You got to hand it to Vince McMahon; since 1982 he has created an entertainment conglomerate by mixing professional wrestling and nutty, over-the-top storylines to make World Wrestling Entertainment (formerly World Wrestling Federation) a soap opera for men. You can argue that the WWE is cartoon-ish and downright insane, but as the ringleader of this multimillion dollar circus, Vince must be doing something right.
However, while like many other millionaires and billionaires with egos such as Mark Cuban and Donald Trump, McMahon takes it a step further by doing some of the most ridiculous and crazy things that makes him fucking nuts. Yeah, I suppose it makes sense the mastermind behind WWE to be loopy just like the product. Only Vince McMahon could come up with ideas like a porn star getting his penis chopped off by the Japanese mafia, a Thanksgiving turkey that could wrestle, having two elderly men fight in drag during a title fight, and a leprechaun becoming Vince's illegitimate son. But there are some things that go way beyond sanity that McMahon has pulled off throughout the years. If you followed WWE for quite awhile, then you know how crazy McMahon can be with his business decisions. So today, let's take a look on some of the reasons that Vince McMahon is truly batshit insane.
1. The Kiss My Ass Club
Sorry ladies (or guys if that's the way you swing). There's nothing erotic about Vince McMahon showing his bare ass to a television audience while full grown men get their faces rubbed all over Vince's rump. I'm guessing McMahon wanted to take the concept of "brown nosing" and bring it to the next level.
Never mind that it's humiliating for Jim Ross, William Regal, Shawn Michaels, and others to have their faces implanted right up McMahon's ass crack. This was Vince McMahon's excuse to show his bare behind on national TV. Call it narcissism, but Vince had no problem at all dropping his trousers and having men pucker up their lips and give Vince's rump a big wet kiss. In Vince's mind, this was the equivalent of any sports commissioner publicly humiliating a disobedient player on national TV. Just imagine Alex Rodriguez giving Bud Selig a blowjob during a Yankees broadcast or the New Orleans Saints defensive squad gang bang Roger Goddell on Monday Night Football. I could see Vince gloating, "Damnit, this is the only sports (entertainment) company where the boss really gets his ass kissed!" But for the rest of us, we were groaning, "For the love of God, pull your pants up old man. No one wants to see your old wrinkly, pimply ass."
Thankfully for WWE audiences, the company has toned down its product to a PG rating, so the threat of seeing Vince's ass is less likely now.
2. Letting Al Sharpton Guest Host Monday Night Raw
I don't know what the reverend was thinking, but I'm certain Vince paid a helluva lot of money to have him appear on Monday Night Raw in 2009. Some see Sharpton as an advocate of civil rights. Others see him as a polarizing figure who shoves his political agenda down your throat. But no matter if you lean towards the left-wing or the right-wing, most of us can agree that putting Al Sharpton in front of a WWE crowd is a horrible idea.
From 2009 to 2011, WWE had celebrity guest hosts for Monday Night Raw. It was pretty big range of celebrities with the likenesses Snoop Dogg, Pete Rose, Ozzy Osbourne, Pee-Wee Herman, Bob Barker, Criss Angel, Mike Tyson, Cheech & Chong, and Buzz Aldrin. Most of the time, the guest hosts would just be there to promote a new movie, a TV show, or a new book. The others would just show up because they've got nothing better to do that particular Monday night. But for Sharpton, he was on Raw to promote his educational reforms...huh?
Apparently, the story was Rev. Sharpton along with Newt Gingrich were going on a four-city tour to raise awareness of the "achievement gap" that public education in America is facing. It would've made more sense for Sharpton and Gingrich to promote their tour at actual school campuses, but for whatever reason he decided to do this on WWE television other than Vince paying him top dollar to appear, we'll never know. But before Sharpton could even tell the crowd the reason he was there that night, the audience booed him mercilessly. The people in Albany HATED Sharpton; he wasn't even suppose to be a bad guy. The reverend should be glad this wasn't somewhere like Alabama or Texas because they really would've killed him there. Either way, Sharpton's was considered to be the worst Raw guest host and the episode itself was too dreadful to watch.
