Today is a day that most professional wrestling fans wouldn’t have imagined would ever have happened. Vince McMahon retired this evening as the Chief Executive Officer of WWE. Many fans and reporters thought the only way McMahon would ever relinquish hold of WWE would be on the day of his eventual passing, but due to the ongoing into McMahon over Non-Disclosure Agreements with former WWE employees, that is not the case. The 76-year-old sent out a simple tweet this afternoon informing the world of his decision.
Regardless, McMahon is the main person who brought Professional Wrestling into the mainstream sensation that it is and brought on some of the most profitable eras in Wrestling history. Without Vince, Hulk Hogan would not have become the star he became, and the Hollywood world would not have Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
McMahon brought on the '80s wrestling boom with Hulk Hogan as his main superhero-inspired babyface and introduced the world to the spectacle of WrestleMania, an event that is now bid on in the very same way the Super Bowl is. Once, Ted Turner bought rival promotion World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and decided to compete head-to-head with McMahon on Monday Night's, the WWE owner had to make a decision, and that decision was to lean into more adult-gear content and to become an on-air personality himself. In turn, the "Mr.McMahon" character was born to feud with top babyface "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. This feud is looked at by many as one of the greatest rivalries in the history of WWE and is one of the biggest driving forces that pushed WWE ahead in the "Monday Night Wars" to the point where McMahon bought WCW from Turner.
Effective immediately, Vince's daughter Stephanie has been appointed as Co-CEO of WWE with Nick Khan, but the impact that Vince McMahon has had on the wrestling world will forever be understated.