10 Insane Things WWE Will Never Do Again
1. Revive The XFL
For an apparent billionaire, Vince McMahon isn't exactly frugal with his spending. The WWE Chairman has a long history of throwing money down the drain, and his career is full of costly flops.
Linda’s failed senate runs, the World Bodybuilding Federation, the Cape Cod Buccanneers: it’s a lengthy list, but nothing comes close to the XFL.
McMahon has always been obsessed with branching out into other forms of entertainment, and this was his attempt at competing with the NFL. Launched in 2001, he joined forces with NBC to present a wrestling-influenced style of American football, and things actually started pretty well, with the XFL’s debut drawing an impressive 9.5 rating.
Its fortunes plummeted thereafter. The reasons for this are legion, but the XFL couldn’t hold the audience’s attention over the objectively superior NFL. NBC scrapped the league as ratings nosedived, resulting in both the network and McMahon incurring a reported $35 million loss, and Vince scampered back to his safe space - professional wrestling.
As a businessman, the XFL is comfortably the biggest blot on McMahon’s copybook. Trying to compete with an organisation as dominant as the NFL was a bad idea in the first place, and few were surprised when Vince’s sleazy, low-rent alternative couldn’t hang.