3. The World Bodybuilding Federation
Ever wondered what Vince did with that extra surplus of steroids back in the day before he could get caught by the feds? Look no further than the World Bodybuilding Federation.
In case if you didn't know, McMahon loved his wrestlers to be big, muscular giants that looked like they were chiseled out of stone. So it was no surprise that McMahon started up the World Bodybuilding Federation in 1991 to complement the WWF. But there was one catch. The WBF would actually mirror the same gimmick-orientated shows like the WWF. So instead of Bruno Beefarms just strutting his stuff, we'd get bodybuilders dressed up as army men, surfers, construction workers, Las Vegas entertainers, and whatever other occupation they could think of. If you listen to Vince squeal like a 12-year-old Justin Bieber fan when commentating on the "action", you'll figure out that the WBF was only created in order to satisfy Vince's lust for steroid-loaded men.
Did I mention McMahon held WBF pay-per-views? That's right; McMahon honestly believed people would be willing to pay $30 to $40 to watch greased up bodybuilders walk down the catwalk while dressed up as a roided-out Mr. Peanut and Vince acting like a dog in heat on commentary. Oh, and when I said "action", I meant it's only a bunch of bodybuilders on steroids flexing their muscles in the most unsettling matter. Imagine sitting through this for 2 hours. It should come to no surprise that the World Bodybuilding Federation only lasted for one year as Vince finally realized the company wasn't making money at all. You know, watching WBF reminds me of the Cho Aniki video game.
4. Creating the Most Ridiculous Gimmicks of All-Time
A repo man, a white man who believes he's black, a tugboat operator, a plumber, a Hispanic man who believes he's white, a hockey player, a clown with his midget clown, and a baseball player who's on strike. This is just a tiny sample of all the "great" brainchild ideas Vince McMahon had throughout the company's history. Never mind if you were a professional wrestler who was a great in-ring performer and knows how to work the mic. When you signed up with the company, the first order of business was to come up with a gimmick for your character.
Back in the 80's and 90's, Vince coming up with a gimmick for his wrestlers was like playing Madlibs. Take for example the story of Bob Holly. Most of you wrestling fans may know him better as Hardcore Holly, but when he started off with the WWF in 1994, he was known as Thurman "Sparky" Plugg; an ex-NASCAR racer who wanted to take his career to the next level by competing in the WWF. Or how about "Mr. USA" Tony Atlas? When he returned to the WWF in 1991, Vince perhaps gave him one of the most racist gimmicks in wrestling as Saba Simba, the spear-carrying African Warrior.
If you wanted to work for the WWE, you had to swallow your pride and expect the unexpected. You just prayed to God that Vince wasn't acting weird at the time when he was coming up with a gimmick for you. ECW's Balls Mahoney was a victim of Vince's absurd thinking when he came to WWF in 1995 as "Xanta Klaus", Santa Claus' evil brother who lived in the South Pole and stole gifts from children instead of giving them.
And these gimmicks weren't just limited to job occupations. It's not uncommon to see WWE superstars stuck with having amnesia, stricken by temporary blindness, or renouncing their American citizenship in order to align themselves to the evil empire of Canada. Even worse, established wrestlers like the Road Warriors and the British Bulldogs were given "mascots" to accompany them down the ring. So next time you see a generic wrestler on TV who has zero personality, just be glad he's not stuck with an idiotic gimmick like a dentist who wrestles.
5. Incest is His Fetish
Just about everyone has a fetish or taboo they indulge in. Some have feet fetishes, others got bondage, and there those who find balloons to be sexually arousing. For Vince, though, it looks like he's got a thing for incest.
