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Post by mauled on Apr 14, 2021 12:15:38 GMT -5
He be judged ? On the one hand he conquered the Wrestling world and made Wrestling a house hold name across the globe. Even if they're not Wrestling fans everyone knows about the WWF/WWE. I'm a grown man now but as a kid I was banned from watching Wrestling yet those same parents that banned me and hated Wrestling, knew the names of Hulk Hogan and Bret Hart etc. Hell Saudi Arabia paid literal millions just so they could go and do a glorified House show there. A state in the USA, Florida give them an exemption during a pandemic they are that big. All of that is down to Vincent Kennedy McMahon. He even turned a a real life controversy (Montreal) in which the fans were disgusted with him into an angle in which he became the greatest Wrestling character Heel of all time, which would help win him his Wrestling war against WCW. Yet the flip side are the horror stories. When Snuka murdered his Girlfriend, Vince turned up at a Police station with a briefcase to get the charges dropped. He even rang up the dead woman's family offering blood money ! So many wrestlers that he used to get famous are now dead due to his horrific work schedule and the toxic mix of steriods and pain killers and recreation drugs they took to work it. So how should History judge Vince. A Hero or a Villain ? Or both ?
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Post by Susan "Poison" Candy on Apr 14, 2021 12:17:27 GMT -5
"I'M VINCENT KENNEDY MCMAHON AND I'M THE BIGGEST IDIOT EVER"
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Post by Kyle Butler on Apr 14, 2021 12:18:13 GMT -5
As a man who could make his ass do tricks
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Post by joeiscool on Apr 14, 2021 12:20:21 GMT -5
Most successful promoter to date.
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Post by mauled on Apr 14, 2021 12:21:58 GMT -5
"I'M VINCENT KENNEDY MCMAHON AND I'M THE BIGGEST IDIOT EVER" Is that a good idiot or an evil idiot though ?
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Post by Susan "Poison" Candy on Apr 14, 2021 12:23:44 GMT -5
"I'M VINCENT KENNEDY MCMAHON AND I'M THE BIGGEST IDIOT EVER" Is that a good idiot or an evil idiot though ? Major Evil Bitch Idiot
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Post by government mule on Apr 14, 2021 12:43:05 GMT -5
The most successful carny in history
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Post by Slingshot Suplay on Apr 14, 2021 12:47:17 GMT -5
Greatest promoter in wrestling history, but not the greatest creative mind.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2021 12:50:39 GMT -5
He's the single most influential force in the history of the industry, and made over a billion dollars. No one who does that does it by being "a hero."
I don't know that "villain" is the right word, but he built his legacy stealing ideas, bullying others out of business, using predatory employment tactics, and making shady business deals with shady business partners. But, if he didn't do it to others, they would have done it to him.
So, I don't think we should call him "a hero" or "a villain." I think we should just call him "influential" and "shrewd businessman" and leave it there.
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Post by DoubleDare on Apr 14, 2021 13:05:35 GMT -5
A genius for the wrestling industry even though there will always people that hate that he made it sports entertainment. But he got wrestling to reach heights it never had prior to the 80s by taking the best of other territories (AWA, etc). And then somehow when his product started aging and getting stale, and WCW started beating them, managed to combat them with changing Monday Night Raw to Raw Is War and having a 2nd boom for the WWF.
Then went public and while never would reach the heights he did in the 80s and late 90s, the company hasn't lost as much money as they did in the mid 90s either, so there is something to be said about that. Of course now it is time for him to move away and for the company to be ran by someone else.
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Post by Muskrat on Apr 14, 2021 13:32:44 GMT -5
You could write a thousand page novel on the subject and still not come to a conclusion
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Post by Cyno on Apr 14, 2021 13:36:01 GMT -5
He should be remembered as a complicated figure. He did some good things, but also did some ruthless and outright evil things.
I'm reminded of something that Mr. Ollivander said to Harry Potter about Lord Voldemort in the first book/movie. "He did many great things. Terrible, but great."
