JBL thinks WWF New York should have been a museum, and that Vince McMahon wanted the opposite.
Speaking on Something to Wrestle, the former WWE Champion said the Times Square venue was a good time that missed an obvious opportunity.
Yeah, I remember going very well. We had a blast. That was a freaking party. That restaurant was a lot of fun.
His complaint is about what was on the walls.
I think they made huge mistakes at that restaurant. I think they should have had Andre’s boots there. I think they should have had a lot of merch there from the old days.
But Vince wanted to push all the new stuff. I just thought that was a mistake. I thought they should have had Bruno stuff. I thought they should have had Pedro Morales stuff, Bob Backlund stuff. The Hogan stuff. They could have had so much stuff there, like a museum. Vince didn’t see it that way.
Some of that would have been complicated at the time. Bruno Sammartino was estranged from WWE throughout the venue’s existence and did not reconcile with the company until 2013. Hulk Hogan was under contract to WCW when the place opened and did not return to WWE until 2002.
JBL also gave his own account of why it shut.
The reason it folded was because the manager allegedly was stealing money, and Vince just got fed up with it and cancelled the whole project.
That is not the reason WWE gave. Linda McMahon, then chief executive, closed the restaurant and nightclub in February 2003, with the company saying it wanted to concentrate on its global business. The retail store closed two months later.
WWF New York opened in the Paramount Theatre building at 1501 Broadway around the turn of 2000, taking its cue from WCW’s Nitro Grill in Las Vegas. It was renamed The World in 2002 when the company became WWE. JBL’s guess about the site is right: WWE assigned the lease to Hard Rock Cafe International in 2004 and the restaurant has been there since.