No, no, he doesn't want to have sex with his daughter Stephanie or his son Shane, but for a while, Vince has always wanted to "push the boundaries" and have incest involved in his program. In his mind, incest is the ultimate taboo on television. He'd have his wish of making headlines for all the wrong reasons. So when Stephanie McMahon was pregnant with her first kid in 2006, Vince pitched the idea to her that instead of saying the child was Triple H's (who is in fact Stephanie McMahon's real life husband), the child would actually be Vince's. Luckily for the rest of us, Stephanie isn't batshit insane like her father and rejected the storyline.
But wait! Instead of just moving on, Vince came back to her with another idea. Why not make the father her brother, Shane McMahon? Once again good taste prevails and Stephanie said no to the idea. As for Vince, he was down, but not out in getting his incest plot into the WWE.
So in 2008 Vince brought in Paul Burchill and Katie Lea with an incest-type gimmick. For the gimmick, Burchill and Lea were suppose to be a brother-sister team in which Lea would imply she was sexually attracted to her "brother", Burchill, while Burchill would state he'd do anything for his "sister". Vince finally got what he wanted; an incest angle on WWE programming. So did this bring all the tabloid headlines that incest was being displayed on the WWE and that Vince has finally crossed the line? Not at all. In fact, the Burchill-Lea duo barely got any crowd heat for their incest gimmick and were pretty much indifferent to the whole thing. Burchill and Lea floundered around WWE's B-shows like Heat and Superstars for the rest of their tenure in WWE and Vince never got to see his dream fulfilled of creating the ultimate "incest" controversy.
Be thankful the WWE is now focused on a PG rating. Just like with the Kiss My Ass Club, the world is now a better place now that Vince's incest fetish doesn't have to be implanted all over Monday Night Raw and Smackdown.
6. The Mike Adamle Project
You got to admit; Mike Adamle has one hell of an impressive resume. He played NFL football as a running back in the 70's, announced and hosted numerous sports programs such as American Gladiators and the Summer Olympics, and has competed in a Ironman Triathlon while he was 60 years old. So what could go wrong with Adamle coming to the WWE? Everything.
I won't blame Vince for his initial reasoning in bringing in Adamle. Hell, back in the early 90's, WWF Superstars would lead into American Gladiators every Saturday afternoon. You'd think maybe Adamle may have been a follower of the WWE product since they were tied together. But unfortunately, that wasn't the case. In his debut at Royal Rumble 2008, he'd screwed up announcing Jeff Hardy's name as "Jeff Harvey". For Adamle, it would be the beginning of a downward spiral for him.
At first, Adamle's role was backstage interviewer and everything was taped, so the damage wasn't as bad. But when it came to time to replace fan-favorite Joey Styles on WWE's version of ECW, Adamle was given the ball and was immediately dropped right out the opening gate. 2008 was becoming the Year of the Adamle.
There wouldn't be a single episode of WWECW (yes, it's certainly not the true and original ECW most of us loved) without Adamle fumbling over his words or goofing up on wrestler's name. The biggest fuck up he did was even getting the company's name wrong by calling it the WW. It was obvious that Adamle was unfit for live television and came off as a complete moron. It gotten so bad to the point where Adamle had to apologize for his awful play-by-play announcing in front of a live TV audience. But instead of releasing Adamle from his contract, McMahon encouraged him to stay. I don't know if Vince watches the TV with the mute button on, but he somehow looked past all the myriad of mistakes he pulled off during his time as ECW announcer.
So after a few of months of mispronunciations and wrong name calling, Vince promoted Adamle's on-air character to Raw General Manager. Despite going to a taped and live role as Raw GM, he still made mistakes both live and while taped. Finally on October 29, the Mike Adamle Project officially came to an end when Adamle got the message from fans that this wasn't working out at all and left the company. Vince, on the other hand, was reluctant to let Adamle go. Fans, co-workers, wrestlers all hated Adamle, but Vince seemed like to be his only supporter. I really don't know what McMahon sees in Adamle, but I wouldn't be surprised he would have kept Adamle on the payroll after being charged with child pornography and started calling him "Lance McManner".
