WWE: Ranking Vince McMahon's Non-Wrestling Flops from Least to Most Disastrous

Vince McMahon is a businessman and a very successful one at that. You have to be in order to be worth $1.1 billion at one time. You'd also need to be successful to have a 47-foot boat, appropriately named "Sexy Bitch". Much like many other successful businessmen before him, not every venture that McMahon has tired has yielded success.

McMahon is known for his wrestling company and the great successes that have come with it, but that isn't enough for McMahon every so often. Time wears on and the itch to get involved with some new venture becomes one that needs to be scratched. It has led to McMahon investing money into some pretty pointless ideas, but ones that McMahon can learn from (hopefully).

Ideas within the wrestling business aside, McMahon has made enough bonehead moves outside of the squared circle for the masses to look back at in awe of. We can heckle and laugh at the ideas, all the while having an odd emotion about never making, in our lives, the amount Vince just wasted in his latest endeavor.

As we approach McMahon's greatest venture, an event named WrestleMania, let's take a glimpse to other McMahon thoughts that did not turn out so hot. Here are the ten biggest disasters outside of wrestling for Vince McMahon.

10) Evel Knievel Jumps Snake River

On September 8, 1974, Evel Knievel attempted to jump over Snake River Canyon in Idaho. Knievel wished to strap into a rocket ship and blast off into the sky, landing on the other side safely. Instead, Knievel failed miserably.

It was so risky and seemed so improbable that ABC Sports did not wish to spend the money required to make it happen just to have the jump be featured on Wide World of Sports and not go off well. ABC was right and steered away from it. It was Top Rank Productions who would swoop in for the stunt. The event would be featured on closed-circuit television and be shown at movie theaters.

Among secret investors in the stunt were WWF promoters, which included McMahon's father, Vince Sr., as well as Don E. Branker. While McMahon Jr. did not literally have his hands on this project (or so we think), it did have an effect on McMahon as a businessman. It was in the 1970s when Vinny Mac would be taking over reins from his father, so it's still something to point out as a failure.

9) WWE Network

The WWE Network hasn't even launched yet, so why is it on this list? So far, it has been a failure. It was discussed years ago, only to come up shockingly late last year and be put into motion. Shows were being planned, commercials were being shot, and the logo for the network was being created. The hype surrounding it was great. There were just a few problems, mainly those about actually running the network.

There were not people to bring in and run the network. There were no cable providers willing to strike a deal for the network. Existing contracts with networks would make some things impossible to be featured on their own potential network. If all of that wasn't enough, the target date was for the weekend of WrestleMania, which is in less than four weeks now.

The commercials have now stopped for it and plans may push the network all the way back to November. Still, the plan is to have it launch in 2012, just like it was planned to be months ago. If it launches and is fine, it may just be a success and get taken off this list. If it doesn't work out and the shows become staples of the WWE YouTube channel, it may just move up on the list.

8) Cape Cod Buccaneers

In 1981, Vince McMahon became an owner of a sports franchise. Sure, it was a minor league hockey team, but it still counted somewhat. The Cape Cod Buccaneers were the property of Vince McMahon. However, the league they were in, the ACHL, was not run well enough for McMahon to get the profit that he was hoping for.

McMahon purchased the team back then for $15,000, but did not get to be very successful in the league. Teams were folding up and McMahon needed a loan from the league for lack of cash flow. McMahon wanted to borrow $15,000, the exact amount McMahon put into the league with the purchase of the franchise. The team was 17-21-1 before packing it in during the first season.

7) WWF New York

Times Square in New York City is the place to go if you want to have a great themed restaurant. In Times Square and the streets surrounding it, there is just about every type of theme you could imagine. At the corner of Broadway and 43rd street stood WWF New York in late 1999. It sold merchandise on the ground floor and was a restaurant/night club on the basement level.

The business would be referenced on mostly every broadcast, which showed every TV show and pay-per-view with a cover charge to get in. Superstars would often pop in during events. Storylines would even take place there. The business was even featured in multiple WWE video games. When the company changed from WWF to WWE, the business became The World.

