Why WWE Calling Its Wrestlers Entertainers Is Ridiculous
Although they haven’t hit us over the head with it yet, WWE’s new policy is that all wrestlers on the show (whether it be Raw, Smackdown or ECW) must be referred to as entertainers and not wrestlers. That means all of the commentators, interviewers and stars are barred from saying wrestlers and must replace it with entertainers or nothing at all. Not athletes, not superstars not even performers, but “enter-flaming-tainers.”
If anyone plans on writing a “death of WWE” book this deserves its own page because if they go through with it, that’s one more nail in the coffin of the wrestling business!
The popular reported reason why Vince McMahon is taking this route is that he wants to relabel his company as Entertainment rather than a touring sporting event so he can get out of paying certain taxes and in theory get better advertisers as the “wrasslin” stigma will be gone. (In theory).
Although that may be part of the reason, it goes a lot deeper than that. You see Vinnie Mac has never liked “wrestling.” The very word makes him cringe. This is a man that took his father’s traditional wrestling promotion, crippled the territory system by braking the rules, running shows where he wanted, bringing in the over the top stars, he created wrestlemania and and made wrestling on TV a soap opera. Whether all of this was good or bad (I’d say it was good) he changed it all once and he wants to change it all again. Or at least finish off his grand plan of turning wrestling in to a new genre altogether. That’s bad.
You see Vince was a radical young son of a gun, bursting with ideas, ready to take the wrestling industry to new heights. He wanted to make money and become famous, not stay in one dingy region running “wrasslin” shows like his hard nosed elders who were too stuck in their ways to see the big picture. He created freaking Wrestlemania! Not many people can draw live crowds like Vince and Wrestlemania. He dominated TV ratings. I know today’s ratings are more modest but during the attitude era WWF was a household name. He’s innovated PPV (without wrestling, PPV may have never even taken off), pushed the boundaries of production (nobody in any field did Pyro before Vince) and he’s a legitimately rich bastard!
You don’t get more successful than Vince, but he’s still not allowed to join the county club with Robert De Niro and play golf with Bill Gates. He’s still not one of the boys. When Vince walks past in the Hall Donald Trump smugly says “hi Vince” but then goes back to talking to Warren Buffett and the guys. They might even snicker when they think Vince is too far away to hear. Why? Because Vince is in the wrestling business and only rednecks watch wrestling. This drives Vince’s grapefruits wild. In fact all of this testosterone filled rage is what turned McMahon’s grapes in to fully fledged fruits!
I’m no psychologist but something’s going on there. Vince just wants to be accepted…but the sooner he accepts that he’s in the wrestling business the better, because then maybe he can put on such good wrestling shows that he won’t need to worry about becoming all “hollywood.” What’s better if he really wants to go in to the entertainment business then hand over the promotion to the Undertaker or Triple H who still have a passion for wrestling and move over to the films division full time.
World Bodybuilding Federation, WWF Superstars, XFL football league, WWE Films, Freddy Prinze JR…just a few of the examples that Vince wants wrestling to be something it isn’t. The fact that he hates Jim Ross and berates him for knowing wrestling’s history is enough to prove that he hates the business.
So lets look at this Entertainers thing more closely in a few simple scenarios:
“Chris Jericho just hit Shawn Michaels wife, that’s absolutely vile…what a nasty entertainer” – huh?
“Regal’s got Noble down, no he slips out, side headlock, nope he reverses in to an armbar, these two guys are just trying to out-entertain each other” – WTF?
“The Royal Rumble, the biggest night in these men’s lives. Every man for themselves. Who can out entertain 29 other entertainers?” Who?
Ok they might not be that dumb but you get the idea. You may as well slap a big sign on the mat reading “wrestling’s fake, now suspend your disbelief.” If two guys are really supposed to hate each other and are about to fight then they are not entertainers they are wrestlers or fighters.
Yes in truth wrestlers are entertainers, great ones at that but when you are watching the Sopranos they don’t stop half way through and say “great acting buddy when I shot you in the head, you’re a great actor.” The point of wrestling is to portray the “entertainers” as tough guy wrestlers. The term is fine in stock meetings or when making press releases but don’t drag it actually in to the production.
RIDICULOUS!
