The Kayfabe Chronicles: Vince McMahon Dead at 66 Posted by J.D. Dunn on 04.03.2007
Wrestling loses its most famous icon.
Citizen McMahon: Wrestling Magnate Dead at 66 by staff writerJ.D. Dunn
April 1, 2012
STAMFORD — Squared circles around the globe are mourning the loss of one of the most influential icons in the sports entertainment industry. From his grandiloquent announcing to the megalomaniacal way that he ran his business, he was always the center of the wrestling universe.
Vince McMahon, arguably the face of professional wrestling for the past thirty years -- first as an announcer, then as Chairman and CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment -- was found dead in his Stamford, Conn., office. He was 66.
The coroner's report will not be released until Thursday, but the initial cause of death is thought to be a heart attack. His last public appearance was at the Hall of Fame ceremony on Friday night to induct Jacques Rougeau among others. McMahon apparently went back to the office to complete some more work for Sunday's WrestleMania XX-8, traditionally one of the WWE's largest shows.
" I'm not flattered by what I read when people call me a genius and things of that nature because I'm not. "
—Vince McMahon
McMahon's death was announced by the WWE, which will dedicate the WrestleMania PPV to him. They've also announced plans for a 3-DVD Blue Ray set featuring footage of McMahon's funeral and comments from the mourners.
"Vince was very driven," said his widow, WWE CEO Linda McMahon in a telephone interview. "Sometimes he would put in 100 hours a week at his desk putting together shows, revising contracts, negotiating TV deals. It took its toll, but he loved doing it. For Vince, it wasn't work."
WWE Heavyweight Champion CM Punk, who was hired by McMahon before a very public feud caused a riff between them, remembered McMahon's personal side.
"I didn't agree with his steroid use during the 1980s. That was the big bone of contention between us. I don't believe in pumping your veins full of toxins. But he was a good family man. I remember how he used to wrestle with his grandkids on the back lawn when we'd have a barbecue."
McMahon's legacy is a decade of dominance over his wrestling competitors. After the fall of World Championship Wrestling in 2001, McMahon's wrestling empire was largely untouched, so much so that McMahon went on to venture into film, producing 20 movies to date, including this year's Academy Award WinningTMLe Grand Odalisque, starring WWE announcer Michael Cole as a homosexual drug addict who becomes a male prostitute to make ends meet.
"Vince was a tough sumbitch," says former WWE superstar and current host of the NBC game show "Deathgrip," Steve Austin. "It really don't make a damn bit of difference whether you liked him or hated him because they ain't a damned thing you can do about it, and that's all I got to say about that."
Like all other aspects of his life, though, McMahon's death is mired in controversy. Just who will be the new chairperson of World Wrestling Entertainment. For her part, Linda McMahon has said she has no desire to run the day-to-day operations of the WWE. Sources close to the McMahons say that there is a rift between McMahon's children Shane McMahon and Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley-Brooks. In fact, says one WWE official under the condition of anonymity, "It's gonna be a by gawd knockdown, dragout affair between those two. It looks like we're in for a real slobberknocker."
But the fate of the WWE isn't the only question surrounding McMahon's death. Particularly, fans and media alike want to know what the meaning is behind the mysterious word McMahon typed on his computer just before his death — Fishburne. Who – or what – is this "Fishburne?" A lost love? A bar he used to frequent? A pet name for his wife's private parts? Could it lend some insight into the enigmatic private life of the bombastic billionaire? Just who was Vincent Kennedy McMahon?
Vince McMahon was Horatio Alger
McMahon was raised by his mother, living in a trailer in Pinehurst, N.C.. "There were a lot of assholes," Vince says bluntly as he thinks back on the various stepfathers who were introduced into his life. McMahon even recalls sexual abuse by one of his five stepfathers. Indeed, it was not a happy beginning for the man who would go on to revolutionize sports entertainment.
McMahon first met his father, Vince Sr., at the age of 12, and he became enamored with the wrestling business. After graduating from East Carolina University, Vince was brought into the Capitol Wrestling Corporation as head of the Bangor, Maine offices of what would become the multi-billion dollar corporation World Wrestling Entertainment.
