Before the Montreal Screwjob, Vince McMahon (the real life chairman of the WWF) was just an announcer onscreen, downplaying the fact that he was actually the boss to the extent that other on-air characters filled the role for him. His father, legendary regional promoter Vince McMahon senior, had never wanted him to actually perform, and as a result, despite having been a keen amateur bodybuilder since he was fifteen, Vince wouldnt set foot in the ring to compete until much later on in his career. Following the Screwjob in late 1997, McMahon was outed as the boss proper to even the casual fans who hadnt twigged yet. With his (at the time) genius level instinct for making money out of mayhem, Vince manipulated events and rewrote storylines to introduce himself as possibly the greatest heel WWF/WWE has ever seen, and helped popularise the concept of the villainous authority figure in pro wrestling angles across the world. This evil apotheosis in front of the camera coincided with the rebellious, cantankerous heel Stone Cold Steve Austin becoming the biggest star in the company, and it was only a matter of time before Stone Cold turned fan favourite and the two clashed. In real life, McMahon will tell you that hes far more like Stone Cold than Mr. McMahon, and theres an element of truth to that. Whatever you may think of him and his creative juices in 2015, twenty years ago Vincent Kennedy McMahon was a firebrand iconoclast determined to transcend his roots in poverty and write his name on the stars. He didnt do so badly, at that. His work ethic is second to none to this day. Hes still a huge, ripped 240lbs with 5% body fat, at the age of 69. When he decided to enter the ring in his fifties, he realised he couldnt work a match like the super smooth wrestlers on his roster, and so lit into his opponents for real to make his brawling in-ring appearances work as well as possible, encouraging them to do likewise to him. To this day, McMahon will rarely ask one of his performers to do something painful that he isnt fully prepared to do or have done to himself. Some might argue that the magnificence of his bast*rdry is diluted by his many business failures outside of professional wrestling, but you could look at it from a different angle: hes consistently attempted to redefine what his company does, and to broaden the scope of their operations. Despite his lofty aspirations coming crashing and burning very expensively around him, Vincent Kennedy McMahon refuses to stop trying, and hes not only still in business, hes thriving with no appreciable sign of slowing down. Its possible that Mr. and Mrs. Levesque will have to wrestle the keys to the kingdom from Vinces undead corpse.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
