8 Big Questions About Vince McMahon's XFL Reboot!

4. Will It Be As Violent?

Vince Mcmahon Xfl
NBC

One of the XFL's big selling points - and a major factor in altering the rules in ways described earlier - was that it was super violent, a sort of hybrid between professional football and professional wrestling - but minus the phony outcomes. Promotional material for the nascent league boasted that players would "eat dirt" and be "slammed into the wall" - pretty strong stuff, the sort of angry rhetoric you'd expect from a top heel's promo rather than adverts for a sport.

It was a little distasteful then, but it'd be positively repugnant today in light of what we now know about NFL-related chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Whether Vince and co. care about that or not is another matter; Baron Corbin's recent fallout with company doctor Joseph Maroon over his downplaying of the JAMA study into CTE suggests otherwise.

Even if the company are in willfull denial over the effects of football-related concussions, another season blighted by constant injuries can't be in their purview. But again, altering this facet of the league would be to undermine one of its only real USPs.

Editorial Team
Editorial Team

Benjamin was born in 1987, and is still not dead. He variously enjoys classical music, old-school adventure games (they're not dead), and walks on the beach (albeit short - asthma, you know). He's currently trying to compile a comprehensive history of video game music, yet denies accusations that he purposefully targets niche audiences. He's often wrong about these things.