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Time for old man McMahon to step down before his kids inherit nothing more than used-to-be and universal ridicule.
Great article bringing across a very persuasive point and some genuine insight on the intricate mind and MASSIVE! ego that Vince McMahon boasts. Yes, the idea of wrestling being completely re-branded as entertainment, including naming the wrestlers ‘entertainers’, is totally insane and shows no love for this historic business which is loved by millions of fans across the world. Well, just the ones that don’t have Vince screaming instructions down the headset every minute of every show that they watch and try to enjoy despite increasingly soap-opera like storylines and what seems like a juggernaut of promo’s and advertising campaigns pushing older viewers away in favour of under-8s. Come on Vince! During the attitude era the WWF went massive due to teens between 15 and 19 being hooked on the violence, swearing and some of the downright amazing shows and storylines that were created. I honestly thought that the revival of the ECW as a brand may have seen a return to some of those amazing shows with the violence and WTF!! moments. Remember DX storming Nitro in a tank! Remember the great hell in a cell matches, Undertaker Vs Mankind, Triple H Vs Cactus Jack? Remember the likes of Stone Cold Steve Austin and his F**k you Vince! attitude. He sprayed him with beer, he flipped him off at any oppurtunity, he undermined his authority (which Vince can’t claim to have these days on any of his shows in terms of on-screen work). Most missed from a personal standpoint is when the WWF title wasn’t a glitzy piece of shoulder candy that was put on just anyone and changed hands more time than prison soap, it was “The WWF Championship”!! and was earned in demanding storylines culminating in brilliant matches that you just don’t see anymore, it truly saddens me to see the belt in its’ current state. It was amazing tv and a truly great time in the history of wrestling. There were 100s more moments but I have put myself on the spot here and my mind has went blank, oops. Anyway, wrestlers are wrestlers Vince, learn to love it for what it is or hand over the reigns to someone who can steer it out of the rut that it’s descending into and get it back to being what we know and love. REAL WRESTLING! ENTERTAINMENT IS A BY-PRODUCT OF GREAT WRESTLING!!
Vince McMahon has been slowly losing his grip on reality for a long time, and some of us have seen it. Everyone who hasn’t seen it before surely must see it by now.
wwe is is on this death bed if wcw was around today wwe would not have a payer
thnak god we still got WRESTLING
in tna but tna is wwe lite it does wat wwe does so who knows mabye tna will go the same way
LOL great article! This will only make things worse for him. He obviously doesn’t realise the amount of money he is making, so why not change it all up? I mean, we already saw this type of thing coming. The fact that we get screwed out of real good matches (such as the Triple H vs Undertaker bout last Friday) pisses me off. I can deal with drama here and there, but it really isn’t helping them as of now, or wrestling at all. WE all know that storylines and creativity has been going down the sewer pipes. The direction he is taking will flush them further. It really is time to step down and give up his company, because Shane and Steph wouldn’t want the crap that Vince will soon take if he goes any further. Less with the poor drama and more with the epic matches before all the epic stars are gone. We could see that in TNA, but they are like the noobs in the business. They have no clue what they are doing with the legends they have. It will end up dying and bringing the WWE down with it.
Great article, Kee.
I’ve been hoping and praying for a Terry Funk DVD set for a long time but now I wonder if they’ll refer to him as an “entertainer” throughout the thing rather than a wrestler.
Can you see Harley Race saying something like, “Back then, entertainers didn’t get all the fireworks and movie deals. We entertained on a whole different level from the entertainers of today.”
Will a guy like Bill Watts be talked about as an “entertainment promoter?”
This may end up being the apocalypse for wrestling as we know it.
P.S.(KISS were using pyro in concerts back in the 70’s.)
What’s next? Entertainmentmania?
What about EntertainMania haha
This just proves that Vince has lost his mind and he will be WWE’s downfall while TNA is the top actual wrestling show. I would love to see TNA beat WWE in the ratings because WWE isn’t about wrestling anymore.
They are not Entertainers! They Are Athletes! this is a bunch of bull crap! Saying that the WWE are entertainers is like saying that Barack Obama is White!
