMahon. Wrestling viewers got tired of seeing the same old names in WCW and eventually turned their attention to the WWF, who had a full roster of new talent. In this sense, McMahon showed the leadership qualities of not giving up, analyzing the market, knowing how to work with what he had, and thinking of the long-term rather than weekly successes.

As noted, the WCW and Bischoff tried many unethical tactics to beat the WWF. McMahon, on the other hand, did not take the same road. He remained an ethical and respectful boss during this state of competition and the wrestling viewers ultimately showed their appreciation. For example, while the WCW was beating the WWF in the ratings, a former WCW superstar called Mick Foley had transferred to the WWF. McMahon believed in Foley and made him the champion on an episode of Monday Night Raw. The same night, WCW Monday Nitro announced that Foley would win the WWF belt that night on the competitor’s program and the announcer commented “that will put some butts in the seat”. While the WCW was beating the WWF in the ratings that night, the moment the WCW announcer made this comment, people changed the channel. Mick Foley was a wrestler who put his body on the line each time he wrestled in the WCW. The viewers found the words of the commentator, aimed at a good-working former employee, to be highly disrespectful (WWE, 2004a). Such mistakes cost the WCW greatly and McMahon, by not stooping to their level, gained further respect as a leader. In short, someone cannot be a good leader if he is not respected by people. That is why Eric Bischoff failed to be a leader like McMahon despite all the advantages he had. In the end, WCW went bankrupt in 2001 and Ted Turner stopped investing in it. McMahon, to teach the WCW one good lesson, bought the bankrupt WCW and closed it altogether.

5. Conclusion

In my personal view, it takes many important qualities for one person to be considered a true leader. He must first make various breakthroughs in the industry he is involved with. McMahon did just that for the wrestling industry by changing its nature, changing it from being a small industry to a large one, and coming up with various new sources of revenue. A leader must then constantly try to come up with new ideas and never feel satisfied with the development he has made. He should always increase the benchmark. McMahon was such a leader. After his wrestlers put on a great show, he would always say “That was great, but how will you top that next time?” He was always aware that life went on and people were interested in past successes only for a short period of time.

A good leader must understand the dynamics of the world and should always be able to easily analyze the pros and cons of both himself and his competition. He should learn from both his and the competitors’ mistakes. Perhaps, McMahon’s ability in this respect was what allowed him to beat a multi-billionaire like Ted Turner. He understood very well what the WCW was doing wrong and took lessons out of such mistakes. He understood why the spectators would get tired of the WCW product and its disrespectful approach to the wrestling industry. He responded by giving the spectators what they wanted and deserved. Vince McMahon, with his innovations, his dynamism, his success in competition and his overall work ethic, is definitely a jewel for the wrestling industry and should be considered as one of the most successful leaders of sports and pop-culture of our time.

6. Bibliography

WWE, 2004a, The Monday Night Wars DVD

WWE, 2004b, Wrestlemania XX DVD: Wrestlemania History

Slam Sports, 2004, Wrestlemania: The Dynasty Begins,

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/Wrestlemania20/WrestleMania1.html

Slam Sports, 2005, Biography: Vince McMahon,

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/Bios/mcmahon-vince.html

Obsessed with Wrestling, 2005, Profile: Vince McMahon,

http://www.onlineworldofwrestling.com/profiles/v/vince-mcmahon.html

Obsessed with Wrestling, 2005b, Profile: Ted DiBiase,

http://www.onlineworldofwrestling.com/profiles/t/ted-dibiase.html

Obsessed with Wrestling, 2005c, Profile: Kurt Angle,

http://www.onlineworldofwrestling.com/profiles/k/kurt-angle.html