Vincent J. McMahon had a keen eye for the development of the wrestling industry. The era was beginning to rise after the conclusion of World War ll, and with the recent development of television, Vince Sr. was ready to take this challenge by the neck. In 1953, the rise of the McMahon empire began due to Vince Sr. and his father starting the Capitol Wrestling Corporation, or CWC. Eventually, the CWC joined with the National Wrestling Alliance, better known as NWA, which widely oversaw the wrestling industry in America at the time. No,w during this era of wrestling, one territory did not make up most of the popularity; each territory was its own brand. What separated Vince Sr. was that he held a territory near Madison Square Garden, which meant he had a perfect spot to host his wrestling events. By 1963, Vince Sr.’s business was booming, and this eventually led him to found the Worldwide Wrestling Federation, or WWF. Vince’s success with in-person events and the promotion of televised events carried him on a high horse for many years. Vince Sr. continued to hold the title of business owner until selling to his son, Vince McMahon, in 1982.
On June 6th, 1982, Vince McMahon took his shot at striking a deal with his father to purchase CWC, the company that WWF derived. Vince McMahon successfully made the purchase, and the WWE continued to see McMahon as the face of the company for over forty years to come. McMahon had lots of creative ideas flowing through him that he wanted to incorporate into the business to help it take off, but the first step was separating from the NWA. Although McMahon’s decision was risky and even controversial, it solidified his plans of taking the business nationwide and offering pay-per-view. McMahon also brought to the stage Hulk Hogan, who was a larger-than-life personality who drew thousands of crowds, and could be credited for a large part of the early days of the business’s success. Not only did Hogan help push the business to a category of glory it had never yet reached, but the first introduction of WrestleMania brought in huge revenue for the company. WrestleMania 1 was held on March 31st, 1985, and has continued to happen annually until the present day.
Now on the front side of the business, the WWE seemed to be thriving with these new ideas and money flow. However, there was suspicious activity that was taking place on the inside of the operations. In 1994, a huge steroid scandal rattled the whole world of the WWE and put the McMahon family in serious jeopardy. This trial was McMahon vs. the United States on suspicion of supplying illegal anabolic steroids to his performers. In 1987 “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan and the Iron Sheik were arrested on behalf of the possession of cocaine, and the act of drinking and driving. Due to this event, the WWE was forced to apply a wellness policy. Unfortunately, the WWE neglected to test for these key drugs, even though it was in their contract. Dr. George Zahorian, a urologist who is still practicing medicine to this day in Pennsylvania, was convicted of distributing steroids to the company in 1991. At the time, McMahon could have faced up to 11 years in prison and a $1.5 million fine. The strong businessman was able to weasel his way out of the convictions, but this event left a serious dent on the innocence of the company. Steroid use is not the only issue Vince looked over; he also chose to brush off the sexual assault of two young ring boys. The McMahon family received understandable backlash for allowing the misconduct of ring boys, as young as twelve, at the hands of ringside announcer Melvin Phillips, Jr. Due to the death of Phillips, the case went somewhat cold and was not explored to its full capacity. These early events of scandalous behavior in the WWWF began to shape it into the dark hole it eventually became, present day.
Throughout the history of the company, many different eras can be easily recognized for their unique traits. The Attitude Era is one of the company’s most commonly recognized eras by the nation and began to push the envelope like no era had before. Exploring this era is crucial to the understanding of the company as a whole, due to it being the most formative era. This era starts off with the battle between two major territories: WCW and WWF. The WWF was the first home to the household name Hulk Hogan; however, the WCW could offer Hogan more bang for his buck. Hogan eventually decided to make the jump over to WCW, which significantly strained his once brother-like bond with McMahon. Now that the WWF had lost their biggest character to WCW, it was time for them to introduce new pioneers of the company like Bret Hart, Kevin Nash, Razor Ramon, the Undertaker, and the “Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels. The WWF was prepared to make Bret Hart their new Hogan because he was a reliable man whom the company could ultimately trust. The WWF had to keep a tight grip on these talents because Ted Turner, owner of WCW, continued to draw in their wrestlers by flaunting their pay rate.
Something unique that the WCW began to do that the WWF had not reached yet was live streaming of their show, rather than pre-taping. Eric Bischoff, the host of WCW, would go as far as reading off the results of McMahon’s show to keep viewers on their network. The WCW is truly starting to pull these viewers and talent into their home base, so much so that they locked in Nash and Ramon. Nash, Ramon, Michaels, and Triple H had all grown close with each other during their time thus far. Triple H and Michaels wanted to honor Nash and Ramon’s departure from the company by hugging it out in the ring before they left. Now, this might seem like a sweet, innocent act, but at this age of wrestling, the idea that the show was scripted was pretty much unheard of. As far as viewers were concerned, these four men were opponents and hated one another, so this public display of appreciation for each other broke the fourth wall in the wrestling industry forever.
Nash and Ramon began playing this bad guy role after they had jumped over from WWF. During the “Bash at the Beach” show that WCW held in 1996, Ramon and Nash came out and they repeatedly teased the audience that there would be a third member. The crowd waited impatiently when flashes of red and yellow appeared; Hulk Hogan would be joining them to form the New World Order, or NWO.
The crowd erupted with otter shock because at this time, Hogan was seen as one of the hero’s unlike Nash and Ramon. Now NWO was seriously carrying the weight on the WCW, and the WCW then pulled ahead of the WWF in ratings for a consecutive 83 weeks.