Don't feel too bad for Adamle. He now has a job as a NBC sports reporter in Chicago, but just like in WWE, he's bound to make a few goofs every once and awhile.
7. His Bastard Son is a Leprechaun
2007 was a bad year for the World Wrestling Entertainment. Chris Benoit went psycho and killed his family and himself, top stars were getting injured from left to right, and PPV buyrates were dropping to all-time lows. Something had to be done.
McMahon originally had this grand scheme where he was going to fake his own death after the limo he was riding exploded on an episode of Monday Night Raw. But after the Benoit incident took place, the storyline was shelved permanently and no further mention of Vince's death was made. However, Vince wasn't ready to quit on his master plan. He was packing another bomb...shell up his sleeve in the form of a paternity lawsuit.
Like many other soap operas, WWE was now embroiled in a paternity suit where Vince McMahon had to find out which one of his employees is his illegitimate son. For weeks and weeks, WWE audiences were stuck with dopey backstage sketches where Vince would gloat about his sexcapades with different varieties of women (big, small, black, fat, transexual, etc.) and played guessing games with wrestlers like The Boogeyman, Santino Marella, and Hacksaw Jim Duggan.
Despite all the lame skits, the payoff was actually going to be big because up-and-coming WWE superstar Mr. Kennedy was all set to be revealed as Vince's son.
Unfortunately for Kennedy, he was one of the first violators of WWE's newly implemented Wellness Policy and was suspended for 30 days. So much for Kennedy's rise to main event status. So what other man was next in line to receive his main event push and get increased television time? How bout this (half) man, Hornswoggle?
Yes, a wrestling leprechaun. Ironically, not only was he Vince's bastard son, but he was known as "Little Bastard" when he first debuted in WWE as fellow Irishman, Finlay's manager. So what was the payoff now that Hornswoggle has been revealed as Vince McMahon's son? Months and months of more dopey backstage sketches!
That's right folks. For the next couple of months, Monday Night Raw was mostly devoted to stupid Hornswoggle bits that took pages out from Looney Tunes. This was all along Vince's master plan to get viewers to tune back in to WWE. In the end, it was revealed that Vince McMahon wasn't Hornswoggle's father at all and the entire storyline did little to nothing in gaining new and returning viewers.
8. He Loves to Torture a Bell's Palsy Victim
In case if you're not familiar who Jim Ross is, I'll cut to the chase and say he is one of the most well-respected wrestling announcers of all time. He certainly has his work cut out for him as good ol' J.R. has announced numerous matches in both WWE and WCW. Many wrestlers are actually honored to have him do play-by-play for their matches. But one thing many of you probably don't know about Jim Ross is that he suffers from Bell's palsy. Bell's palsy is a medical condition that's a form of facial paralysis. Reportedly, because of Ross' condition, McMahon once said Ross was visually unpleasant for TV. Even though Ross has defied the odds and overcame them, Vince has developed a masochistic relationship with him and always finds ways to torture poor ol' J.R.
Shortly after he completed his first year with the company, Ross had his first attack of Bell's palsy and instead of being compassionate, WWF fired him from the company. He was brought back for a couple of months later as Vince was busy with the steroids trial he was caught up with in 1994. Once McMahon was acquitted of all charges, J.R. was shown the door once again. Amazingly, WWF gave Ross yet another chance by rehiring him and finally became a fixture on WWF/WWE television. But that hasn't stopped Vince in humiliating and ribbing Ross on-air.
One infamous moment came in 2005 when Monday Night Raw moved back to the USA Network after a five year stint with Spike TV. In a storyline, the McMahon family was pissed at Ross for laughing at them while "Stone Cold" Steve Austin gave each of them a Stunner. So after getting kicked in the balls by then-WWE CEO Linda McMahon, Ross was "fired"; he wasn't really fired as this was a way to make up a story to explain his absence. He was in fact taking time off for a major colon surgery. However, Vince thought it would be hilarious to poke fun at Ross' real-life ailment as a segment on Raw.
