10 Times WWE Tried To Kill Wrestling

10. Literally Changing The Very Name Of It

...WWE has for decades at this point staunchly refused to label itself "pro wrestling".

"Good for you, Ted. I'm in the entertainment business," Vince McMahon famously said in response to Ted Turner's "I'm in the wrasslin' business" proclamation.

Vince McMahon has snarled out or instructed his onscreen personnel to snarl out the word "wrasslin'" as if it's a slur for decades and decades. There is a strange psychology here that speaks to the inscrutable paradox he is: he is the most famous and successful wrestling promoter there ever was, and he would tell you that he does not promote wrestling. He "makes movies". He makes movies in a strange and unsuccessful - but also incredibly successful, and there's that paradox again - quest to forcibly replace "wrestling" with sports entertainment in the lexicon.

Through his disastrous (and hilarious) forays into the wider entertainment sphere - hockey, bodybuilding, cinema, football - Vince always wanted to be seen as legitimate, despite monopolising and becoming synonymous with the most illegitimate form of entertainment. Nobody, without irony, not even a denizen of a hipster coffee shop, has ever said that they are going to the sports entertainment show.