10 Ridiculously Ambitious WWE Ideas That Failed Horribly
Xtremely F*cking Laughable.
Incredible news broke over the weekend, of Vince McMahon potentially exhuming the most infamous disaster he ever attempted - the XFL.
The XFL.
The XFL.
Sorry to repeat that, but it will help you to realise just how absurd the idea is.
Without even being facetious, he might as well book the 59 year-old Lex Luger to win the 2018 Royal Rumble by last eliminating Kassius Ohno, before sending him on a cross-country excursion to shake the hands of and take pictures with his patriotic countrymen. There's as much chance of that getting over as the XFL becoming A Thing, even in these nostalgia-defined times.
It's both infuriating and deeply hilarious. McMahon is known for reverting to type, but never to this jaw-dropping extent - and he's never been in a more luxurious position to just do whatever the bloody hell he wants. If in fact that is what is happening: the 'Alpha Entertainment' vehicle otherwise reads as his attempt to just throw money at lots of things in an attempt to monopolise wrestling and everything else, even though he is objectively terrible at everything that isn't wrestling.
Still, there is hope for schadenfreude yet: the 'UrFL' trademark application smacks of a strategy to steal the lapsed, Trump-lovin' football fans from the reaches of the NFL.
Please, Vince. Sunday's Clash Of Champions was so poor that it almost demands a(nother) grand reckoning of public humiliation...
10. Stand Up For WWE
'Stand Up For WWE' was hilarious. Great patter.
Basically, Vince McMahon tired of WWE's perception as a massive lowbrow cult in 2010, and thus initiated the 'Stand Up For WWE' campaign. With the press sensing blood in the midst of Linda McMahon's massively expensive failure of senate campaign - likely because it was all over WWE's hands - McMahon deployed trademark defensive mode. Bored celebrities ran through barely-rehearsed platitudes derived from archive footage which, brilliantly, included Jeremy Piven, the worst ever RAW Guest Host, who maintained that he had the time of his life in that warm summer of 2009. The time of his life presumably incorporated a profound, basic research failure, and the turtle-toxic crowd reaction to it.
Vince's great gambit, to finally do the impossible and cement WWE as a credible wing of the entertainment industry, saw him desperately beg his fans to essentially do their marketing for free.
'Ways You Can Stand Up For WWE' included 'Friend WWE On Facebook', standard engagement tactics - but also 'Email Your Friends And Family Stating Why You Are A WWE Fan', or, translated, 'Be The Massive F*cking Mark That You Are'.
Funnier still, WWE asked us to 'Write A Letter To The Editor Of Your Newspaper', which probably wouldn't have been published.