"Wrestling" Finally Made a "Dirty Word"

When I heard the news today about the WWE's name change from WWE to, well, WWE, I was a bit taken back. For those who haven't heard all about it, let me enlighten you:

"To better reflect the company’s global entertainment offerings, World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: WWE) announced today a new business model for future growth, including formally rebranding itself, WWE."

That's right. After years of joking around about Vince McMahon considering wrestling to be a dirty word, he went out and he proved us all right. Professional Wrestling, as we know it, is dead, in all honesty. No other company will ever reach the levels of the WWE, so as far as the mainstream goes? Yeah, wrestling is dead.

As a wrestling fan, I don't know what to think. The press release, issued in the early afternoon hours of Thursday, continued on to explain, in no uncertain terms, that they were moving away from being branded as a wrestling company, and were basically becoming an all around entertainment company that just happened to feature wrestling programming.

"Two key components to WWE’s brand expansion will be the active pursuit to acquire entertainment content companies and the outsourcing of WWE’s core competencies – television and film production, live event production and licensing. As part of the new business model, the company will also focus on the development of new television products including scripted, non-scripted and animated programs, as well as the launch of a new WWE network in the next 12-18 months."

A WWE Network?! I'm all for that! If they can give me a 24 hour wrestling channel...I mean, what more could a wrestling fan ask for? But who's to say it'll even be like that? Who's to say they're not going to air their AWFUL movies they've tried creating the past ten years? Maybe even create first-run television programming outside of the reality genre. A sitcom starring Santino Marella was rumored to be in the works about a year ago, but nothing's been heard about it in a while. Could that be part of the programming on the WWE Network? A tired, old comedy act that stopped being legitimately funny 3 years ago. Just what I want to see. I have CBS for that.

“The new business model of the company better reflects what WWE is all about, being a global entertainment company,” stated Vince McMahon, Chairman and CEO, WWE. “We will always be loyal to our core business that made WWE a globally known entity, however, the future of WWE will be the addition of new entertainment content opportunities beyond the ring.”

But you're not a global entertainment company, Vince! Nothing you've done outside of wrestling has ever succeeded! The World Bodybuilding Federation? The Xtreme Football League? WWE Films? WWE Music? It's all failed one way or another! And yous ay you'll be loyal to the core business that made WWE what it is, but you haven't! And you won't! Something changed in you during the last 10 years, that's for sure. Maybe it was WCW closing down, maybe it's the tail end of a midlife crisis, I don't know. But this has to stop.

Look, it's not like we're going to stop seeing actual wrestling on WWE programming. Hell, even in this day and age where the WWE is pretending it's some kind of global entertainment conglomerate, we still get more wrestling weekly on TV than we did during the Vince Russo years in the 90's! But it's the thought behind it, Vince. Killing off the name "wrestling"? Your father broke away from the NWA in the late 50's, turning Capitol Wrestling into the World Wide Wrestling Federation, and soon, just the World Wrestling Federation. Even after those bastards at the World Wildlife Fund went and screwed everything up, you still kept the name WRESTLING prominent in your name, switching to World Wrestling Entertainment.

Side thought: Maybe that's who we should blame. Those tree hugging, panda loving sons of bitches in the World Wildlife Fund who sued for YEARS to lobby a name change. As soon as that "E" switched from just a letter in the ticker symbol that stood for Entertainment and became the last letter in a brand we had been familiar with for nearly 50 years, officially making this an entertainment company, was the day we should've saw this coming.

"This new rebranding initiative will be highlighted through a national consumer and business-to-business advertising campaign entitled “Bigger. Badder. Better.™”

Oh. My. God. Number one, that descriptive slogan has been used so much in the past 20 years to describe everything from the flavor in potato chips to a tagline on the Nutty Professor sequel. It sucked then, and it sucked now. It didn't make me want that potato chip, it didn't make me want to see the next adventure in the Klumps saga, and it certainly doesn't make me more interested in this new campaign, Vinnie.

 
But, for every closed door, there's an open window...

"In addition to focusing on the expansion of the company, the company will bolster its core business with the launch a new talent development department headed by Paul “Triple H®” Levesque. The new department will put a greater emphasis on worldwide recruitment, training and character development to identify future WWE Superstars and Divas. The first recruit acquired under Levesque’s new department was the signing last month of future WWE Superstar, Sin Cara™, formerly known worldwide as Mistico."

Say what you will about Hunter's backstage influence over the past 10 - 15 years. At times, it's been evident and quite unbearable. But for as many detractors he has in this industry, you'll have just as many people, if not more, step up and admit that he GETS this business. He is a student of the "Game", as so dubiously explained in a Triple H promo in the summer of '99. One day, yeah, it's going to suck, and I can't even believe I'm going to type this...but Vince McMahon will die. He'll never retire, and his last day in that office will be the day they carry him out in a wooden crate. 

Sin Cara

But when he does, Triple H is already slated to pretty much take over with Stephanie. If Triple H's first major move was bringing in THE TOP WRESTLING DRAW IN MEXICO WHO'S ONE OF THE MOST TALENTED WRESTLERS TO COME FROM SOUTH OF THE BORDER EVER?! Then I'm ALL for it! No longer will we have to put up with Johnny Ace hiring whatever lingere model he slapped the ham to that week. No longer will the most recent NFL reject or local South Beach juice head get signed just because he has "the look", even though he's greener than goose shit. We will get a man who knows this business, who is a fan of this business, who at times has BEEN this business.

I have to admit. For as AWFUL of a decision as I think it is to remove the word "wrestling" from the company that made it what it is today, there is a bright light at the end of the tunnel. Waiting in that light is Triple H. And something that was probably said about him 15 years ago can now be said again. "Triple H is the future of this business".

 
Until he faces all of his new signees & recruits in a match and promptly squashes them all in 20 seconds with pedigrees and sledgehammers. But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.