10 Shocking Wrestling Plans You Won't Believe ACTUALLY Happened
What The World Is (somehow, still) Watching
World Wrestling Entertainment is right now what it was always destined to be. A juggernaut (and steamroller) with Vince McMahon at the wheel in the 1980s, the industry's early 1990s decline was arrested by phenomenal success at the turn of the century. Relatively careful investment secured a future that no longer required further boom periods to ensure the organisation remained monolithic.
Not that fans need reminding of all that. Told ad nauseam WWE was 'the recognised symbol of excellence', 'the revolutionary force' and 'the worldwide leader', generations were indoctrinated at early ages and hooked for life. The 'Then, Now, Forever' ident that currently adorns the product represents a company fully in touch with its past whilst trying to navigate a tricky present to remain relevant in the future.
The WWE Network offers thousands of hours for fans young and old to watch and re-watch events that helped shape the fabric of the organisation. But when the company opened that door, it came at a price much higher than $9.99. With the Network and other online services, there's never been a time where the industry's excruciating exploits, dire decisions and catastrophic creations have been so exposed. You could write a book on the worst of them.
Ultimately, McMahon's vision of Sports Entertainment became the blueprint for most angles emanating from WWE, WCW and even TNA when they desperately tried to compete. His overarching success loosely justified the philosophy, if not the horrific execution.
10. Fondle Me Elmo
Ever keen to be just behind the curve (and in this case probably behind the camera), Vince McMahon used a 1996 internet gold-rush to hawk his own wares in the early days of the experimental Shotgun Saturday Night. After a sex tape featuring Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee effectively acted as a gateway for those canny with a computer, adolescent wrestling fans took to AOL looking for images of Sunny in positions almost as compromising.
WWE obliged, producing more and more bikini shoots with the 'Golden Haired Fox' until she became a record-smashing search entry by herself. Trying and failing to maintain what he thought was ECW's extreme aesthetic on his Saturday show, McMahon teased 'Sunny's Sex Tape' in an effort to furnish the show with added edge and viewers alike.
Promising the industry's hottest female star at her most intimate, they instead delivered a Lynchian nightmare of her cavorting with a weirdly sexualised version of the 'Tickle-Me-Elmo' toy. The reveal decades later that Todd Pettengill was in the costume only made the scene grimmer to revisit.