10 Famous Wrestling Conspiracy Theories

It's pretty much an open secret these days that Vince McMahon was throwing money in the direction of ECW in the late-'90s to help Paul Heyman keep his head above water - but some theorists go further, believing that the whole company was actually just a subsidiary of the WWF.

What the motivation would be for this isn't exactly clear. Vince obviously saw the continued existence of ECW as a positive thing for wrestling - and his company - otherwise he wouldn't have been helping them stay afloat, but there would have been little reason for him to take over the company without explicitly bringing it under the WWE banner.

Given that ECW is often credited with ushering in the Attitude Era, it's possible WWE saw Heyman's promotion as a launchpad for some of its more risque ideas (although it's not like they really shied away from doing their own risque things around that time anyway).

All in all, this one seems completely apocryphal, and the kind of thing that would have almost certainly come out sooner if it had even a whiff of truth about it.