Vincent Kennedy McMahon.
What can be said about this man that hasn’t already been said?
While his contributions to the world of wrestling and sports cannot be understated, to many, he is a cutthroat business mogul who will ruin lives to get his way.
In the ring, McMahon holds shocking victories over the likes of The Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Bobby Lashley and even John Cena.
But for as compelling (often in a car-wreck-esque way) as McMahon’s matches can be, they’re nothing compared to his work out of the ring.
McMahon has proven himself to be a fighter, and here are Vince’s biggest wins that took place out of the ring.
5: Survivor Series Triumphs over WarGames
In 1987, WWE introduced their new November Pay-Per-View, Survivor Series, following the success of WrestleMania 3.
The November date was picked as it was a good middle-ground between WrestleManias 3 and 4, but that wasn’t the only reason.
The same night as Survivor Series, the NWA were hosting their own major event of the year ‘Starrcade’ and this led McMahon to launch into an attack.
In what McMahon himself has called nothing more than a direct threat, the then-WWF Chairman informed Pay-Per-View providers that if they aired Starrcade, then they would be banned from hosting WrestleMania 4 and all future WWF events.
Almost every Pay-Per-View provider relented, and only a handful aired Starrcade, in what would be a very special Thanksgiving night for the McMahon family.
4: WrestleMania
Today, WrestleMania is an internationally known name and hosts the very top names in wrestling and entertainment.
There’s a reason why WrestleMania tickets sell out so fast, but in 1985, the show was McMahon’s biggest gamble.
Realising that times were changing, McMahon invested heavily in the concept of Pay-Per-View, and if urban legends are to be believed, even put his house down as collateral for the show.
Had WrestleMania 1 flopped, the WWF would have struggled to recover, and McMahon would have forever been tarnished as the man who tried and failed to force change.
Instead, WrestleMania 1 was a hit, and would add fuel to McMahon’s burning desire to do better, and it wasn’t long until other companies followed suit.
3: Ending the War
From the moment Lex Luger appeared on the first WCW Nitro in 1995, the Monday Night Wars were on.
The war saw McMahon and the WWF face the greatest competition they’d ever faced, and for a while, things looked bleak.
As Eric Bischoff will remind anyone within ear shot, WCW Monday Nitro demolished WWF Raw 83 weeks in a row, and there was a time when McMahon’s baby looked sunk.
A dramatic change of storytelling (complete with a new Attitude) would turn the tide, and thanks to inept heads at WCW, the war would end on March 26, 2001, with McMahon the victor.
As Paul Heyman on commentary called out “they say that Alexander the Great sat on a rock and cried, for he had no more world left to conquer” McMahon proved to be the conqueror of pro wrestling, buying out his competition.
2: The Steroid Scandal
During the 80s, WWF Superstars were larger than life, but to many, names like Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and countless others were too large.
In November 1993, McMahon was indicted in a federal court and was accused of approving and distributing steroids to his roster.
McMahon temporarily ceded control of WWF operations to his wife Linda, and was looking at serious prison time if convicted.
McMahon’s saving grace would ironically come from a wrestler who played a prisoner, as Kevin ‘Nailz’ Wacholz testified that McMahon ordered him to use steroids.
That may sound like bad news for McMahon on the surface, but when Wacholz made it clear he was an unreliable and hostile witness, his credibility, and the credibility of the claims, were called into question.
In July 1994, a jury acquitted McMahon of all charges, proving that even the federal government can’t stop Vincent K. McMahon.
1: The Second Coming of Vince McMahon
To paraphrase the late jazz singer Dinah Washington, what a difference a week makes.
This time last week, fans knew that McMahon was hopeful to return, but few believed it would happen.
After all, WWE has been doing so well without McMahon’s iron grip on production, that it just seemed to make no sense for him to return.
Yet, here we are.
There was a time when fans thought McMahon would never retire, and when he did, thought he’d never return, and hell has frozen over for the second time in six months.
Whether McMahon’s claim of merely being there to oversee a sale of WWE is genuine or not, McMahon is back on the board, in arguably the biggest win of his career.
