As eulogy to Vince McMahon’s career piled up after he was forced to retire on Friday, they followed the usual scenario of any unassuming and powerful rich man’s career coming to an end. His offenses, crimes, and responsibility for the misery and transgression are essentially innumerable somehow stemming from his achievements. Because in this country, being rich is the ultimate achievement of all. We value someone’s bank account more than anything, especially women and low-level workers, and often mistake it for some genius we can’t achieve. Even if the only “genius” involved was to have all the money in the first place, it all turned out to be a mess.
Because Vince McMahon is really a genius? Or does he just have more money than everyone else, and is left alone in a grappling industry where his vision and ideas are the only things that we have to assume are level next because no one else has provided an alternative for decades? His lifelong insecurities about being known simply as a wrestling promoter and his failures in any other line (XFL, his bodybuilding break, etc.) its own story.
Yes, wrestling was a fractured business that included many loosely linked territories across the country before McMahon “unified” them. And McMahon was the first, but not the only, promoter of wrestling, watching cable television can and will be in the industry. But McMahon was able to rise to that position of power by overturning all the agreements and rules the territories had so they could all survive and prosper, stealing talent through charisma. of television. Is having all the money and being an asshole prepared to do anything to make more money really a sign of genius? Yes, in this country, that’s right. Because, somehow, most people like to picture themselves as just an unhappy millionaire facing some tough times and if only given a chance, if they could be so cruel, if they can play the game that way…
Yes, WWE (then WWF) went mainstream in a way no other wrestling company had since the mid to late ’80s. But then again, they were essentially the only game in the game. town. And yes, McMahon created WrestleMania, the biggest event that wrestling has ever witnessed. He’s also the only wrestling promoter even capable of that. And it’s all built on the mass appeal of Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan (who himself was a different person, but undeniably a single star of history at the time). Both Andre and Hogan were industry stars before taking WWF to the next level, although they have already reached the stratosphere thanks to the platform McMahon was able to provide. Most likely a six in one…
Meanwhile, during the whole process, McMahon was allowed to run trains and run over whoever he wanted because he was responsible and had money. He could be accused of raping her company’s first female referee in a limousine, crush any chance he has workers form unions to improve their working conditions, Pump workers said full of steroids (or at least suggest that they should), put them on a schedule where their only salvation is painkillers, drugs and alcohol – which can kill many of them – or perhaps his subject. greatest wrestler deadly stunt simply because aesthetics please him, and face no consequences for it. Because that’s how it works here.
Sure, WWE and Vince helped create other crossover stars who are some of the biggest in the world, like The Rock and John Cena. But how much is Vince and how much of it is Rocky and Cena’s natural gift? Again, we don’t have any frames of reference to know for sure. There was nowhere Rock and Cena could go to see what else they could do. Totally unfair now, as it’s been years since Vince was interested in making an interesting product, but seeing how both Bryan Danielson and CM Punk continue their careers has been volatile when being in his 40s in AEW makes one wonder if it’s not more cases of the vampire Vince chasing his stars than the other way around.
Sure, there is competition sometimes. WCW was running. It didn’t fail because Vince thought ahead or outplayed them. The company collapsed under the weight of its own incompetence, a process rushed after the Time Warner-AOL merger that left wrestling completely off the corporate priority list. And then when WCW died, Vince bought it. With his money. Real visionary thinking. ECW showed fans a different way of wrestling… and Vince bought it with his own money. The tent continued to devour everything simply because of its need to feed.
WWE and Vince’s “art” will be defined by its different phases – Hogan’s Mania era, Stone Cold and The Rock’s Attitude era, etc. But again, this is about the only things. most offered. Are they that good or just look good because there isn’t anything beside it?
But Vince Express continued to operate, and the more profits he made, the more he was allowed to do. He can profit more and more during a pandemic that has killed millions while laying off more and more workers in every department, which only increases profits more allowing him to do more what he did that he could not be touched. The TV deals have come, so have the grants, because for a long time Vince and his business were the only ones of their kind. It stands alone, so most people it stands for it as best it can. Is it really?
And like all of our rich and powerful, McMahon will have to crawl out before the real bad happens. He will retire and live in whatever mansion he chooses, rather than even the outrage of being fired, much less the jail time he almost certainly deserves for any crime. which is yours. He will let his daughter cheer from the Vince-pilled cult in Boston on Friday, even as his employees grumble about how unfair it all is even though they know they don’t. much can be done. They need his money.
That is the true American Dream. Success that only you can achieve because of your position, it continues to grow in cycles simply because of your position and there are no consequences to whatever you do. You can’t have a new idea or a good idea for years and it doesn’t matter. McMahon is an asshole with a huge pile of money that has hurt so many people who have spent a long time on a junk product when it just doesn’t matter anymore because it all can’t be found. But that doesn’t matter here, because he’s that rich and he’s technically self-made. Even that “done” has a lot to do with being in the right place at the right time.
He’ll never get what we think he deserves, but he’s gotten what he thinks he’s done a billion times over, and that’s what really matters, right? ?
