Vince McMahon Rare Footage - Trying to Ban WWF World Wrestling Federation Government trying to Ban WWF. Interview with Vince McMahon explaining that the World Wrestling Federation is sports entertainment.
It is really weird to see the original WWF/E headquarters prior to Titan Towers. It just shows you how much and how quickly Vince grew the Federation to become such a huge global entity during the 80's. The guy wasn't fucking about.
@analiysanchez9949, he didn't use Daddy's fund. He bought it from his daddy, from the money he earned in 2 million and made it from a NWA territory wrestling to the global monster it is today worth billions of dollars. If his daddy was running wwe, it would be out of business a long time ago and wwe and wrestling in whole won't be global as it is. Wanna know who runs a company with daddy's money???It's Tony Khan.
@@rjuniverse7289 I agree with you but seriously, where would Vince McMahon Jr be if his dad was not a wrestling promoter? Still in a trailer park living in North Carolina would be my guess. Every business venture he attempted that wasn’t wwe flopped massively
@@analiysanchez9949 yes, because vince mcmahon was made for wrestling. It doesn't matter if Vince's father was already in wrestling. The thing is WWE is global today because of Vince Mcmahon and Vince didn't grew up with his father, he was living separately from him, but then he wanted to venture into the wrestling business since his childhood. SO, he went to his father and started to accompany him on the journey. Vince Mcmahon Sr didn't handed the company to his son. Vince Mcmahon worked as an announcer then commentator before he finally bought the company from his father in 2 million dollars. Wrestling business was always his passion and love. There are many promoter who were handed the wrestling companies and were richer than Vince, but nobody made it global like Vince did. It's because Vince knew the wrestling business like nobody others.
Who is a Senator to ban anything?....This is supposed to be a free society, isn't it??...I think sometimes these politicians get confused on that point....
@@dxcaprice88 Not just a politician, a lawyer-turned-politician--and in New York, of all places. Bernstein sounds like a scumbag. By his logic, he should ban football, as that has more in common with Roman gladiators than wrestling has. Additionally, did he ever try to ban boxing? That's far worse than wrestling.
I know he was using that term to avoid the athletic commission trying to steal his money... I didn't realize he was saying the actual term though way back then
Also coincidentally, the knives and guns and the Attitude Era is basically what saved McMahon and the WWE's ass from going out of business. Had he stayed the course theres a good chance pro wrestling would be a thing of the past as we know it.. life's funny how it works huh
I was just thinking that the other day. He accomplished so much in his lifetime!!! Revolutionized (literally) a sport that's had a history dating back some centuries. Took a respected (by the locals) but seen by the masses as a "carney" sport (pro-wrestling to how we understand it today began as a circus feature), and merged it with the entertainment aspect, something that was very wild-eyed for the time. It could have easily flopped.
@@YousefTubenot true at all actually. I don’t know all the details but wwe got around paying certain taxes and fees by admitting the matches are worked and they are sports entertainment and not taking part in real competitive matches
“We don’t have knives” *Undertaker about to embalm Stone Cold* “We don’t have guns.” *Stone Cold breaking into Brian Pilmans house* “We don’t have g(r)ape.” *Heidenreich & Michael Cole.*
That wouldn't happen for another ten years after this interview, besides why is there this thing that wrestling as a form of entertainment can't borrow from popular TV shows and movies I don't get that.
@@cl-vision5029 I’m not condemning it but laughing at the fact that WWF/WWE literally had those very things in its show not to far from this interview lol Which ends up proving the point of the WWF critic.
It's weird, or interesting, that the World Trade Center is referenced. There was a ''wrestling hearing'' on October 8th, 1985 at the World Trade Center. I wonder if there's any video of that?
Wrestling has been banned at least once in the past in England I believe and it wasn’t until a new prime minister came into power that it was unbanned. Also, Abraham Lincoln was actually a “wrestler” before becoming president. Although he did the more carney type wrestling where he would wrestle bears and stuff. More the feats of strength type of stuff over the really athletic stuff we have today.
@@markv1274 I don’t remember that but that’s hilarious! Technically Lincoln did use to wrestle but not nearly the same way we know wrestling today and he has nothing to do with the NWA 😂. He was more of a strong man who would wrestle bears and stuff. Not like a specially trained athlete the way wrestlers are now.
@@anish3183 At the time when the WWF was still being pitched to kids and their parents (1991), Vince had a snake bite Randy Savage on the arm. Never mind The Undertaker putting wrestlers into bodybags. Yeah, wholesome family entertainment.
Obviously, the lawyer failed to get the wwe banned since vince McMahon & the WWE are still around all these years later, but this lawyer fella has disappeared...hmmm
Vince McMahon didn't invent the term "sports entertainment," but he popularized it. Apparently, its origins date back to 1935. Harlem Globetrotters and Roller Derby were called sports entertainment. Rigged or not rigged boxing matches with musical acts, pageantry, and celebrities were considered sports entertainment events. Carnival acts with men "fighting" animals was labeled sports entertainment. That term wasn't super common though. But Vince always considered his product more as sports entertainment than the limiting term "pro wrestling."
The criticisms that were made at this time, I don't agree with it for the time period that it was being said, but if the same comments were made in 1998 onward, especially the Attitude Era and Ruthless Aggression Era, I fully agree with the comments being made against the WWF(E). I hated the Attitude Era for making wrestling into everything the haters said it was. But at this time, which looks like the early 1980's, Vince was right to say it's wholesome family entertainment.
