10 Most Insane Vince McMahon Lies WWE Fans Fell For
3. You Should Be A Star
The most cynical WWE lifers - the fans who are compelled beyond reason to watch WWE, whether they want to or not! - know full well that the Be A STAR campaign is the most transparently bullsh*t thing the promotion ever tried to pull.
If most fans didn't fall for it, the markets and the sponsors sure did. WWE cleaned up its image post-2008, or was seen to have cleaned up its image.
Cynically launching anti-bullying initiatives and not depicting terrorists onscreen, combined with a receding death count - since so many wrestlers from the '80s and '90s had died already, lucky for Wall Street - allowed WWE to present itself as a jam-up company with strong values.
How can four million John Cena fans be wrong?
It was laughable.
Howard Finkel devised the name 'WrestleMania' as an alternative to Vince's awful suggestion of 'The Colossal Tussle'. With no hyperbole, were it not for Finkel's intervention, Vince might have tanked the entire company. The show succeeded at the last moment through serendipity as much as marketing. If the name wasn't catchy, people might not have been drawn to the closed circuit venues that screened it.
Fink's reward?
Why, according to Paul Bearer, he was ritually bullied for being a nice, meek fellow with certain foibles that were out of step with the alpha male.
You don't need Bearer's testimony to know that Vince was operating with disgusting hypocrisy here; you only need revisit every vile rib that Vince played on Jim Ross.
On national television.