In 2003, Linda McMahon decided to close the night club portion to focus on global endeavors. The gift shop part closed months later. It would eventually become a Hard Rock Cafe. WWE uses that Hard Rock Cafe for press conferences when they are in New York City.

6) WWE Niagra Falls

WWE wanted to have a retail store, inspired from their gift shop at WWF New York. In 2002, they got their wish, when they opened the store in... Niagra Falls? With a location just inside of the Canadian border, how could WWE go wrong?

The store opened in August 2002 as a retail store with WWE merchandise. It also featured Piledriver, a drop tower ride on the top of the building. The ride would only be open for a few months per year for climate reasons. Superstars would come in and sign autographs for fans. Video games and pay-per-views would also get shown there.

The store would close up on March 31, 2011. However, a lot of the merchandise that was left over from the store is still sold there. There is also a large WWE Championship on the side of the building which still remains.

5) IcoPro

WWE told you that "You've gotta want" IcoPro, but few actually did. From 1992 to 1995, McMahon tried to market IcoPro, which stood for Integrated Conditioning Program. They were a line of bodybuilding supplements. The ads aired on WWE programming suggested that it was more than pills and powders, but a nine week program to develop lean muscle mass through diet, training and their supplements.

The problem with it is that many of the WWE fans at this time were not quite interested in becoming bodybuilders. Even for those that were, WWE never could find any IcoPro success stories to show a change in anyone. To many, this just seemed like something marketed to bodybuilders who wanted to look even better.

4) Piledriver: The Wrestling Album

WWF decided to created their own albums in the 1980s. The Wrestling Album is a lot more bearable because it includes themes, including Rick Derringer's "Real American", which would become Hulk Hogan's theme.

Pilerdriver was the second album from WWF, recorded in 1987 and released later on that year. The title of the album was also used on the second track, which was sung by Koko B. Ware. This is also the album which featured McMahon singing "Stand Back". It was that same song that he performed at The Slammys in an embarrassing clip.

3) WWE Films

Bending The Rules, the newest film from WWE Films, has Edge in a starring role. It is the 17th movie WWE Films has been on board with and the 13th produced solely by the company. The company started well with partial production done on The Scorpion King, Walking Tall and The Rundown, all movies starring The Rock.

WWE then tried to take matters into their own hands and launch movie careers of their current superstars. John Cena, Kane, Randy Orton, Triple H and Big Show are among the superstars to be featured in WWE Films productions. Of all of them, only eight were shown in movie theaters. The highest grossing in movie theaters was The Marine, a 2006 film starring Cena. The Marine brought in just $22 million from the box office.

2) WBF

The World Bodybuilding Federation was started by McMahon in September 1990 in an attempt to bring bodybuilding mainstream. It didn't work. After two years of existence, the WBF folded in 1992.

The company attempted to take bodybuilders and show their journey to the company. It also seemed as if WBF tried to bring in rivalries and storylines, like WWE, but set them to bodybuilding. There were no clotheslines or headlocks. There was just... posing.

1) XFL

Nothing quite rivals the putrid XFL. McMahon has been a friend to Donald Trump for a number of years now. Trump was one of the men controlling the USFL, who tried to compete with the National Football League in the 1980s. It didn't work well and the company folded, but it was time for McMahon to give it his own show.

In 2000, the project was announced and, one year later, there were eight teams and a deal with NBC to show the games. The XFL tried to bring in football audiences during the offseason of the NFL. Of course, the XFL had to try to do things their own way. Instead of a coin toss, the XFL had an opening scramble, where one guy from each team ran 20 yards to dive on the ball. This did lead to injuries, obviously. There were also no extra points. Instead, the XFL had teams set up for a two-point conversion, but only earn one point. As the playoffs came up, teams could have conversions from further back that earned two or even three points.

There was also standardized pay based on positions. For instance, quarterbacks were paid $5,000 per week, but also earned $2,500 per victory. A victory in the playoffs earned $7,500. The championship-winning team earned $1,000,000 for the whole team, which averaged out to about $25,000 per player. This meant players paid for health insurance their own way.

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