SLAM! Wrestling Editorial: Time for Vince to pass the torch
By JOHN POWELL -- SLAM! Wrestling
Sometimes you never know what the reaction will be when you send an idea
out into the public domain for scrutiny. In Sunday's
No Mercy pay-per-view
report I suggested that for the good of the World Wrestling Federation and
for the good of the industry as a whole Vince McMahon should retire. After
making such a bold statement I expected to be flooded with email barbecuing
my hide. Much to my surprise, most of you who took the time to collect your
thoughts and send them along agreed with me. The general consensus seemed
to be that Vince has lost touch with the fans and that his management of
the World Wrestling Federation over the last year has critically damaged
the company and its product.
Some of you who responded demanded that I apologize for my comments. Since
I sincerely meant what I wrote, I will do no such thing. What I will do is
properly explain why it is I feel that the man whose innovative ideas
forever changed pro-wrestling as we know it, should finally hand over the
reins he has held so tightly for so long to someone who, unlike Vince, has
a refreshing approach.
With the year 2001 coming to an end, let me start by examining the state of
the WWF at this point in time and how the choices authorized by Vince
McMahon himself have cost the company dearly. First up, the XFL debacle.
Though everyone and their mother-in-law knew the upstart football league
had no chance in hell of surviving its first season, Vince still rolled the
dice. He lost and did so in a big way. The gross misjudgment forced a
fourth-quarter loss of $20.4 million and cut full-year profits in 2001 to
about a third of the previous year's earnings for the WWF. The folding of
the XFL cost McMahon $35 million and closer to $50 million for NBC. That
ain't chump change, folks. Even to a rich man like Vince McMahon.
During a press conference in May announcing the demise of the XFL Vince
McMahon himself said: "There was a misunderstanding with the media of what
(viewers could) expect. That was another failing on my part. Could I have
been a little more gracious? Well, I've gotta be me. I am who I am whether
I'm arrogant or straightforward. I would put no blame on the media, this is
all on my shoulders. It was my vision. The buck stops with me, ultimately."
Battered and bruised from the XFL fiasco, McMahon, who had bought his rival
World Championship Wrestling and hired much of Extreme Championship
Wrestling's talent months earlier, embarked on what is thought to be the
mother of all wrestling angles: WCW and ECW versus the WWF. In absorbing
his competition, Vince has the most highly-anticipated storyline in his
very hands but much like the XFL, McMahon and his braintrust of bookers
fumbled this venture as well. The dream matches fans have waited a lifetime
for didn't materialize and the storyline becomes so muddled and monotonous
that even the embarrassed WWF lost interest in really promoting it for awhile.
The fallout matched with a decline in the popularity of pro-wrestling has
hit the Federation hard on all fronts with even devoted wrestling fans
shunning lackluster WWF programming. Ratings for the WWF's flagship shows
Raw and Smackdown! were hammered. Though it was predicted by many
that moving from the USA Network to TNN would allow Raw to reach more
households and therefore increase the show's ratings, that did not happen.
While Raw has boosted TNN's status as a whole, Raw's ratings did not surge
ahead. To give you some idea of how the mighty have fallen, in July, Raw
drew a 5.4 rating. Last week's rating was a 3.5. The drop in the ratings
for Raw factored into a decision by The National Network and its
parent company ViaCom not to grant the WWF a second wrestling show on TNN
devoted to WCW and ECW stars. WWF CEO Linda McMahon said at the time of the
decision that the WWF didn't believe that the current advertising market
would cover the production costs of running another wrestling show. She
also claimed that the WWF was planning on airing three or four WCW
pay-per-views this year and running some WCW house shows. It is now October
and none of these propositions have yet to materialize.
Smackdown!, once the Number One rated show on UPN, has fallen on hard times
as well. In August of last year, Smackdown! was bringing in a staggering
6.3 rating. This week's ratings were a gloomy 3.6 tying it with (of all
things) the WB's Dawson's Creek.
Unnerved by the ratings slide months ago, the WWF blamed Internet sites for
revealing Smackdown! happenings beforehand and therefore dealing a severe
blow to the weekly ratings. The WWF did run some live Smackdown! broadcasts
this year to prove their point. The ratings did not increase as predicted.