Even the WWE has had several brushes with bankruptcy but, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, McMahon was always able to regroup and come up with the next big superstar to guide the promotion. It's a knack that other promoters just didn't have.
McMahon Descended Into Tragic Self-Loathing Late in His Life.
Vince McMahon was Michael Corleone
At age 36, Vince offered to buy out his father and took the business in a controversial direction that alienated his peers. With very little capital, Vince began to strongarm the nearby promoters with threats of big-money deals for their wrestlers. Although he had little to back it up, McMahon had a knack for persuasion and an air of confidence that reinforced his will. The other promoters capitulated. McMahon formed an empire in the Northeast from his base at Madison Square Gardens.
One by one, the other promoters began to fall in line or fall by the wayside. Jack Tunney, promoter of the influential promotion in Toronto, cut off the NWA and sided with McMahon, crippling the NWA's global position and strengthening McMahon's WWF in Canada. Verne Gagne's American Wrestling Association tried to compete, but Gagne didn't have McMahon's vision or creativity. Bill Watts tried to take his Mid-South promotion nationwide and had success with the top wrestling TV show in America, but a local recession and the lack of McMahon's media contacts forced him to sell out to Jim Crockett Promotions. Crockett himself competed for a while, but his penchant for spending money eventually caught up with him.
By the end of the 1980's, McMahon was untouchable.
Vince McMahon was David O'Selznick
Despite failures in television production, music production, the World Bodybuilding Federation, and the ill-fated XFL, McMahon never gave up on trying to branch out into the entertainment industry. The first McMahon-produced film No Holds Barred was a critical and financial flop, but over 10 years later McMahon decided to give it another go with the formation of WWE Films.
WWE Film got off to a surprising start with film like See No Evil and The Marine, which were both profitable in spite of critical derision. Critics began to turn around in 2009 with the WWE production Because I Said So, Dammit!, a Spaulding Gray-esque two-hour monologue starring John Bradshaw Layfield. Layfield's compelling rants against gays, democrats, transgender subway riders, and someone named "The Miz" earned him a Golden Globe.
WWE Films continues to be a phenomenal success, McMahon's sole achievement outside of wrestling, and with an Oscar to their name, the sky is the limit. "I think we're seeing a return to that old-style Hollywood producer who is able to do the big-budget blockbuster and the critical darling," said Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times columnist and host of the syndicated Roeper & Helm during a pre-Oscar interview.
McMahon Was Never Modest About His Accomplishments
Vince McMahon was Napolean
His twenty-minute, grandstanding Oscar acceptance speech, which degenerated into a profanity-laced tirade against host Ellen Degeneres has become a Googletube classic, surpassing even President Clinton's verbal tirade about her husband's recent infidelity gaffe. The McMahon name has become synonymous with this kind of guilty-pleasure entertainment.
"If you take your best friend out to this ring tonight. If you tear him limb from limb. If you reach into his chest, and pull out his heart, and hold it up so the blood drips down all over you then you would have made the kind of sacrifice that's necessary to be the number 1 contender," McMahon intoned on a memorable episode of Raw, and episodes like this epitomize the Roman style in which McMahon ran his federation.
Control became the name of the game for McMahon during the last decade of his tenure as WWE Chairman. This even extended to the fans. "You laughed at me, Vince McMahon. You don't laugh at the misfortunes of billionaires. You laugh, SHUT UP! You laugh… you laugh when I tell you to laugh, that's when you laugh!" McMahon once chided them.
It was this descent in to paranoia and madness for which he will sadly be remembered by most fans. Even the poignant revelation that his own son, Shane McMahon, was indeed the Masked Avenger, hell-bent on usurping the WWE, only served to drive Vince further over the edge.
"Fishburne"
So, just who or what is "Fishburne?" A high school girlfriend? A spurned promoter or wrestler? The world may never know the answer to that. Even if it did, would it change Vince McMahon's image or impact?
No I don't think so, no. Mr. McMahon was a man who got everything he wanted and then lost it. Maybe Fisbhburne was something he couldn't get or something he lost. Anyway it wouldn't have explained anything, I don't think any word can explain a man's life. No, I guess Fishburne is just a piece in a jigsaw puzzle... a missing piece."
