10 Greatest Vince McMahon Creations
1. WrestleMania
WrestleMania was the event that rocketed the WWF into the mainstream consciousness and popularised the pay-per-view model that transformed the wrestling business from "lowbrow" regional sideshow to national monolith - the Jaws of sports entertainment.
McMahon front-loaded the show with celebrities to hoodwink the casual audience into paying for something that, while hardly a fringe concern (wrestling was more popular then than it is now, only less lucrative) was not a box office attraction to the level of boxing. It was a fragmented audience split between regions and styles. McMahon reconciled some of that audience and persuaded a new one to pay for his colourful and bombastic vision of professional wrestling.
In time, as his company grew, its flagship event became the platform on which to coronate the biggest stars, to wrestle the best matches, to produce the most awe-inspiring spectacle. WrestleMania was the entry point for a new breed of wrestling fan. It subsequently became the pinnacle for the wrestler.
Even then, its name wasn't the Genetic Jackhammer's brainchild - it was Howard Finkel's. McMahon originally intended to promote it as 'The Colossal Tussle', which barely classifies as assonance, let alone rhyme.
But that's McMahon for you; evidently a genius, but not the omnipotent being he portrays himself as on WWE television.