Vince McMahon

Real Name - Vincent Kennedy McMahon

Lifespan - 8/24/45

Greenwich, CO

Occupational Background - Traveling salesman, play-by-play announcer

Mentor(s) - Vincent J. McMahon

Promotional Background - WWWF/WWF(`71-`82); WWF/WWE(`82-)

Peak Years - `84-`90

Place in History - It may be safe to say that there has never been and will never a single person who has had a greater influence on professional wrestling than Vince McMahon.  In the six decades that he has been involved with the sport, McMahon has been one of the key architects in transforming his father’s fiefdom in the Northeast into the global empire.  Some hold him up as a genius who used the appeal of superstars like Hulk Hogan, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, The Rock and John Cena to build the WWE brand into what is today.  Others contend that he is an egomaniacal control freak who was able to merchandise the ideas of others and undercut competitors through sleazy methods on his way to the top.  The truth probably lies somewhere in between the two.  Vince McMahon grew up poor before being taken in by his father.  The older McMahon was a promoter like his father Jess McMahon and he mentored his wild son Vinny into a savvy promoter.  The Northeast market had its peaks and valleys, but it was typically one of the premier markets for pro-wrestling in the world.  Populous centers like New York City, Philadelphia, Boston and  Washington DC provided a big money market that many of the best pro-wrestlers strived to visit.  Vince McMahon began as a play-by-play announcer in 1969 and replaced the WWWF’s main announcer Ray Morgan a couple years later.  While he took over his father’s promotion in 1982, McMahon continued to do play-by-play for another fifteen years.  McMahon, not unlike Bill Watts, Paul Boesch or James Blears, was able to actively guide the product as an announcer.  He has even become notorious for micromanaging announcers in recent years as he directs them over a headset.  When he took over for his father, McMahon had aspirations to grow the company into something bigger.  A national product was inevitable and while some like the IWA had failed, others like Georgia Championship Wrestling and Jim Crockett Promotions has expanded out of their home bases successfully and yet others with old-school NWA promoters were less interested in taking that risk.  McMahon secured some key talent and purchased TV rights to begin pushing the WWF product into new areas.  While his brand of pro-wrestling was neither the best technical or even the most exciting, it had larger-than-life characters and an aggressive promoter behind them.  McMahon and the WWF took over territories one by one and the old promoters were often unprepared to put up a fight.  Throughout the 1980s, McMahon completely altered the public perception of pro-wrestling.  He made toys, cartoons and t-shirts and the WWF’s “Rock-N-Wrestling” era pushed the sport to new heights.  The company’s success was followed by an amazing near-collapse.  McMahon was implicated in steroid-distribution and taken to court by the US government as well as sex scandals involving rape, minors and homosexuality threatened to bring the WWF empire down.  McMahon weathered the storms and emerged feeling he was untouchable.  The WWF product grew stagnant, its cartoonish nature turning off its maturing fan base who soon gravitated to WCW and its increasingly cutting edge approach.  The WWF narrowly survived, but rebounded by taking their product in an even edgier and provocative direction.  The “Attitude Era” was filled with sex and violence being portrayed by colorful characters in front of hot crowds.  McMahon himself finally was acknowledged as the head of WWF and embraced an on-screen persona as “Mr. McMahon.”  What he lacked in wrestling ability, McMahon made up for in personality.  He became the company’s top heel in opposition to Steve Austin and other babyfaces.  The WWF’s flurry of hot angles took them to, by many measures, their greatest peak.  They used their popularity to go public and when their competitors (mainly WCW and ECW) fell, the WWF transformed into the WWE.  In the 2000s, the WWE has become the biggest and most successful pro-wrestling company ever and yet it has declined by some measures.  As Vince McMahon has aged, some have accused him of growing out-of-touch and hobbling the company through erratic changes of direction and an unwillingness to listen to the fans.  Whether it is the John Cena heel turn, the poorly timed Daniel Bryan push or the repeated coronations of Roman Reigns, McMahon has been the behind some of the WWE’s seemingly costly decisions.  Now in his seventies, McMahon is no longer able to micromanage all facets of the WWE machine as he once did.  Some feel that he and his most closely trusted associates will soon step aside and his successor, be it Paul Levesque (Triple H), Stephanie McMahon or Shane McMahon will emerge and radically alter the WWE as Vince McMahon did over thirty years ago.