This article will look at World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and the man behind the company, Vincent Kennedy McMahon (known on TV as Vince McMahon) and his decision to try and move the company away from being a wrestling company to that of an Entertainment company, in the eyes of the media and the wider world. Vince is the CEO and chairman of the WWE, he is the majority shareholder of the company, and he holds an approximate 88% of the total voting power and about 59% of the outstanding shares within the WWE.
Last year we heard the news that WWE wanted to stop their commentators using the word wrestling in TV broadcasts, now they appear to be dropping the word all together. This means that, everyone within the company or affiliated with it cannot use the words, wrestle, wrestling or wrestler. Further to this, World Wrestling Entertainment will now just be going by the name WWE Inc. This comes after news of a meeting between Vince McMahon and other senior members of WWE hierarchy became public knowledge.
Vince justified this in an interview with the LA Times by stating ‘I think every brand has to re-create itself, I want everyone to look at us in a vastly different way than they have.’
Look at you in a different way Vince, like the XFL? (Vince had the ‘great’ idea back in 2000 to launch his own brand of American Football, it quickly folded so after the launch) Or a film from WWE Studios? (A film company set up by WWE to produce films starring WWE wrestlers to try and introduce them to the wider public) Come on, wake up and smell the baby oil and sweaty spandex. WWE has and always will be a wrestling organisation. WWEs biggest event of the year is called WrestleMania….WRESTLEmania….or as it will soon be known by Vince’s logic, EntertainmentMania. Wrestling is the fabric of the company, its’ what it has built its reputation on since the days of CWC, the origin of the current WWE. Yet within one meeting it appears that Vince is trying to wipe the history away, forget what has made him a multi-millionaire and crawl legs in air, arse cheeks open wide to the word of sponsors and affiliates, disregarding the opinions of those that have put that money into the McMahon bank account.
If the WWE wants to change anything then maybe they should stop worrying about what Mattel Toys and other affiliates want from them and start considering what the paying fans want! Listen to the fans and watch the buy-rates go up for PPVs, live gates increase and more people talking and showing an interest in the overall product.
Dropping the word wrestling won’t have any effect on the weekly product we are going to see but if Vince doesn’t want to be associated with the word wrestling why bother having a wrestling ring to hold wrestling matches in for wrestling championships?? If WWE is no longer a wrestling company then maybe this is the perfect time for a company like TNA (Americas 2nd biggest wrestling company) or ROH (The 3rd biggest wrestling company in America, but primarily an independent company where the guys who are not top stars are not contracted to the company) to step forward and give people what they want, wrestling. However this has its own problems with shockingly bad booking and lack of a TV deal causing problems for both companies respectively.
The general shift by the WWE from wrestling to entertainment does seem a slap in the face for the fans however. I for one have always been a wrestling fan and no matter how WWE wants to market itself I will always be a wrestling fan. I watch the programmes and attend live events to watch wrestling, not ‘a live entertainment performance’ whatever that maybe. Whatever the corporate side of the company may want to branch off into and achieve is one thing, but the main product is what it is, wrestling.