Only Vince could reuse the same crap that was from the horrendous Katie Vick angle in order to humiliate J.R. Another instance of McMahon ribbing Ross on-air was when Ross learned for the first time along with everyone else watching was his Raw announcing position being replaced by Michael Cole and he was sent packing to Friday Night Smackdown. Ross was visibly peeved when the announcement was made during the 2008 WWE Draft. Many felt this was a low blow by McMahon because of Ross' years of service with the company.
Even to this day, Vince continues to find ways to poke fun at the Oklahoman. For example, McMahon uses Michael Cole to verbally abuse and berate Ross whenever he has the chance. Just recently, Ross was put into challenges like a rap battle and a dance off with Cole in order to make him look like a total fool. I know this is all done to further Cole's status as a villain, but in reality, it's Vince who's feeding Cole what to say or do about J.R.
I'll give Ross credit where it's due. Despite being harassed by McMahon for all these years, he still is with WWE.
9. The Mae Young Reign of Terror 2000
Damn, now this granny can fight. Mae Young was one of the original female wrestlers of the golden age of wrestling during the 1940s and 1950s. In fact, when she was in high school, she made it on the boy's wrestling team. Now that's one tough cookie if you ask me.
But let's fast track to 1999 when Vince brought in a 76-year-old Mae Young along with her longtime pal Fabulous Moolah to WWF. They would appear on Raw and Smackdown from time to time as comic relief as Fabulous Moolah even won the Women's Championship to become the oldest champion at the age of 76. But as the new century was coming, the year 2000 would rear its ugly head when Vince used Mae Young as the punchline to flat-out terrible geriatric antics.
It all started at the beginning of the new year when Mae Young thought she was just as good looking as the rest of the WWE Divas like Ivory and The Kat. So at Royal Rumble 2000 in New York City, Mae Young entered herself in the swimsuit competition and showed the world her old, sagging tits.
Allegedly, she was wearing a prosthetic piece that looked like granny boobs when she pulled down her swimsuit. It is said that Vince was a huge fan of "There's Something About Mary" and wanted to use the same bit where Matt Dillion was staring at sagging, old boobs through his binoculars. I was actually there at the Royal Rumble PPV, but I cannot either confirm or deny this was true because I simply turned my head away in horror because I did not want to be scarred for life at a young age. Even if I was a brave soul and looked for images with Mae Young showing her "puppies", I'd probably get banned for life from Blogspot for posting them on here.
As you thought Vince was done with having Mae Young showing her sagging boobs in public, think again. Things got really out of hand (no pun intended as you'll see later) when Mae Young started an on-screen relationship with "Sexual Chocolate" Mark Henry. The former 1996 Olympian Mark Henry had apparently turned into a sexual addict and proclaimed himself as the "Sexual Chocolate" after being romantically involved with just about anything from Chyna to a drag queen named Sammy. So "Sexual Chocolate" wanted it to take it up a notch and started going for the mature types like Mae Young...
Vince thought it would be a great idea to bring Mae Young and Mark Henry's romance to higher territory as on an episode of Raw, Mae Young had a shocking announcement: she was pregnant with Mark Henry's child! Good god! Now that's one bombshell that's too hot for regular soap operas. But as weeks went by, something seemed quite odd about all this. Mae kept smoking her cigars and never had miscarriage when the Dudley Boyz powerbombed her through a table while running off a ramp. Was Mae lying to Mark about carrying his "Chocolate Baby"?
Eventually, she was still "pregnant" as her water finally broke on an episode of Raw. And well....I'll let the video do the talking.
There you have it; all of that just for one really awful pun. Vince really does have a sick, twisted sense of humor.
10. The XFL
Remember when John Lennon caught shit for saying the Beatles were bigger than Jesus, even though he wasn't serious? Vince McMahon had that same moment when he said the XFL was bigger than the NFL, but the difference was he was dead serious.
