8 Pieces Of Overwhelming Evidence That Vince McMahon Is Not A Visionary
4. Stupid Ideas, Part II: The World Bodybuilding Federation
Created and billed as a deliberate attempt to steal the franchise of Joe Weiders International Federation of Bodybuilders (IFBB), McMahon announced the formation of the World Bodybuilding Federation on September 15th 1990, at the climax of the IFBBs Mr Olympia competition. Along with the ICOPRO supplement that hed heavily invested in, hed debuted a magazine, Bodybuilding Lifestyles, in the summer, and had purchased a booth and microphone time on the main stage to promote the publication at Weiders event. His spokesman, renowned bodybuilding legend Tom Platz, then used the platform to inform the world of the McMahons new venture, telling everyone that theyd kick the IFBBs ass. All typical McMahon-style piss and vinegar, and exactly how a pro wrestling character would do things: he booked a swerve in real life. However, McMahon had promised to keep his pro wrestling and bodybuilding platforms separate, and run the WBF as a legitimate bodybuilding franchise. That didnt last: the TV show WBF BodyStars was created to promote the WBFs events, running skits and promos as each of his thirteen bodybuilding champions were given exotic characters to become and outlandish personas to portray. The problem was that bodybuilding was and still is a niche market. Competition literally centres around freakishly large men flexing at one another, and judges awarding points based on esoteric criteria this wasnt the pro wrestling world, with its dramatic worked battles and feuds designed to bring in fans desperate to pay to see more. The WWFs own pro wrestlers saw the project as an expensive and idiotic folly, taking money out of their own pockets (the word at the time was that wrestler payouts were down during the period). McMahons own well-documented obsession with bodybuilding hes been sculpting his own physique since the mid-eighties had deluded him into thinking that a large audience existed for the concept of bodybuilding as spectacle. It didnt. He couldnt even persuade the USA network that BodyStars would be a successful television show, or persuade advertisers to buy time during the programme he ended up buying the timeslot and running it like an infomercial for ICOPRO. In the year and a half that the WBF was in play, a total of around $15million was lost to the failed TV show, the failed ICOPRO supplement, the failed Bodybuilding Lifestyles magazine and the two annual pay-per-view championship events themselves: both of which tanked badly, the second in 1992 only clawing back 3,000 buys, amid allegations that the competitions were as worked as the main events of each Wrestlemania. Vince forced the moribund IFBB to up the Mr. Olympia prize money to nearly double what it had been, but didnt otherwise make a dent on the bodybuilding industry. Why on earth would he? Aside from the canny promotion of the idea, it was the stupidest thing anyone had ever heard of
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.
