10 Times WWE Immediately Broke Its Own Rules
4. Never Mentioning The Competition
It was an old, golden rule of the WWF: never talk about the competition.
The rule was in place because it furthered the image of the company as the be-all and end-all of professional wrestling. WWF fans were always a singular entity. They were fans of the WWF, not wrestling at large - to this day, patterns in viewership across NXT and AEW Dynamite indicate that the 50+ demo will not switch over to the competition - and this loyalty was conditioned over decades of expert, blustering marketing and immaculate production. The WWF told and showed their fans that they were the biggest - and by proxy only - game in town in a savvy, double-barrelled blitz.
The WWF broke the rule as soon as it became apparent, following a near 50/50 split in viewership in the early battles of the Monday Night War, that Monday Nitro was legitimate competition for a crown Vince had held for well over a decade.
Vince responded with a defensive ploy, the desperation behind which saw him savaged: the Billionaire Ted Wrasslin' War Room skits, the mere existence of which proved that he was affected by the rising giant.
Steeped in almost unspeakable hypocrisy - the "It's so unfair" double-standard was literally the stuff of an irate toddler - the skits didn't accelerate but hardly helped the perception that WCW was the promotion with more buzz and star power.