Vince McMahon's football league, XFL started in 2002. As a spring league. It has been a success and it became two top American Football league along with NFL.
Now, what would happened if it failed?
Now, what would happened if it failed?
DBWI:What If the XFL had failed?
- Thread starter Tales Weaver
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- dbwi vince mcmahon wwe xfl
It would be a huge setback for McMahon. The success of the XFL was a huge shot in the arm as the golden Attitude Era of wrestling wound down, something that's propelled his media empire to keep growing. No XFL means less pressure on the college system, with the need and opportunity for more high level football players means more players finish their college careers. Without that added pressure, there may not be the NCAA reforms in 2011, which would be a huge butterfly to how college athletics are treated.
The NFL is still the monolith it was until then, rather than merely the top football league in America. I suspect less rules adjustments, international game gimmicks and other stunts meant to compete for attention with the XFL. It's hard to say beyond that since the NFL has been so deeply impacted by the XFL. Imagining a modern era without the XFL radically changes the NFL.
I suspect McMahon's various media ventures would also be derailed. Without the money of the XFL and the WWE, he wouldn't have the time to get his movie production company going and work the kinks out. No Double Aggression buddy cop trilogy with Dwayne Johnson and Chris Jericho, no raving over Yesterday in Iraq and a plethora of other changes to modern cinema. The WWE would be hurt without it being able to cross over into cinema so well to make big stars and draw them in, too.
The NFL is still the monolith it was until then, rather than merely the top football league in America. I suspect less rules adjustments, international game gimmicks and other stunts meant to compete for attention with the XFL. It's hard to say beyond that since the NFL has been so deeply impacted by the XFL. Imagining a modern era without the XFL radically changes the NFL.
I suspect McMahon's various media ventures would also be derailed. Without the money of the XFL and the WWE, he wouldn't have the time to get his movie production company going and work the kinks out. No Double Aggression buddy cop trilogy with Dwayne Johnson and Chris Jericho, no raving over Yesterday in Iraq and a plethora of other changes to modern cinema. The WWE would be hurt without it being able to cross over into cinema so well to make big stars and draw them in, too.
Besides, we saw former film stars who worked in wwe film studio turned Wrestlers as well..
Oh sure, most didn't work out long for a variety of reasons, but it did tend to add some different acting styles and chops to WWE promos. There would be lots of little butterflies from that and honestly probably an uptick in WWE wrestling quality over a goodly period of time. Most of the Hollywood types that dabbled in it just weren't that experienced or honestly good in the ring, but that wasn't what they were there for.
Their would be a monopoly over football i'd assume.
I mean Vince got his wish and was able to become more than just a wrestling promoter though, becoming commissioner of the XFL completed him to an extent. Meaning that he could be still chairman but wasn't overseeing the WWF/E product everyday, meaning no Paul Heyman at the helm (which changes everything).
Also it means he doesn't pursue movies as aggressively and they don't have the money to bring in big stars. Also no cross-over stars i'd assume (outside maybe the Rock and Stone Cold, i'd imagine both had enough mainstream attention regardless).
I mean Vince got his wish and was able to become more than just a wrestling promoter though, becoming commissioner of the XFL completed him to an extent. Meaning that he could be still chairman but wasn't overseeing the WWF/E product everyday, meaning no Paul Heyman at the helm (which changes everything).
Also it means he doesn't pursue movies as aggressively and they don't have the money to bring in big stars. Also no cross-over stars i'd assume (outside maybe the Rock and Stone Cold, i'd imagine both had enough mainstream attention regardless).
And if the XFL had folded, what would football fans watch if the NFL's product waned quality wise?
Also, without the XFL would the discussion on concussions remain the same?
Also, without the XFL would the discussion on concussions remain the same?
Don't follow college sports, eh? Well, it ultimately forced the NCAA to pay student athletes a wage. It isn't a huge one, but they formerly worked purely for scholarships. The problem is that between a lot of scholarship students coming from poverty and the lure of big money in the pros, the college game was suffering hugely. If you have to choose between going pro so you can pay your Mom's rent or staying in school and she ends up on the street, well....that's not a hard choice. There was a lot of media drama about this from about '08 to '11 as the XFL-NFL rivalry really bloomed and the college game was stuck in the middle. It was a huge mess, with everyone in the sports media having an opinion and ultimately the NCAA doing it to prevent a possible collapse of the college system when the XFL seriously considered allowing high school grads to sign up right out of high school.
