Profiles_Vince

Born on the 24th August 1945 in Pinehurst, North Carolina Vince McMahon is the
Chairman Of The World Wrestling Federation and he is the third generation of the McMahon
family to be involved in wrestling. His grandfather Jesse McMahon worked as a boxing and
wrestling promoter, while his father Vince Sr. founded the Capitol Wrestling Corporation
which dominated professional wrestling in the Northeastern US during the mid-20th century
at a time when the sport was strictly regionalised.

Vince Jr. was raised by his mother and only met his father for the first time when he was
twelve but as a teenager he was still eager to get involved with the family business. In 1968
he graduated from the East Carolina State University with a degree in Business Administration
and in 1971 his father made him the head of Capitol's operations in Bangor, Maine. After
achieving success in Bangor he was made responsible for all New England operations and in
1982 he bought Capitol Wrestling from his father and began an expansion process that would
change the whole of professional wrestling in America.

McMahon recruited new talent and bought out competition across the country, forming a
national conglomerate that he called the World Wrestling Federation together with a parent
company called TitanSports inc. Professional wrestling had long hovered in an uncertain
position - not considered by many to be a legitimate sport, it was also looked down upon as
an unappealingly lowbrow form of entertainment. McMahon admitted that WWF wrestling
was technically not a real sport but instead he played up the entertainment side of it, with the
introduction of wrestlers with theatrical personae, flashy costumes and staging elaborate
displays for the benefit of both the arena and cable audiences, and it worked. In 1987 the
WWF sold $80 million in tickets to live events and the federation was also drawing record
numbers of viewers for their pay-per-view events on television.

The early 90's brought the WWF a series of legal problems, culminating in 1993 with the
accusation by the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn, New York that McMahon and Titan
Sports had supplied wrestlers with anabolic steroids from 1985 to 1991. During the trial
several former WWF wrestlers including Hulk Hogan admitted to using steroids during their
careers and testified that the WWF had encouraged the use of these drugs, which had been
declared illegal in 1988. McMahon was acquitted of most of the charges but was found
guilty of conspiring to defraud the Food and Drug administration.

In 1988 the WWF faced a different problem with the launch of Ted Turner's World
Championship Wrestling. The rivalry between WWF and WCW grew after the legal battles
but WWF remained firmly on top. Competition only intensified the enthusiasm for wrestling
in the late 1990's and WWF events continually rank as some of the highest on TV and the
company's revenue increased 45% from 1996 to 1999.

The rise in popularity can also be in part be put down to the change in attitude of today's
superstars. While they used to be portrayed as patriotic and wholesome (ie Hulk Hogan), now
the top wrestlers have a far more rebellious and agressive attitude (eg. Stone Cold & Mankind)
McMahon has done much to encourage this change playing the evil, corporate foil to the bad
boy heroes of the wrestlers. This evil character was initiated by the real life screw job at the
1997 Survivor Series during which McMahon changed the outcome of the main event between
Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels. The champion Hart was led to believe that the match would
end via disqualification but instead McMahon told the referee to ring the bell prematurely and took
the title away from Hart who was on his way to the rival WCW.

The evil boss character sparked new interest in the WWF. By choosing to go against the boss'
orders, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin became the most popular and most successful star in
wrestling history. McMahon then created other characters to fit the new WWF "attitude" such
as Val Venis (an adult film star character) and the Godfather (a pimp). McMahon has been
accused of being too extreme in his attempts to please the WWF fans especially after the
accidental death of Owen Hart who died in May 1999 when a pre-match publicity stunt went
wrong. his controversial decision to carry on with the show at Kansas City's Kemper Arena
after Hart's accident didn't earn McMahon many friends and prompted a pending law suit by
the Hart family.

One of the biggest stories in WWF history occured when on February 3, 2000 McMahon
announced that the WWF would be launching it's own professional football league the XFL.

In October 1999 McMahon saw World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc through its
initial public offering on the Nasdaq. The company's stock price closed at nearly double its
opening price for 10 million shares. As chairman, McMahon controls 98 percent of the voting
shares in the WWF. His wife Linda serves as the WWF's president and Chief Executive; both
his children Stephanie and Shane also work in the company whose headquarters are in
Stamford, Connecticut.