Let's be honest, he's the reason sports entertainment or pro wrestling is main stream , and whoever says otherwise is in denial, cause he recognised what it was , if it's not real sports what is it 😁
Yea ever heard of Gorgeous George! He was in the 50's! He influenced Bob Dylan and James Brown! Vince didn't invent anything except putting wrestling on pay per view!
@@normaningemann3868 What Vince pioneered was a way to get the profits from wrestling all into Vince's pockets. Nothing wrong with that, but it's what he did.
it was wrestling entertainment back in the day.... every thing these are complaining about sounds more like the "attitude" aka "sex" era. never the less they do have points. i think people should reconsider wrestling territories again.
>Bernstein >NY Senator >lawyer This guy is complaining that wrestling is teaching people they have to be dirty, as if he weren’t in the most rotten positions a human can be in.
Attitude Era wwe and wcw was pulling in 10-13 million viewers a week for Raw and Nitro. Every male between 15-25 was wearing a wrestling shirt of some sort. Hell even the Wwe cd of theme music went platinum. No entity even government entity was gonna shut them down. They were making way too much money
He always had a very simplistic view of his concept of 'sports entertainment' - as if all sports presented in front of crowds weren't entertainment themselves. Wrestling is entertainment, Vince. It always was.
Macmahon is capitalizing on the decline of wrestling which had to be tranformed to sports entertainment in order to survive. I dont understand why he couldnt exploit something else. He always wanted to do something like Ted Turner did in his life.
@@heb430 What are you talking about? What decline forced the transformation? When? The transformation CAUSED the decline. When things went 100% "Sports-Entertainment", as in his complete vision, no competition, no more "wrestling" people involved, the viewership crashed. Viewers didn't reject wrestling, they rejected what eventually "Sports-Entertainment" evolved into. There are 2 million wrestling fans now that will watch or somehow pay for wrestling. That's his fault. There are tens of millions who used to watch it and would watch it again.
@@chadhartsees Junior this circus was different before Vince. It was just wrestling. Wrestling is gone except for the Olympics. But wrestling would have become s.e. by either Vince, Turner, Bischoff or some other guru or tycoon. It was just a matter of time.If wrestling had prospered to this point, we would see something these zombie fans would be bored of in seconds. Thats because wrestling in its purity is not a product but pure sports. I guess you can say that it was taken over by business practices, marketing, show biz and other pop culture and entertainment influences but if it was left alone it would have been like raw meat. This transfer or makeover happened over 50 years ago.
@@heb430 The olympics? What are you talking about? There was a working formula, from Bill Watts to JCP to McMahon's WWWF to McMahon's WWF pre-1997 that worked and was sustainable. Plenty of "show business" and "entertainment" in the territory, TV, and syndicated TV eras. What there wasn't a lot of? Sloppy story telling, overexposure, and 2 hours of people yelling at each other in a ring while they hold a microphone. The problem is his "Sports-Entertainment" isn't very entertaining.
Just giving away all the secrets to the business. What an absolute scumbag thing to do. His father would have been absolutely ashamed to see what he did to the wrestling industry. What a damn shame. 🤦♂️
Yeah people commenting here and the the dumb fans out there think this reduced version of wrestling is 'real'. Its all bells and whistles and horse hockey. Hollywood glitter with tv scripts posing as real wrestling. Some wrestling organizations had to go back to basics by starting from scratch and are the new legitimate promotions.
"It's grotesque heroes make Mick McManus look like a merchant banker". Okay... FAKE NEWS!!! I've been watching old British wrestling documentaries lately and Mick McManus is one of the most villainous wrestlers in not just British wrestling history, but one of the most villainous in the history of wrestling. This video is from around October 1985 from what I'm seeing at the 1:56 time mark. I'm sorry, but super goody shoes Hulk Hogan from 1985 is NOT more grotesque than Mick McManus during 1982 (final year before he retired he was being a huge heel to everyone in the ring with him).
Perhaps I'm biased, in my perspective,...as I had grown-up in the 70's/80's,...in the epicenter of the WWF market; Central NJ. _However_ ,..."love him" or "hate him", I think that you'd effectively be, a _LIAR_ ,....if you were to argue that Vince McMahon, _ISN'T_ ,...a [business] genius! Indeed, many of the things that he did,...went _WILDLY COUNTER_ to the way the Pro Wrestling industry had been handled/operated,...up to that point. And, granted; many of the tactics he deployed could _very reasonably_ ended in one....getting "UNALIVED" ,.....within many other...."close-to-the-vest",...."industries", but regardless; he _SUCCEEDED_ in virtually _EVERY, RISK/ENDEAVOR_ that he took-on (with the exception of the Snake River Canyon debacle, perhaps! 😜) Indeed,....many of Vince's...."extra curricular activities/behaviours".....are *INDEFENSIBLE* and *UNACCEPTABLE* , to say the least, _BUT_ ; that does _not_ discredit his accomplishments & successes as a businessman who (by many accounts).... _LITERALLY_ turned approximately $1,000,000 or so dollars in the early 1980's,.....to a *_MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR EMPIRE_* ....less than 25 or so years, later!! So, again; perhaps not the most _VIRTUOUS_ ,... _MORALLY-UPRIGHT_ individual that the world of professional wrestling will have ever known, but *_CERTAINLY_* ; probably the most *BRILLIANT* business-minds,...the industry will _EVER, KNOW_ !!