McMahon had every reason to be cocky and brash while living on Cloud 9 in 2000. The WWF was making millions and millions of dollars while his main competitor, World Championship Wrestling, was down on its last legs. Like a shark smelling blood, he knew his company has finally become the only top dog in the business and eventually purchased WCW in March 2001. It was time for Vince to look for new game. His next target: football.
In perhaps a shot at the NFL because Monday Night Football and Monday Night Raw are main rivals in the TV ratings war, McMahon teamed up with NBC to create the XFL football league (despite popular belief, the XFL did not stand for Xtreme Football League). McMahon had envisioned the XFL to be a man's man football league, unlike the "wimpy" NFL with their penalties. In order to differentiate itself from the NFL, the XFL had certain rules that suppose to make the game "tougher". For starters, instead of the coin toss, one player of each team would scramble for the ball in order to determine who gets possession first. Other rule changes were the elimination of pass interference calls and forward passes were allowed. But as you'll see later on, tinkering with the rules too much can cause trouble.
So when it was set in stone that the XFL would finally kick off in February 2001, Vince when on a marketing PR blitz for the new league. But weeks before the first game happened, a incident occurred where one of the XFL blimps that was promoting the upcoming season crashed into a harbor in Oakland.
I don't know about you, but that's gotta be one hell of an omen for Vince.
So after much pomp and circumstance, the XFL finally made its debut on February 3, 2001 in a matchup game between the New York/New Jersey Hitmen and the Las Vegas Outlaws. Amazingly, the first-ever XFL game on NBC did a 9.5 TV rating with more than 14 million viewers tuning in to the game. But good times would not last for long for Vince and NBC. The ratings took a huge nosedive afterwards as viewership took a dramatic decline. It got so bad that the week following the first one brought in a 4.6 rating. That's a loss of about 6 million viewers. The following week, ratings slipped to 3.6 and it just got worse from there. Even on the other networks where the league was shown like UPN and TNN, some games didn't even register in the ratings because not that many people watched them. Plus, one of the televised games on NBC has earned the distinction of being the lowest-rated prime time sports program in history with a 1.6 rating. When it was all said and done by the end of the first and only XFL season, the championship game pulled in a 2.5 rating for NBC.
So what was the culprit in XFL's dramatic decline in ratings? There were a lot actually. For starters, critics argued that Vince made the XFL feel like it was watching the WWF as a football game. Wrestling commentators such as Jim Ross and Jesse Ventura were announcing the games, players were making locker room promos similar to backstage promos on WWE, coaches and announcers were barking at the players over the PA system like a manager would scream at their wrestler, and XFL cheerleaders were being paraded around like WWE divas. In fact, during one broadcast of the game, the league boasted that it was going to have its cameras inside the cheerleaders' locker room when it turned out to be a really corny sketch involving Vince McMahon that you would normally find on Monday Night Raw. Oh, to top it all off, our good friend Mike Adamle was also announcing games too.
Another problem with the XFL was the performance (or lack thereof). While many weren't necessarily expecting NFL-caliber play, audiences grew bored watching the games like it was a glorified Arena Football League game. Not to say all the players sucked -- Tommy Maddox became the XFL's only M.V.P. at the end of the season and revived his football career the following year player as the Pittsburgh Steelers' starting quarterback -- but with confusing rule changes that Vince implemented to the league, this hindered the game play as players seemed to be confused what was going on.
Also it didn't help that there was virtually nonexistent media coverage of XFL games. Most media outlets like ESPN and Fox treated the league as a joke like it was another WWF TV show like Raw or Smackdown. The only time they even bothered to mention the XFL was when the ratings were heading down a slippery slope and when the company finally closed its doors.
You can't really blame Vince that much. His heart was in the right place when he wanted to spice up the game of American football by creating a brand new football league. But when you start proclaiming your league will be better than the NFL and will change the face of American sports as we know it; that's not ballsy, that's just downright batshit insane.
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