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Apr 14, 2021 13:40:50 GMT -5
A genius for the wrestling industry even though there will always people that hate that he made it sports entertainment. But he got wrestling to reach heights it never had prior to the 80s by taking the best of other territories (AWA, etc). And then somehow when his product started aging and getting stale, and WCW started beating them, managed to combat them with changing Monday Night Raw to Raw Is War and having a 2nd boom for the WWF. Then went public and while never would reach the heights he did in the 80s and late 90s, the company hasn't lost as much money as they did in the mid 90s either, so there is something to be said about that. Of course now it is time for him to move away and for the company to be ran by someone else. Dude managed to get a billion dollar television deal off of WRESTLING... which TV Executives and Advertising executives almost universally hate. He's a great promoter and a good but from all accounts ruthless businessman. He also should have delegated years ago but is stubborn as all hell to ever admit or give up his baby willingly. Some will try and say that he killed the territories... but they were on their way out and the others had their own ideas in place for that too... Vince is just the one that was the most successful. as for the "Taking" bit... Hurricane mentioned something on Twitter on something similar when someone talked about Vince "stealing" talent from the AWA. he said he hated the term stealing because it was so one sided, it'd be like saying he was stolen by WCW away from the indies. and he has a point on that... Taken/stolen etc. makes it sound like Vince threw a bag on their head and abducted them... when it was more like Vince went up to them and said "Hey Pal, I'll pay you three times what you are making here" in quotes because I am certain at least Hey pal is a direct quotation That said was Vince a saintly figure that all should worship? Of course f***ing not... he's one of many people that blatantly misuse the Independent Contractor clause to basically put a stranglehold on people that should be his employees, he's either racist or at least ok with hiring/employing racists, and I could go on forever on this. He's also done things like given people jobs when he heard they were in dire straits, (as awful and racist a gimmick it is Tony Atlas says Saba Simba "saved his life"). He's complicated as f***, but I mean... most people kind are?
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Push R Truth
Patti Mayonnaise
Unique and Special Snowflake, and a pants-less heathen.
Perpetually Constipated
Posts: 39,269
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Post by Push R Truth on Apr 14, 2021 13:44:35 GMT -5
Most Important Person in Pro Wrestling History
That covers the good and bad. Unless something massive happens in the future, anybody else taking that title from him would be a big surprise.
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Post by EoE: Well There's Your Problem on Apr 14, 2021 13:47:32 GMT -5
One of the great enigmas of sports, business and maybe even human history.
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Post by Fade is a CodyCryBaby on Apr 14, 2021 13:47:42 GMT -5
You could write a thousand page novel on the subject and still not come to a conclusion Yeah, I don’t think his legacy will be so collectively recognized. Vince’s legacy will be thoroughly discussed, argued and debated for a long, long time.
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Post by Jaws the Shark on Apr 14, 2021 13:48:23 GMT -5
He's the promoter at the forefront of wrestling's national expansion in the eighties and its two most successful periods of the past forty years. A businessman who was presented with opportunities and capitalised on many that others didn't, riding on the wave of pop culture in the eighties and again in the mid/late nineties to turn his promotion into a worldwide-recognised brand, making himself the extremely wealthy face of professional wrestling in the West. While he hasn't always been successful, when it worked it really worked.
He's also a man whose arrogance and shortsightedness has helped turn his company and the industry into a cultural irrelevance immediately following its biggest booms. Who despite crediting himself for revolutionising the industry, actually changed very little as he bullied those in his way and exploited those in his charge in his pursuit for lucre.
His vast ego has likely contributed to many of his successes, but also his failures. He was able to rewrite wrestling history with himself as the hero, and obtain the reverence of many both inside and outside the industry and convince them that he achieved more than arguably he actually did, but also alienated many with his self-importance.
So yeah, a complicated legacy. Neither a hero nor even an outright villain despite his many misdemeanours.
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Apr 14, 2021 13:55:28 GMT -5
You could write a thousand page novel on the subject and still not come to a conclusion Yeah, I don’t think his legacy will be so collectively recognized. Vince’s legacy will be thoroughly discussed, argued and debated for a long, long time. Which... is really how most historical figures should be discussed... too often people look solely at the good they did and then sorta deify them... ignoring that they were humans and most of them have major glaring flaws.
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Post by MrElijah on Apr 14, 2021 15:27:02 GMT -5
Wrestling's Greatest Promoter and one complicated human being.
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msc
Dennis Stamp
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Post by msc on Apr 14, 2021 16:03:41 GMT -5
Essentially he was the worlds answer to PT Barnum for the late 20th Century. For good and for bad.
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