Head booker is sort of being at the helm. Granted Vince still has veto power, but with his whole "media mogal" shtick I'm not even sure he's seen his own shows since the end of 2006. It's mostly Heyman writing and Shane being the public face, with HHH being the head of the "union" (even though the wrestlers don't have a real union) who takes charge of keeping the talent in line and represents them in the office. Vince is still there, and according to Meltzer he's more involved than people think, but on a day to day basis Heyman is sort of the guy running the asylum.
basically this. The McMahon character has been dead since 07 (after that limo explosion) so he doesn't exist. Shane O'Mac has been the chairman on tv from that time.
As for Heyman, really good, he's basically brought in a ton of guys and people who have an eye for talent and know what they're doing. He brought in the plethora of stars from 2005 onwards with advice from Sapolsky (Punk, Danielson, Morishima, Joe, Aries, Briscoe Bros, Steen, Black, Generico, Strong etc). Ever since his smackdown 6 run, the TV has successfully towed the line between attitude and wrestling storyline. I mean, for a company with a monopoly on the industry, they do a good job most weeks.
Also the union in fairness does offer a lot of benefits anyway (healthcare, workplace cover, cover for unfair dismissal etc). HHH does look after the boys and girls.
It's also somewhat telling that the face of the corporate overlords went from one of the best heels in the industry to one of the bigger babyfaces. Changing cultural zeitgeist I suppose. Though Steph comes back every now and then to play the evil usurper. Which is funny given her actual position in the company is basically head of PR and Charity Outreach.
It helps that they've stopped looking at the rest of the Pro Wrestling world as competition and more as a minor league feeder system. Which it essentially is at this point. It helps that Heyman used to know a lot of the bigger names in the Indys at this point so he knows how to do things right by them. Though that does have the downside of having guys who break into the business who are clearly just focused on getting the call from the WWE.
True, though a lot of that is due to the WWE needing to provide benefits to avoid major issues backstage. After the XFL was more or less forced to create a player's union by Congress and to compete with the NFL's benefits package the wrestlers weren't going to let one of the largest companies in the world get away with the sort of carney bs they were pulling up to the late 00's. HHH is credited for getting the company to cover transportation to and from their hotel to the shows, though backstage rumors have that down as his way of preventing the wrestlers from getting too drugged up to make it to shows. Given the sort of culture he had around him when he broke in it makes sense he'd want to prevent guys turning out like HBK or Hall. To his credit it seems to have worked. The few drug issues that have become too out of control have either been PED situations (which have always been and always will be a problem in the world of wrestling) and guys getting hooked on Oxy after getting hurt and not having doctors willing to ween them off.
It is funny that between that and the company's big public stance against domestic abuse that the carny sideshow and the off brand spring league both have a cleaner reputation than one of the oldest professional sport leagues in the world. Granted the population size is a lot smaller but still.
Yeah their are a lot of guys who go into wrestling clearly with the idea that they'll get called up into the WWE, though lets be honest they leave wrestling very quickly and they don't even get to that major indy level.
Yeah the drugs in the late 90's and early 2000's were bad. I think that drug problem even went over to the XFL until they cracked down hard on that stuff.
Especially after that Las Vegas Outlaws doping scandal of 2007. They cracked down hard on that.
who would have thought that a team in Vegas would have a drug, alcohol and gambling problem.
he got fined into oblivion regardless and still got suspended (then he went to WWE anyway for a year which was ridiculous).
Well the XFL was easily way worse with Concussions thats for sure. At least the NFL took it semi-seriously. The XFL have tried to brush it off as much as possible.
The XFL would've failed if Vince had stuck to his original plan to launch the league in 2001, rather than wait a year. This would've severely curtailed the training period, and ensured that the teams wouldn't have gelled. In addition, the time that Vince had by delaying the launch allowed him to get talented marketers who knew how to attract football fans and not piss them off. Vince's original plan, after all, was to simply go on the offensive and attack the NFL every chance he got, rather than simply stress them as an edgier alternative. Plus, they also found a way to promote the league without leaning too heavily on the WWF/E connections, which would only ensure that the audience was left scratching their heads.