Have you ever wondered what WWE Chairman Vince McMahon thinks about wrestling websites like With Spandex? I mean, his real thoughts. To me, it’s always seemed like the Internet was a Reboot-style villain to the McMahons, one that they’ve tried to tame and live with despite never having full control. We’re more of a “dorky jokes and lengthy conversations about Hulk Hogan’s junk” unpopular lifestyle blog than a “dirt sheet,” but you get what I’m saying.
In an interview with Brian Fritz at the Orlando Sentinel — shoutout to the AOL FanHouse Back Porch crew — Mr. McMahon opened up about why he doesn’t like dirt sheets, and what they do to negatively influence his product. It’s a great, reasoned point of view, surprisingly lacking in people being called sons of bitches.
“Nonetheless, it’s difficult to hold something like that but if you can, the audience loves it. It’s one of the reasons why I’ll always be anti-some members of the media, so-called dirt sheets or whatever it is. I’ve always disliked them. Not because of their voice and certainly not because of their opinion. No one respects the First Amendment more than me. Their opinions, negative or positive, they’re entitled to. I’ve always appreciated that because, quite frankly, some of the things I’ve learned from. I learn from everybody. It’s that they want to be a spoiler. No! No! Don’t spoil this. Don’t spoil it for the public. But I know that’s a part of their job too. It’s one of those things we try, with any form of the media now, we try no, no, no. Let me surprise you.
As a matter of fact, with Shane and a number of instances we’ve had, like Brock Lesnar when he first came back, we keep people on a bus in the parking lot. We won’t let our techs, we won’t let the talent, we won’t let anybody know until it’s time for them to walk out there. Shane was in a bus and he was not allowed to come out of the bus until Stephanie’s music hit and Stephanie had walked down the ramp. Shane comes out of the bus with security and goes right up to what we call Gorilla position and the guys there go, “I can’t believe it.” And all of the guys backstage, the vast majority of them, they didn’t see Shane when he walked through. They were all shocked and surprised.
That’s what I try to do: totally surprise our talent. They like to be surprised just like the audience. They like to be entertained so I like to entertain our talent as well. And the talent likes to be entertained or entertain themselves as we all do. It’s one great big entertainment wheel on all fronts.”
You know Vince actually said it because there’s a “quite frankly” in the middle.
Fandom of every kind involves getting so into the thing you’re watching (or reading, or listening to, or whatever) that you have to know everything about it and how it works, from beginning to end. That gives us Game of Thrones trailer breakdowns that go frame-by-frame trying to find spoilers and explain images, or leaked demo tracks from albums that would sound really great if we waited for the finished product, or a day of chatter about a wrestler returning before they’ve actually returned. That’s a tough one. Do you tell people to be less interested in what you’re doing? Does WWE need a Chikara-style kayfabe where everyone just agrees to pretend it’s real and wait to see what happens? If so, how do you explain WWE’s ongoing attempt to “pull back the curtain” enough (in controlled situations like Table For 3 or Breaking Ground) to let people know it’s all a show?
I guess that’s the pain of any modern-day creative process. To some, finding out about secrets ahead of time and getting excited about them is a better feeling than being surprised.
For another perspective:
