10 Times WWE Tried To Kill Wrestling
Do not pass go.
WWE does not want pro wrestling to exist.
What's sobering - and also the ultimate punchline - is that TNA/Impact Wrestling is the rule-proving exception to Vince McMahon's career goal. For nearly 40 years, McMahon has sought to eradicate all of pro wrestling, to its very name, with the strange and hilarious exception of TNA. TNA had real momentum at one time. Funded by a major corporation, it had the financial muscle to appeal to name stars and, before the LOLTNA prophesy was fulfilled to a zombified/ permanent end, boasted a very respectable TV deal in the US. And yet, WWE paid them very little mind. WWE didn't raid TNA for talent because its way of doing things hadn't become so demonstrably unpopular that the recruitment model had to be torn in two.
TNA was left well alone. Disgruntled WWE stars were allowed to go there. Christian didn't get Luke Harper'd, but then, look at his horrible f*cking rat face, pal. AJ Styles can continue to wrassle in that 17-sided ring, what do we give a sh*t?
Brilliantly, WWE is more concerned with a British promotion you've never heard of than its former domestic competitor.
WWE mostly does not want pro wrestling to exist.
That is a searingly cynical blanket statement, but then...
10. Literally Changing The Very Name Of It
...WWE has for decades at this point staunchly refused to label itself "pro wrestling".
"Good for you, Ted. I'm in the entertainment business," Vince McMahon famously said in response to Ted Turner's "I'm in the wrasslin' business" proclamation.
Vince McMahon has snarled out or instructed his onscreen personnel to snarl out the word "wrasslin'" as if it's a slur for decades and decades. There is a strange psychology here that speaks to the inscrutable paradox he is: he is the most famous and successful wrestling promoter there ever was, and he would tell you that he does not promote wrestling. He "makes movies". He makes movies in a strange and unsuccessful - but also incredibly successful, and there's that paradox again - quest to forcibly replace "wrestling" with sports entertainment in the lexicon.
Through his disastrous (and hilarious) forays into the wider entertainment sphere - hockey, bodybuilding, cinema, football - Vince always wanted to be seen as legitimate, despite monopolising and becoming synonymous with the most illegitimate form of entertainment. Nobody, without irony, not even a denizen of a hipster coffee shop, has ever said that they are going to the sports entertainment show.