Ted Turner continued to turn the heads of the WWF wrestlers, including WWF superstar Bret Hart. Before Hart’s departure to the other side, McMahon explained that he was not to leave their company while holding the title belt. Hart was scheduled to have a match against Shawn Michaels, whom he despised, but was supposed to lose his belt to. Now Hart would simply not accept this idea and explain to McMahon that he refused to have a scheduled loss to Michaels. During the night of the match, McMahon told the referee that Hart was planning to win the match and to give the win to Michaels even if he did not make the allotted three-second count.
Michael undeservingly won the match that night, and this fiasco became known as the “Montreal Screwjob,” which tarnished Hart and McMahon’s relationship forever.
The WCW has clearly now significantly pulled ahead of the WWF. McMahon realized that they needed new, fresh material if his company wanted to keep up. This is when the attitude era was born. The character “Stone Cold” Steve Austin was born, and he shifted the demographic of the audience from the 12-17 range to the 18-34 range. Austin birthed the principle of anti-authority and the idea of working against the people in charge. Austin was the first to publicly rebel against McMahon’s stage character. Austin also gave birth to possibly the most famous quote in wrestling history after defeating Jake “The Snake” Roberts after the King of the Ring event in 1996. Austin marched up to the podium after the defeat and states, “Talk about your Psalms, talk about John 3:16, Austin 3:16 says I just whipped your a**!”.
Austin was already deemed the “bad guy,” and McMahon expected ruthless backlash from this possibly offensive statement Austin made. However, the viewers unexpectedly took a liking to this idea of a heel, and the attitude continued to grow not only through the show but also through the viewers.
McMahon is riding this new Attitude Era high, and he gets the bright idea to bring in Mike Tyson to appear at WrestleMania 14 in 1998. Eric Bischoff was sitting pretty comfortably with the production of WCW right up until he heard this. Tyson appeared in the ring to referee the match held between Austin and Michaels, and Austin was named WWE champion that day. Austin continues to be known for his trash-talking attitude, and he even starts to project that onto McMahon. This created a feud between Austin and McMahon due to the two beginning to disagree about some creative ideas. As much as it would be believed that a feud could be bad for business, WWF took this to their advantage to make it a storyline. Austin and McMahon are going head-to-head in the ring, there is a greater sexualization and exploitation of women, guns, violence, and explosives are being brought into the picture, and the WWF is reaching mass chaos. There is something about humans that love to see a bad guy, and how the storyline in correlation will play out is fascinating. This was truly the turning point for the WWF to get back onto its feet.
McMahon began to portray more of his stage character, “Mr. McMahon,” and this gave him the wings to soar once again. When former WWE Hall of Famers Hogan, Michaels, and Austin were asked, “Is the character Mr. McMahon, and Vince McMahon the same person,” they all answered that he is exactly the same in real life as he is on camera. Now, McMahon, on the other hand, believes this is far from the truth and that he could never be the man shown on the camera. Nevertheless, McMahon had to accept that this is how he was going to be perceived, and being the businessman he is, he was going to use this to his advantage. The McMahon and Austin feud ended the 83 weeks of being beaten in ratings by WCW. Eric Bischoff claims that the WWF stole their recipe for success and, unfortunately, just did it better. Bischoff recognizes the WWF’s win against the WCW but is adamant that he played the heel long before McMahon ever did and thinks he should be acclaimed for it. However, the true importance is what program is generating more viewers, and that is just what McMahon did. This era of wrestling shaped the way that people all around the globe look at the WWE today. Without this era, modern-day WWE could have possibly never made it to the long run.
Soon after the WWF took over, the WCW bought them out. WWF was also changed to World Wrestling Entertainment, or the WWE, due to a large animal-based non-profit organization copyrighting the abbreviation. The WWE is entering a new era, and the entirety of the McMahon family is beginning to get involved. Shane McMahon, Stephanie McMahon, and Linda McMahon all begin to have processed characters; Stephanie McMahon as a “bad girl,” Shane McMahon as “Mr. McMahon’s Son,” and Linda as a victim of McMahon. There was an odd storyline that happened during this time where McMahon’s wife, Linda McMahon, was portrayed as a terminally ill, paralyzed woman, who was being publicly cheated on by McMahon. Now, this was definitely quite the creative choice by McMahon, and this fueled the fire for a feud between Shane and McMahon. Shane and McMahon were struggling to see eye-to-eye on where the direction of the show should go. Shane wanted to purchase the UFC, as they had made an offer to WWE, but McMahon ultimately refused. This caused a strain on their relationship and pushed Shane to walk away from WWE temporarily.
Shane took some time off and famously made his reappearance in the ring a few years later. When his music came on, the crowd erupted, and Shane was ready to challenge McMahon the moment he got there.
Shane got in the ring, making demands to McMahon when McMahon quickly shut him up by telling him he would be fighting The Undertaker as the main event at WrestleMania 32. This event was huge for Shane because The Undertaker’s record at Wrestlemania this far was 21 wins to 1 loss. Shane showed up that night ready to fight, and he was carrying the match for about 15 minutes. Shane made a risky choice to climb to the top of the cage, where he was going to jump 20 feet off the cage and onto The Undertaker. This choice would backfire on Shane because when he was plummeting to the ground to land on top of The Undertaker, The Undertaker quickly rolled away, causing Shane to land on the ground.
Now, Shane was injured and had clearly lost the match at this point, but he had won another battle: the relationship with his father. Shane claims that when he entered the locker room after his return to the ring, McMahon hugged Shane and told him he was a proud father. This was a very emotional night for the wrestling community, as well as the McMahon family, as Shane was finally back home. Shane claims that all he ever wanted was to gain his father’s respect, and he felt he did just that on the night of WrestleMania 32.
