The year was 1999. Prince, the freaky little bugger, sang about it years before as something to look forward to. It was party time, and that sentiment certainly rang true for those in the WWE.
Business was good. No, business was phenomenally good for Vince McMahon. In just two short years, he had turned a company around from the brink of bankruptcy to an entertainment juggernaut once again. The tide of his company’s battle with WCW had swung back to his favour as he embraced an edgier form of sports-entertainment, known as The Attitude Era, and despite the backing (or white-anting, depending on what you read) of Time/Warner, the opposition was starting to look vulnerable.
History tells us they were more than vulnerable, and a read of the wonderful Guy Evans book on the subject provides a fascinating insight into the fall of World Championship Wrestling and the subsequent acquisition of the company by the WWE.
However, before that occurred, Vince had some moving and shaking to do on a different front.
Riding the crest of a wave propelled by the tsunami-like effect of Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, and the many incarnations of Mick Foley, the WWE was enjoying incredible success. Not since the mid-eighties had they been this hot. Embracing angles and storylines racier than they ever had, the WWE had finally caught onto the notion of the anti-hero, and realised the kids that said their prayers and ate their vitamins had now grown into young adults. Times had changed, and the WWE took notice, reinventing themselves as a company that the young male audience not only identified with, but felt bonded to once again.
The company that apparently “couldn’t afford” to honour Bret Hart’s contract just two years earlier was now swimming in cash, and watching its popularity grow. The time was right to capitalise, and Vince McMahon set himself up to become a billionaire in the process.
In reality, it was the beginning of the end for McMahon, and perhaps his family legacy in the business.
Whilst taking the WWE from a privately-owned company to a publicly-traded one was a great move for the hip pocket, it also had outcomes that rendered Vince less of a power in the company, even though he fought like hell to remain as powerful as he could be. Initially, Vince remained the man in charge. He was Vince Almighty, as always. He answered to no one and did as he pleased, but the reality of the situation soon dawned on him, and it handcuffed Vince creatively. It forced him to adhere to the best interests of the people who made him a billionaire.
Those damn investors… how dare they have a say in what he did with his company, right?
The Attitude Era, which propelled WWE to its new heights, was running its course, with WWE’s programming under pressure for its more mature content. And the pressure that came from media also came from shareholders. They were in it for the money, after all. And if WWE, and Vince McMahon were not going to do what was necessary to become more attractive to ALL advertisers, then there’d be trouble.
Vince had fired some pretty impressive shots in taking the company public, but in this regard, he had a bullet stuck in his foot.
Yes, Vince was still in charge, he still held a majority share of stock in the company he built after buying it from his terminally-ill father, but he had opened up his baby, his creation, and his life to the scrutiny of those pesky shareholders that now had a stake in his company.
Only it wasn’t his company, anymore, was it?
It was step one in the downfall of Vince McMahon, and the first real eye-opener that short term gain sometimes equals long-term pain. It may have taken a while for that pain to really double Vince over, but it was always going to catch up with him. It was a question of “when”, not “if”.
In the wake of allegations made against McMahon and the details of payments made to a number of individuals over the years, Vince has seen his empire crumble and fall into the hands of others. He has watched as his control of the WWE eroded and eventually turned to dust in the wind. The company’s finances, now available to all to peruse, have been pawed over by people, and they found his anomalies – his hush money. These are things that would have normally been kept in-house within a privately owned company. They were now public knowledge.
It was the beginning of the end for the WWE – winning the war against WCW and raking in the coin from going public was supposed to be the big win, and in many ways, it was. Vince and family will always have the financial benefits associated with that decision. However, the WWE is now gone from the McMahon family – likely forever. You have to ask; was it worth it?
A notorious workaholic, Vince is now on the outer, growing old away from the business he loved, and the business that defined him as a person. Conflations between the character of Mr McMahon and the real-life Vince McMahon have often been the source of discussion amongst wrestling fans. Are they completely different entities, or do they bleed into one another, creating a murky area where both exist within the same person?
Vince McMahon without the WWE is… nothing. WWE without Vince McMahon is still the WWE.
Given how this has played out, and yes, I know I am using the power of hindsight, here, do you think Vince would make the decision to go public again. It made him a tonne of money – more than you or I will ever likely see, but what has it cost him in the end? What has it cost his family?
His actions behind the scenes have been exposed. His life away from WWE, and even within WWE has been opened up for all to critique. And things I am sure he would have found a way to hide are now public knowledge.
I guess that’s the thing with going public… you have to let the public in.
My guess is that if he had his time over again, WWE would remain in Vince’s hands, and the dirty little secrets he had would have remained just that. There may have still been allegations, but the ability to deal with them with his own money, and without having to deal with explanations to shareholders and the media would have been something he didn’t have to deal with.
In life, I am often confronted with a question – how much is enough? You have great house, a good job, a beautiful family, but for some, it is not enough. They need more. They always strive for more.
I would label Vince as a person like this – always driven, never satisfied. It was what led him to take WWE public, and it is likely what led him directly to the situation he is now. How much was enough for him?
It seems that nothing was ever going to be enough.
Hindsight is a beautiful thing.