"McMahon vs McMahon" - by Aaron Williams
"It should have been the happiest moment of their lives. Father and son celebrating the crowning achievement of a family who dedicated their lives to building an empire to ensure the family’s well-being and legacy for generations. Instead, it may have turned out to be the night that ruined the family forever."
It’s no secret that Vince and Shane McMahon do not always see eye to eye. It’s also no secret that the McMahons are far from the harmonious unit that most people envision when they dream of starting a family. Still, no one could have dreamed how dysfunctional and acrimonious the McMahon family could become. Sure, they fought with each other, competed against each other, and voiced their opinions about each other in public. But when push came to shove and the family business was threatened, they always seemed to rally around each other and put individual ambition aside. The business –the World Wrestling Federation – always managed to bring them together. It was the one thing they had in common, it was in their blood, and it was the one thing they all loved.
Today, however, that is no longer true. There is no longer just one company, nor is there just one family. No, today there are two families, and two companies. One, the World Wrestling Federation, led by the father, the most powerful man in sports-entertainment and the most ruthless businessman the world has known since the days of the robber barons. The other, World Championship Wrestling, led by the prodigal son, forced out of the Federation by the despicable acts of his father, and now set on rebuilding the company that his father nearly destroyed.
Can Shane succeed? What else might Mr. McMahon have in store for his family? Who will ultimately win this rivalry? And how will this latest blood feud change the landscape of sports entertainment?
At this point in time, it’s too early to know the answers to all these questions. Reading between the lines, its apparent that Vince and Shane’s rivalry promises to take sports-entertainment into uncharted waters, and it should surprise no one if Stephanie and Linda prove to be the deciding factors in who ultimately wins the war between father and son. Whatever happens, one thing we can all be sure of is that it’s going to get ugly, and to quote an old saying, "we ain’t seen nothing yet"!
For years, anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists have tried to explain and rationalize the McMahon family. "They are a throwback to a long lost age when resources were scarce and family members were forced to compete with each other for survival," explained the anthropologists.
"No, no, no," claimed the sociologists. "The McMahons are a prime example of how the family unit breaks down when both parents work and their children are, for all intents and purposes, brought up by the American popular culture." "Horsecr%$!," responded the psychologists. "The McMahons’ dysfunctionality is a clear-cut example of acute familial psychosis."
Whatever the experts might say, and despite how often they argue over the reasons the McMahon clan has turned out to be so dysfunctional, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that the primary cause of the McMahon family discord rests in the hyper-competitive ego of the family patriarch. To say that Vince McMahon lusts after power would be a gross understatement.
Who else but an ego-maniacal, power-hungry man would treat his wife and son as Mr. McMahon has treated Linda and Shane? Who else but Vince McMahon would drug his wife and have here declared incompetent so that he could have total control over Federation matters? Who else but Mr. McMahon would tell his own son, his own flesh and blood, that he rued the day that he was born? And, who else but Vince McMahon could forget the past and ally himself with his arch nemesis – Stone Cold Steve Austin – in order to ensure that he still called the shots in the World Wrestling Federation?
History has proven that Vince McMahon will do anything to remain the most powerful man in sports-entertainment, and it’s not only his family who have learned this lesson the hard way. He has squeezed the life out of every competitor who has attempted to compete with him, and nary a Superstar in the Federation hasn’t felt the full force of getting on his bad side. Like him or not, Vince McMahon has so far prove invincible. Still, there is one person who may have what it takes to defeat Mr. McMahon. There is one person who has spent his entire life under his tutelage and knows him as well as anybody on earth. There is one person who may have the ability to get inside the psyche of Mr. McMahon and get him to self-destruct. That person, of course, is Shane McMahon.
When Shane announced that he, not Vince, was the owner of World Championship Wrestling, he shocked the world. More importantly, he sent a clear and straightforward message to his father. "Mess with me and you might find out that you’ve bitten off more than you can chew."
Monday, March 26, 2001 was supposed to be Vince’s night. On Raw is War, Vince was to announce to the World that he had vanquished his arch enemy, World Championship Wrestling. For 16 long years, he competed long and hard against the colossal corporate megapower that tried to put him out of business. In the end, Vince’s hard work and business acumen proved too much for that corporate Goliath, and Vince was in the mood to celebrate. Shane, of course, had other plans.
Physically and verbally abused by his father just weeks prior to the Federation’s purchase of World Championship Wrestling, Shane devised a plan to strike back at his father where it hurt most: his ego and his wallet. Unbeknownst to Vince, Shane flew to WCW headquarters with WWF corporate executives and managed to purchase the company in his, not Vince’s, name. Vince found out the hard way that Shane has drawn first blood in this war.
By the time Wrestlemania X-Seven rolled around, it was clear how much the two despised each other, and how far they would go in order to vanquish the other. In an extremely brutal street fight, Shane proved that, physically at least, his father was no match for him. Still, Vince was mentally tough enough to shrug off his physical beating and follow through with his conspiratorial plants to dethrone The Rock and crown Stone Cold Steve Austin the new World Wrestling Federation Champion. Shane may have drawn first blood, but Vince proved he was far from mortally wounded.
Although Shane couldn’t declare victory, he had proven that he could play the game as dirty as his father has. Furthermore, Vince’s maniacal, uncontrollable behavior these past few weeks demonstrate that Shane may be wearing his father out. It’s obvious that Shane is in this for the long haul, and the longer this war lasts, the better the chance Shane has of mentally breaking down his father.
Despite his father’s claims that he will not allow family to interfere with business, Shane’s words have always hinted that his father –as deep and buried as these feelings may be –is troubled by the family discord. As far back as 1998, by The Rock, Stone Cold, or his competition, but by problems within the family. Vince, of course, has steadfastly refused to acknowledge that is familial problems affect his business dealings, but it’s clear that Shane belies that this is his father’s weakness, and that his chance at victory revolves around exploiting his father’s troubled mind.
Is Shane right? Will familial discord eventually drive Vince mad? Will it ultimately lead to reconciliation? Or, will Shane be able to do what no one has ever been able to do –beat Vince McMahon at his own game?
Someday, we will know the answers. Today, however, only one thing is clear. Never before in the history of sports-entertainment has a family as powerful as the McMahons become so dysfunctional, and never before has a family feud threatened to change the face of an entire industry.
The weeks and months ahead promise to be explosive and predictable. How this family feud will ultimately turn out is anyone’s guess. One thing we have learned for sure, though, is that when the McMahons are involved, it ain’t gonna be pretty.
Source: WWF Magazine, June 2001.