THIS IS CRAP. VINCE NEEDS TO RETHINK HIS PROSPECTIVE ON THE SITUATION OR WATCH EVERYTHING HIS FAMILY HAS SACRIFICED FOR GO DOWN THE CRAPPER! THE LAST TIME SOMEONE TOLD ME THEY WERE AN ” ENTERTAINER” THEY TURNED OUT TO BE STRIPPERS!! WHERE’S PAUL E. WHEN WE NEED HIM. BUT, WE SHOULD HAVE SEEN SOMETHING LIKE THIS COMING; MIKE ADAMLE ANYONE.
This has been a great article and I like what you pointed out.
I used to be a WWF fan but years ago when they chaged there name
to WWE and just started acting like a soap opera,I got sick of
them. I’m glad TNA is around and I hope they continue to kick
ass. As for Vince,well this guy is starting to act like that
moron who made fun of Jim Ross,and Vince Russo. WWE is probaly
gonna go out of buisness if this keeps going.
Pluse that just sounds stupid. Entertainers? It’s supposed to
be wrestlers.
Saying that the wwe superstars of wrestling billed as Entertainers is like saying that Satan is going to give up being evil and finally give his life to Christ and be a good christian. Yeah right whatever that will be the day. And then Vince wonders why his show and ticket sells is failing horribly. I never would think of the day that I would say this, but I would rather watch 3 hours of old WCW tapes and be bored silly out of my mind or old Hulk Hogan tapes of Blunder in Paradise(Thunder). TNA isn’t any better. It seems to me that TNA only gets the old washed up wrestlers that WWE and WCW don’t want and they (TNA) try to take and make something of them. Why not just go back to the old days of wrestling when wrestlers really had good old fueds that lasted a lifetime and you could sit back 30 or 40 years from now and talk about the good old days. What ever happen to when wrestlers really didn’t like each other and you did not have to rely on a so-called script to make it look believeable I mean when I was growing up there were some wrestlers in real life that just despised each other and you could not tell what was scripted and what was real. What ever happen to women’s wrestling. The females of the WWE look more like strippers from the strip joints rather than real female competitors. Don’t get me wrong I am not talking about all the DIVA’s that are real legitimate female competitors. Like for instance if you take Natayla the daughter of Jim the Anvil Niedhart for example. I don’t call placing her in the ring with the likes of Layla and Candice Michelle is something that we have in mind. Think about the females that have won and held the WWE womens title, like the fabulous Moolah, Wendy Ritcher, Medusa, Jazz, Chyna and we can go on and on. Vince needs to get his priorities straight and focus what is really on the minds of the true wrestling fans. If you want entertainment that’s fine, but these wrestlers sacrifice their bodies night in and night out and suffer severe injuries and being away from their families for 365 days out of a year. That is not entertaining, that is true love for what you love to do and that is to entertain the fans, but also to do what you love to do best and that is wrestle and one day hope to be a world champion. So Vince the next time you say that wrestling is just entertainment, then think about the athletes that you have getting in the right to entertain your fans, like Dennis Rodman, Pete Rose, Evander Holyfield and you can go on and on, these are not only entertainers, but they are professionals that enjoy doing what they do best and that is participating in the various sports that they are representing. Vince please get your mind straight as die hard wrestling fan, do the right thing and respect the few good wrestlers that you have so they wont end up eventually hating you for what you truly stand for.
Finally, someoone who understands the same thing that I have been questioning for a few years already. Vince needs to realize that the reason he is rich is because of the wrestling aspect of his business,not the funny skits, or the meaningless talking that the WWE does at the beginning of Raw,ECW,and Smackdown. We know that the guys want to beat each other,they don’t have to tell us. Vince is not losing it,he just needs to be reminded of how he got rich in the first place.
That is just like the deal with MVP and fatty betty, I mean ugly betty I mean Sherri Shepherd. Who in the hell cares, that they like each other. Do we have to have these cretins spreaded in our faces every time we go to the tubes to watch TV? It is pretty obvious that Vince has run out of ideas and apparently Sherri is so desperate for a man and MVP is so desperate for anything that he can find, the jail cell he was in as a kid must have affected what ever little brains cells that he does have in his head. No one cares about your bikini waxes Sherri nor your sex life with MVP, like I’ve said before and I will say again, some things just do not need to be on Television period. We have enough garbage to worry about and Sherri and MVP isn’t one of them. Get a life and lives our ALONE!!!!!