Vince McMahon is a survivor. A thick-necked, steroidal, goonish, lowlife, crypto-bigoted survivor, but a survivor still. In the event that the China and India end up destroying the world with nuclear weapons as a result of their border row, Vince McMahon and Judge Judy will be forced to — no; not even a post-apocalyptic aftermath is enough to justify the contemplation of that horror …
Suffice it to say that McMahon has been through media and legal gauntlets that would make even Hercules wilt. He could probably outdo the “Tears in the Rain” speech at the end of Bladerunner. In the gladiatorial fundament he has been spat at, knocked out, targeted by the government, sued, willfully vilified and sex-scandalled, robustly. But the present controversy surrounding the gravelly-voiced founder of Titan Sports and bff of Donald Trump dwarfs even the 1994 United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York criminal court case brought against Vince McMahon, who, at the time, was Chairman of the WWF. This is his hour of the wolf …
To sum up briefly: Vince McMahon returned to the athletic soap opera company he founded last week after abruptly resigning six months ago over using company funds to pay millions of dollars to multiple women in order to cover up allegations of sexual misconduct and cheating on his wife, a former Trump administration Cabinet official and one time candidate for the Senate. Lesser allegations would have finished off any other CEO. But Vince McMahon is not just any CEO, he is an apex predator, an oiled and jacked up freak ruling his little roost like a warlord governs his harem. Also, you know in your heart of hearts that Vince McMahon is going to “spin” this into an upcoming storyline (and get record-busting Nielsen ratings) just before he sells the company to MBS.
Vince McMahon’s WWE is, in many ways, a precursor to guilty pleasure “Reality TV,” which has been around now for over two decades elevating crass manipulation and lowest-common-denominator toxicity into our mediascape. It will be curious to see what a repressive, hyper-masculine House of Saud culture does with the property. WWE storylines, like “Reality TV” storylines, blend real life events with salacious writing for embellishment. The result is — eyeballs.
The competition-based, personality-driven television genre was a perfect fit for WWE wrestling, which, at the turn of the millennium, was struggling. The WWE was in the process of finishing off its rival, the WCW, which was the remnant of the last surviving territories clinging to life support. A cross pollination happened. Enter: The Attitude Era. The Attitude Era — which never really left the WWE — roughly coincided with the beginnings of reality TV and, like reality TV, thrives still today in the company’s DNA. Crucifixions, blackface, the CEO asking an employee to strip and bark like a dog — all par for the course at the turn of the millennium. And not too wide of the mark of how the back office behaves today at the WWE if you ask me.
However, the corruptions of Vince McMahon go back — way back — to before the turn of the millennium. They go back into the 80s, the days of dank high school gyms, where the “territories,” or small wrestling businesses, carved out the country and loaned each other “talent,” so that everyone essentially thrived in their own region. Vince’s father, Vince McMahon, Sr. was actually a part of that territory system — the then-WWF essentially owned the Northeast. It was a prime market — NYC had Madison Square Garden and the top television market in the country. His organization, as a result, thrived more than, say, Memphis or Portland based territories. But no one contested this because there were enough wrestling fans for everyone to not just survive, but thrive. And when his son — Vince McMahon, Jr. bought the company — thriving was not enough. He had to dominate the sport entirely, become, essentially, a monopoly for many years. Vince systematically destroyed the territories, one by one, from whence his father was “loaned” his best talent.
The destruction of the territories was swift and brutal, like a DDT. First Vince, Jr. bought out the top talent of each of the territories — Hulk Hogan in the AWA; Greg Valentine and Roddy Piper in the Mid-Atlantic; Jake Roberts from the Mid-South— essentially using them as his own personal farm leagues to pick and choose his next big stars. Then McMahon made television deals within those territories, telling the local television studios that they had to choose between his high quality concept with well-known established stars from the area or the local product, which he had already bled dry. It was only a matter of time before the remaining territories banded together into the WCW, which put up a last ditch fight, but by then it was already too late.
Dusty vs. Tully
One of my favorite feuds of the territory days, one that illustrates perfectly the pseudo-sport — but a quintessentially American pseudo-sport — is Dusty Rhodes versus Tully Blanchard first in the mid-Atlantic region, then concluding in the WCW. Dusty was the working class hero — an overweight, hard working everyman son-of-a-plumber who frequently teamed with African-Americans, even in the Carolinas when Jesse Helms was in the Senate; Tully was the rich, former college quarterback at West Texas State, that bent the rules, bullied rookies, slapped his opponents in the face, won all the titles and dated the most attractive women. Their matches were Class, Labor and Socioeconomics set to the rhythm of choreographed violence, and occasional “color,” or, bloodletting. It was not only sports entertainment for the working class, for manual laborers that take showers before and after work, it was also artistically superior to today’s Mcproduct. Of this feud as the peak of the territory days, I wrote in this very newsletter several months ago:
A Dusty-versus-Tully match unfolded in the ring not unlike Marx’s Dialectical Materialism, even though the crowd in the arena was solidly southern Republican conservative. The best feuds, truly, were rich-versus-poor, even though almost everyone in wrestling came from working-class roots. It was an American morality play and Greek Tragedy with catharsis all-in-one.
But the underlying thread connecting all the episodes of this series is the fact that the Territory System is no more. Gone forever. And while Stories From The Territories is a love letter from series creator Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, the first wrestler to ever become an A-List Hollywood movie star, there is a nostalgia for when the sport was not as glitzy and mainstream and — how does one say it? — McMahon-ified as it is today. In the days of old that the series fondly remembers, people believed that professional wrestling was real. People actually sent cards and letter to wrestlers that were in “the hospital” from a “sneak attack.” And each part of the country was a colorful minor league wrestling organization that fostered and nurtured local talent.
Enter: Vince McMahon. (to a chorus of lusty Boos) The key part that Tales From The Territories strategically omits is that the Territories are no more almost exclusively because of Vince McMahon.
Finally, it is indeed ironic that, if the rumors are true, Vince McMahon, after having bled dry the territory system of small wrestling businesses that used to dot the American landscape, is planning to sell the WWE to Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is trying to “sportswash” his insidious, authoritarian regime, is no Dusty Rhodes. McMahon’s BFF Donald Trump would probably pat Vince on the back, ask after the financials then congratulate him on the Art of the Deal.
The average wrestling fan, though, probably not so much.
Gross …
“Prince Harry lays out why being a member of the British monarchy can be a royal pain in his memoir ‘Spare.’ The title of the tome comes from an epithet Harry says his own family used when describing his secondary status to his brother, William, Prince of Wales. He has a sense of humor about it, joking, ‘I was brought into the world in case something happened to Willy. I was summoned to provide backup, distraction, diversion, and, if necessary, a spare part. Kidney perhaps. Blood transfusion.’" (Nikki Swift)
Of course Davos wants to hear from Henry Kissinger. (Forever Wars)
“The World Economic Forum says billionaire Elon Musk wasn’t on the guest list for the annual meeting of business executives, global leaders and cultural trend-setters in Davos, Switzerland — despite what the Twitter owner claims.” (AP)
“For 52 years the World Economic Forum has been synonymous with its founder and executive chair Klaus Schwab, whose humble manner belies what many who know him describe as great ambition and boundless energy, even into his mid-80s. “ (POLITICO)
Saudi-Backed LIV Golf Tour “Very Close” to TV Deal With The CW. (THR)
“A failed Republican candidate for the New Mexico House of Representatives was arrested by a SWAT team on Monday and charged with orchestrating a series of shootings targeting Democrats in Albuquerque, police said.” (Salon)
China lifts ban on Marvel movies. (Variety)