Psogos: Vince Kennedy McMahon - Charles Johnson

(written for English class)

Vince Kennedy McMahon, a third generation wrestling promoter, is the owner and chairman of the sports entrainment company World Wrestling Entertainment. He acquired the company from his father in 1982 and decided to try his ideas with the company in order to get ratings and profit. “McMahon delivers entrainment that’s often violent and sexist.” (Mooneyham). Since then McMahon has corrupted mainstream America with its gimmicks, often bloody and violent matches along with the improper use of women in order to attract large male audience. McMahon and the company have gone through high points and slumps through out the years to present.
During an interview for a wrestling magazine, Stephanie, daughter of Mr. McMahon, talked about when was pregnant and Vince wanted to start a potential incest angle because at the time and nobody knew who the father was. Vince suggested that he should reveal himself as the father, Stephanie turned down the idea and Vince suggested that Shane, her younger brother, should come out and admit that he is the father. She turned that down as well. (Mooneyham).
In the interview with Playboy, he admitted taking steroids and encouraging his employees to take them as well in the 1980s and 1990s and was not bought to public until the government did something about it in 1993. Although he was acquitted by the government through the trial, Vince and his employees should know better, his company was halted for two years following the acquittal. McMahon has gone through sexual harassment situations; recently he was accused of groping a worker at a Boca Raton tanning bar in Florida on February 1, 2006. Later the police declined to press charges on insufficient evidence. Currently McMahon and his company is known for their storylines which are filled with smut, sex, vulgarity, and crude behavior, the purpose of this was to get the attention of the teenage to twenty something males. For that he is on the hot seat for promoting sex, violence and vulgarity on television and he insists he will not stop. "People should pick on MTV or some of the other shows that are more graphic than us when it comes to sex or violence," (Mooneyham). It has been reported that the WWE had begun adding no-harassment clauses to all the contracts for both male and female wrestlers in an attempt to protect the company and its employees from sexual harassment complaints. The claim has since been verified during Q&A sessions on the quarterly stock-holders conference calls.
Aggressive is his middle name, “I love to fight, I always have.” (Playboy). He started getting involved in wrestling at age twelve because of his father who owned the company, called Capitol Wrestling Federation back then. He would spend summers and weekends with his father touring the country, learning the ropes of the business, starting off as a ring announcer and getting more involved in matches. But in order for his company to succeed after purchasing it, he decided to put other companies out of businesses (World Championship Wrestling and Extreme Championship Wrestling) which he owns to this day after he put them out of business and bought them at the bankruptcy court. This seems like a monopoly, he is controlling the wrestling reins in mainstream America even though there is another wrestling company, often low in profits and audience but owned by a former World Wrestling Entertainment wrestler which disliked working with Mr. McMahon.
Through out the acquisition of the company from his father and other companies as well, he has screwed employees on their contracts such as Bret Hart who was supposed to go out in glory in his final match but went the other way. To this day, Bret Hart will never wrestle in the WWE ring, although he is on good terms with Mr. McMahon and others that he worked with in the past. He is deeply affected by the loss of his younger brother, Owen Hart, who died in an accident while making his ringside entrance during a pay per view. “My kids don't watch wrestling. They don't want to. And if they did want to, as a parent, I wouldn't let them. I've said before, and I'll say it again, wrestling is not for kids anymore." (Mudge) On one segment of Monday Night Raw (a television show) a limousine driver accidentally hit one car that was owned by one of the wrestlers, Mr. McMahon was enraged, he went out to drag him outside the limousine, beat him unconscious and fired him on the spot. What does that teach America?
Vince McMahon is indeed a McMadman for his aberrant doings within the company and the reputation he has built from violence, sexism and crude. It is recommended that his ideas needs to be put to an end once and for all. Every youth in America is attracted to this pile of filth when one should be taught good moral values and to respect women and elders as well.

Works Cited
McMahon, Vince. Interview with Playboy. Playboy Feb. 2001.
Mooneyham, Mike. Sex, Lies, and Headlocks: The Real Story of Vince McMahon and World Wrestling Entertainment. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2004.
Mudge, Jacqueline. Bret Hart: The Story of the Wrestler They Call “the Hitman”. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, September 1999.