Losing some of its pull with the network, the WWF even agreed in September
to move its Thursday Smackdown! broadcast in order to accommodate the 2001
MTV Video Music Awards. The introduction of Star Trek Enterprise and Buffy
The Vampire Slayer has also played havoc with Smackdown!'s status on UPN. Star
Trek: Enterprise is now the network's highest rated show.
What is also interesting is that the WWF no longer enjoys a "spike" in the
ratings before a pay-per-view or when they announce that someone of note
will be appearing on Smackdown! or Raw.
The decline in interest has also brought the WWF's regular house show
attendance, merchandise sales and pay-per-view buyrates down as well. In
August it was reported that attendance at WWF events saw a 32 per cent
decrease, revenues from live events dropped 19.9 per cent, merchandise
tumbled by 31.5 per cent and TV advertising revenue was down 17 per cent.
As far as the pay-per-view buyrates go some stats are, The Royal Rumble
rated a 1.88 in 1999, 1.6 in 2000 and 1.35 in 2001. King Of The Ring got a
1.13 in 1999, 1.19 in 2000 and a 0.96 in 2001. WrestleMania garnered a 2.32
in 1999, 2.35 in 2000 and a 2.18 in 2001. Invasion, the much-hyped mega
card which featured the WWF going against ECW and WCW only managed a 1.63
buyrate. The Judgment Day 2001 show scored the lowest of a WWF pay-per-view
since 1998's Over The Edge broadcast. Judgment Day got a 0.84 buyrate. The
buyrate reflects the number of homes which purchased a pay-per-view
broadcast. A "1.0" roughly equates to 400,000 separate homes ordering the
event.
Some other important news:
One of the world's most influential investment firms put WWF stock "on
hold" about a month ago. By doing this the firm was basically telling
investors to hold onto their stock but not to purchase any more as they
don't have much confidence in the company at the present time.
Since its initial public offering WWF stock has dropped approximately 40
per cent.
The WWF's "Think Again" advertising initiative was recognized as a
failure by the company.
If you examine each of these pieces of information on their own, they don't
add up to much. If, however, you put them all together you can't help but
to come to the conclusion that if Vince McMahon was only working for the
WWF and didn't own it, he would've been fired long ago for the company's
recent performance under his management. As the months subsequent to
WrestleMania have proven, McMahon and his team of bookers have failed to
engage the imagination of the wrestling public. You need not look any
further than the conclusion of last Sunday's No Mercy show to gauge how
many wrestling fans feel about the WWF's booking. Most of the email I
received from fans mocked the decision to resurrect the Austin - McMahon
angle once again. "Scraping the bottom of the barrel" and "desperate" were
terms that regularly came up in the correspondence.
Yes, it is true that Vince McMahon will go down as a visionary and a
legendary promoter for all he has done in the wrestling business. In fact,
some might say that wrestling wouldn't be where it is today without the
foresight of one Vince McMahon. Under McMahon, the WWF (much like WCW and
ECW) has given us a multitude of classic matches and moments that we will
never forget. What I argue is that those momentous contributions are in the
past. What has McMahon done lately? What stimulating ideas has he brought
to the table since formulating the McMahon - Austin angle and the
controversial Attitude campaign years ago? I dare say, nothing at all.
Things have got even worse since Vince's competition, which he apparently
desperately needed to fuel his ambitious nature, dropped out of contention.
Since the purchase of WCW and the acquisition of ECW talent, the WWF has
coasted along with as little creative effort as possible. Having won the
war, McMahon and his family are content to squander precious broadcast time
and angles on themselves while some extraordinary and deserving talent sit
in the locker room twiddling their thumbs.
As he said during the aforementioned XFL press conference, the "buck stops"
with Vince McMahon. Supervising almost every aspect of the WWF's wrestling
broadcasts, it is he who is ultimately responsible for the sorry state the
WWF is in now. The WWF is in frantic need of some original ideas. It needs
a new direction and that can only happen if the out-of-touch, out-of-step
Vince McMahon does what is right and passes on the torch. If not, wrestling
fans can expect more the same until a competitor emerges to light a spark
under the uninspired World Wrestling Federation and its head honcho Vince
McMahon.
