McMahon was born on 24th August 1945 in Pinehurst, North Carolina. His father had left him when he was still a baby and McMahon did not meet him till the age of twelve. His father, Vincent J. McMahon was a promoter of the Capitol Wrestling Corporation inspired his son to follow his lead. McMahon studied at the East Carolina University and graduated in 1968 with a degree in business. He was very interested in joining his father’s profession however his father was not very excited about the idea. McMahon began as a travelling salesman and made his first appearance as a WWF’s All-Star Wrestling announcer in 1969. His interest in this profession piqued even more after this job.
By 1970s, Vince McMahon had become a strong force in his father’s firm and in the next ten years he was assisting him in augmenting TV syndication. He was the one who forced his father to change the company’s name to World Wrestling Federation (WWF). He bought the Cape Cod Coliseum and along with wrestling, promoted concerts and hockey games. McMahon became chairman of the company in 1980. In 1982, McMahon Sr. retired and sold his company to his son. Under his superb management WWF thrived more than ever before. McMahon wanted to give the federation board a greater appeal and a bigger audience. He created Macho Man and Hulk Hogan who made the audiences go wild. He also came with the idea of charging people to gather in an arena and watch the matches on a large screen. This idea was implemented first in the 1985 WrestleMania.
There are only a handful of men and women in the world of professional sports and television entertainment who are instantly known by name. Vince McMahon is one of those people. He joined his father in a regional wrestling operation called World-Wide Wrestling, an organization that eventually became the globally popular World Wrestling Federation.
Young Vince was a fine high school wrestler and also received a marketing degree in college. He began work as a wrestling promoter, forming his own company before hooking up with WWF. Vince provided commentary for the organization’s television program and was primarily responsible for WWF’s growing success in the 1980s.
After his father died, Vince McMahon went to work building WWF into the successful and widely recognized entertainment corporation it is today. Changing the focus to a combination of wrestling and entertainment may have been one of the wisest decisions a business executive has ever made. While the organization was still known as the World Wrestling Federation McMahon put together WrestleMania (1985).
McMahon recruited new talent and bought out competition across the country, forming a national conglomerate he called the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and a parent company called TitanSports, Inc. Professional wrestling had long hovered in an uncertain position--not considered by many to be a legitimate sport, it was also looked down upon as an unappealingly lowbrow form of entertainment. McMahon admitted that WWF wrestling was technically not a real sport, as the outcome of each match was known in advance. Instead, he played up its entertainment aspect, introducing wrestlers with theatrical personae and flashy costumes and staging elaborate displays for the benefit of the arena crowds and the cable audience. It worked--in 1987, the WWF sold $80 million in tickets to live events, according to Forbes magazine. The federation was also drawing record numbers of viewers to events on pay-per-view, closed circuit television.
In the early 1990s, McMahon and the WWF had a series of legal problems, culminating in the 1993 accusation by the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn, New York, that McMahon and Titan Sports had supplied wrestlers with anabolic steroids from 1985 to 1991. During a trial, several former WWF wrestlers, included ex-federation star Hulk Hogan, admitted to using steroids during their careers and testified that the WWF had encouraged the abuse of these drugs, which had been declared illegal in 1988. McMahon was acquitted of most of the charges, although he was found guilty of conspiring to defraud the Food and Drug Administration.
A problem of another kind had arisen in 1988 with the launch of World Championship Wrestling (WCW) by media titan Ted Turner. In the years after McMahon's trial, the rivalry between the WWF and WCW grew stronger, though the WWF remained solidly on top. The competition has only intensified popular enthusiasm for professional wrestling in the late 1990s. WWF events consistently rank as some of the highest among cable and pay-per-view programs, and the company's revenue increased over 45% from 1996 to 1999.
The new millennium and the birth of WWE
In 1999, McMahon took the WWF public; the McMahon family retained the vast majority of voting shares, however. Forbes placed his net worth at $1.7 billion.
In 2001, his company created a joint venture with NBC for a new professional football league called the XFL. The league folded after one season and is widely regarded as a colossal failure. He and NBC lost over 30 million dollars that year. Also in 2001, the North American wrestling landscape changed forever when the WWF purchased the assets of its long-ailing rival, WCW. AOL Time Warner, then WCW’s parent company, was looking to cut costs dramatically in the wake of its merger. McMahon eventually purchased the rights to ECW’s video library and trademarks. With these purchases, WWE became virtually the only pro wrestling organization in North America. McMahon ruled North American wrestling virtually unchallenged until 2002, when veteran wrestling promoter Jerry Jarrett and his son, former WWF and WCW star Jeff, created Total Nonstop Action (TNA).
In May 2002 (as noted by the interchangeable usage of different acronyms for the company in this article), McMahon changed the WWF’s name to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in the midst of an ongoing lawsuit with the World Wildlife Fund over the use of and trading using the WWF initials. Eventually McMahon hired his heated rival, former WCW President Eric Bischoff to play an on-camera, kayfabe role as RAW general manager, effectively signaling the end of the WCW/WWF rivalry.
On-camera return
After feuds with Ric Flair, a returning Hulk Hogan and the Undertaker, McMahon’s on-camera character would become less prominent for two years. However, the character resumed a more regular role after WWE Homecoming. This time he allied himself with Shane, Linda and Stephanie McMahon. His on-camera persona resumed a feud with Steve Austin. Shortly after, he started a feud with Shawn Michaels and eventually Triple H, which led to the return of D-Generation X. During this feud he claimed that Michaels was saved from destruction at WrestleMania 22 by God and formed his own religion (McMahonism). His on-camera storylines involved him firing Jim Ross and on-camera RAW General Manager Eric Bischoff. Mr. McMahon began serving as the interim General Manager of RAW, although he gave the primary duties to “Executive Assistant” Jonathan Coachman.
When Vince walks down the ring, he usually performs a certain “strut” in which is called by WWE Commentator Jim Ross as The Power Walk. This is practically an overexaggerated strut that Vince performs while walking down the ring while swinging his arms- and this is usually aided with comments by Jim Ross such as “There’s only one man that walks like that”, or “The Power Walk means bad news for somebody”. The Power Walk is used to get a reaction out of the crowd (especially when he’s a heel) but it also provides comic relief for fans as well. WWE Superstar Mick Foley had joked on the “Raw Exposed” special that aired before WWE Homecoming, that Vince “somehow walks like he’s got a broomstick shoved up in his ass”.
Personal life
Vince married Linda McMahon on August 6, 1966 in New Bern, North Carolina. The two met in church when Linda was 13 and Vince was 16. They were introduced by Vince’s mother, Vicky Askew. They have two children: Stephanie and Shane, both of whom work for WWE. A third child was falsely rumored, but the rumor stemmed from a picture featuring Shane, Vince, Stephanie, Linda and Marissa Mazzola-McMahon, Shane’s wife. He has a 12 million dollar penthouse in NYC, a 40 million dollar mansion in Greenwich, CT. and a 20 million dollar vacation home in Boca Raton, Fl, he is also the owner of the famous 30 million dollar WWE jet that was recently seen on RAW when Kayfabe story had Shawn Micheals and Triple H spray paint the Jet. He became a billionaire in 2000 and is still considered the most powerful man in sports entertainment.
Vince has two grandsons: Shane’s sons, Declan James McMahon and Kennedy Jesse McMahon, and one granddaughter, Aurora Rose Levesque, daughter to Stephanie and Paul Levesque, A.K.A Triple H.
No comments:
Post a Comment