From a business standpoint, Vince McMahon is a genius; but from a wrestling fans perspective, this is a controversial statement. On one hand, during the 1980s, Vince single-handedly destroyed the territories system that had been in place in the United States for decades, created WrestleMania and made wrestling go mainstream, and made his company the single most successful and most profitable wrestling promotion in the world. On the other hand, Vince is also responsible for destroying all of his competition and putting hundreds, if not thousands of wrestlers out of business. Under the NWA and the territories system, promoters agreed not to poach talent from each others regions, and most of them had friendly talent exchanges, which kept things fresh and allowed friendly competition among regional promotions. Vince utterly destroyed this, so instead of having one or more possible choices of wrestling programming, instead we have a single, globally dominant wrestling promotion, with all other competition lagging far behind. Vince is also credited for effectively exposed the wrestling business as scripted, effectively stripping wrestling of any sense of legitimacy that it one had. Nowadays, professional wrestling fans have few options. WWE is the most well-known and dominant wrestling promotion in the United States and arguably in the world. TNA and Ring of Honor are a distant second and third, respectively, while other small promotions still hold together as the remnants of the old National Wrestling Alliance. Japanese wrestling promotions were not as badly damaged by Vinces business deals, but they still fail to reach mainstream wrestling fans in the United States. On top of all this, he created something new entirely, with his company being involved more in entertainment than wrestling itself. Ultimately, Vince McMahon is responsible for changing the entire landscape of professional wrestling in the United States. Gone are the days of multiple regional promotions; there is now one promoter to rule them all.
Alexander Podgorski is a writer for WhatCulture that has been a fan of professional wrestling since he was 8 years old. He loves all kinds of wrestling, from WWE and sports entertainment, to puroresu in Japan.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen's University in Political Studies and French, and a Master's Degree in Public Administration. He speaks English, French, Polish, a bit of German, and knows some odd words and phrases in half a dozen other languages.
