WWE: Vince McMahon Needs To Stick with What He Knows and Stop Expanding

The WWE is the biggest wrestling company in the world. It has a huge roster of talented wrestlers, had $142.6 million revenue last quarter, employs 585 non wrestlers, has major offices in some of the worlds biggest cities (New York, Los Angeles, London, Shanghai, Tokyo, Singapore and Mumbai) and they are now going to have their own TV network. It's insane how big they are.

The WWE is the place every professional wrestler (at least in North America) dreams of going one day, in hopes of conquering it and going down in history as one of the best. It is the wrestling mecca.

But to Vince McMahon "wrestling" is a dirty word, and it is because of that fact that we see constant attempts (and usually failures) at the WWE expanding into new markets—and in turn damaging their credibility both in those markets and in professional wrestling circles.

Since 2003, Vince has launched a number of side projects that had very little to do with wrestling. These included the World Bodybuilding Federation (Bodybuilding organization that lasted from 1990-1992), The World (restaurant/night club/memorabilia shop that existed 1999-2003), the XFL, WWE films and WWE Niagara Falls a retail and attraction site (I have no clue what that is) that closed in March.

The new WWE network seems like a brilliant idea (especially with the possible PPV's shown for free on the network) but after the multiple wrestling programs (RAW, SmackDown, Superstars and NXT) the shows based around wrestling (Tough Enough, Afterburn, A.M. Raw, Bottom Line, This Week in WWE, Vintage Collection and Classics on Demand) what are they going to put on in the other 60 hours of the week?

The answer is pretty scary, shows that have nothing to do with wrestling but feature wrestling stars. Don't believe me? WWE just sent a survey out to several fans on their mail list and this is actually directly from that:  

"How do you handle a hungry man? Just ask Bess Wight. Her husband is Paul “The Big Show” Wight, WWE Superstar and the world’s largest athlete! “Show” is seven feet tall and 425 pounds…

Bess is bodacious, beautiful, and one big time cook! And if you think The Big Show is tough, you haven’t met his wife! Bess and Show are about to give viewers an all-access pass into the controlled chaos that is their kitchen.

You’ll meet their friends, their families, and even some of Big Show’s fellow WWE Superstars – you never know who will stop by their house to whip up something delicious! Once you see this larger than life couple in the kitchen, we know you’ll be hungry for more!"

Imagine for a minute the Big Show and his wife (who I don't think has any professional cooking experience) making inane small chat while on a cooking show? If you believe that a lot of interesting (and even some good) shows could be done with the network you need to consider that the WWE's target audience still wets the bed.

Are we going to see child programs involving WWE superstars? Is Randy Orton going to teach 3-year-old's how to count? Is William Regal going to use his accent for "Story time with Will"? How many more superstars will bombard us with shows that we don't give a damn about? Will we see wrestlers degraded all for the sake of Vince McMahon's ego?

That is what this all comes down to, Vince McMahon's ego.

I seriously doubt that Vince ever wanted to be a wrestling promoter like his father, because he has done everything possible to turn a wrestling company into something that isn't a wrestling company.

He broke every promise his father (and he himself) ever made to other promoters, he has banned the terms wrestler and wrestling, he constantly tries to get into other fields that he knows nothing about and he has very little respect for high quality wrestlers from other companies.

Vincent Kennedy McMahon for all his flaws (and their are a lot of them) is the most important person in pro wrestling history, but every time he tries to do something new that has nothing to do with wrestling it draws up images of Michael Jordan playing baseball, it's just not right and I am losing a lot of respect for him because of it.