In his interview with NOLA.com, Vince McMahon talked about how he crushed the competition on his way to the top of the mountain of professional wrestling promotions in this country. According to Vince, it had a lot to do with his grapefruits.
"Every single one of them had far more greater resources than I did. It was just that we had a set of balls so to speak, and we had an extraordinary work ethic. We came at the business a different way as far as showcasing professional wrestling.
Old-time promoters tried to legitimize the sport, and I came along, and my point of view was one of, 'Wait a minute. This is entertainment, and our audience knows it's entertainment.' The only people that are **** themselves are the owners of the territories, thinking we're presenting this as a sport. I looked at it in terms of entertainment."
Vince said he tried to appeal to a much larger audience, instead of looking down on his customers, the way other promoters did.
"It was the lowest common denominator in terms of who those promoters were trying to appeal to. It goes all the way back to make sure your big events happen on the 15th and beginning of every month because that's when the 'welfare' checks came out. So that was their point of view. I'm going, that is really stupid. Why not appeal to a much broader spectrum across American and increase the potential of the audience, so that's why I went more in terms of the entertainment sectors.
Not taking anything away from the professionalism in the ring at all, it's just that it's a larger audience. Again, getting back to logic. So when we began to compete with all these other guys, we had a better product."
According to Vince, once he got some momentum, the other promotions just couldn't keep up, mostly because they weren't willing to work hard enough to beat him.
"They all got together and had their annual convention, and they all were like don't tread on me, I won't tread on you. Then, they had some real competition when we came along. They didn't have much of a work ethic. That was another thing I was counting on. They didn't really go to work like we were going to go to work. And I knew that because of my dad. My dad worked harder than the other promoters, but two days a week, that was a lot.
My approach was very logical and very different than everybody else's. You could open up a Harvard 101, and you could just follow that and go back and look at everything's that's been done, and I think that you could just see that it's logical."
Vince also points out that he's always had the best talent in the world working for him, at least in his estimation. And it all comes down to teaching them that Golden Rule, one passed down to him from his grandma.
"Our guys and gals are so passionate about what they do. They're very eager to learn. ... Hogan used to call it Titan Training because we used to be known as Titan Sports many, many years ago. You're taught respect. When one of our talent walks in here, he's going to look you in the eye, and he's going to shake your hand. He's going to be cordial, and it's the way you want to be treated.
My grandmother used to say, 'Treat people the way that you want to be treated.' That's what we try to do. By the way, that's the first time I've quoted my grandmother in an interview. She was awesome. She was 60 years old. A kite went up in the tree one time. And 60 years old back then, was 60 years old. She wouldn't let me go near it. She climbed the tree. Awesome lady."
Vince also spoke about why he'll never slow down, and why he doesn't miss being on TV. You can read the entire interview here.
