If Gorilla Monsoon fully owned WWE

[PingPongBundy]

Hey guys. I read a while back that the original plan for the WWF was for Gorilla Monsoon to eventually take full ownership of the company before Vince bought his shares. He owned 1/6 of the company at one point. My question is, had Vince Jr never entered the picture and Gorilla taken over, where do you think WWE would be today? Who do you think would own it now if his two surviving children didn't take over the business? Do you think the territory system, or any semblance of it would still be around? Any other scenarios you can come up with are welcome.

 

[Slbrey]

I think it would exist much like the circus exists...it wouldn't be the huge company it is today...there wouldn't have ever been a WCW or TNA or ECW and we wouldn't be discussing wrestling on this forum...

It just wouldn't be as big of a thing as it is thanks to Vince.

 

[bioshock]

I'm guessing your referring back to the early 80s when Vince had taken over?

Its a good question, with Monsoon I think he would of kept wrestling pure for as long as he could, it most likely might of been bought out by the time the 90s come around, just if you look at how WCCW & JCP were run.

Where as Vince pushed to Rock n Wrestling era, and took them out of just the big markets in the north east of New York. I think that was the moment that sent WWF into the direction its in today, had Monsoon been the boss and never done the Rock n Wrestling who knows.

Not to mention this; I'm not for sure which company did what first, I know they did most around the same time, with promos becoming a bigger deal, more about wrestlers talking than just wrestling and so on, I'm trying to say what if it had then been NWA/JCP doing the trail blazing idea with Rock n Wrestling getting celebs in wrestling, getting its top star on talk shows, getting guys like Ali in there ring first, how would wrestler had changed if WWF not done all of that first, NWA could of had a massive leg up. A leg up like WWF had took over JCP.

Just hard to know if Monsoon would of had that killer instinct and business sense like Vince had.

 

[enviousdominous]

I can only really judge based on his tv persona as a commentator and briefly as the WWF "president".

I don't think that anyone else could have been as aggressive as Vince when it came to destroying their opponents in the pro-wrestling biz. Vince had to stab good people in the back to make the company that he's made, I don't see Gorilla deliberately making nearly every other promoter his enemy.

I don't think Gorilla would have been able to save the company when stories started coming out about how Terry Garvin would molest young men who worked for the company and when the whole steroid scandal inevitably occurred. Maybe those incidents only came to light because of how big Vince made the WWF, but still. I think that if Gorilla ran the company up until Ted Turner called with an offer, he would have had that as his only option to keep his employees paid.

 

[Slbrey]

As I said if Vince didn't own wwe wrestling in general would only exist on a small scale....the man created "sports entertainment" which is the foundation to every succesful wrestling company that's came since....could u imagine watching wrestling these days without the entertainment backdrop? Wrestling just presented as a actual sport like boxing but it being fake of course....it wouldn't be this succesful...it be a touring circus it come to town once a year for a week or so then it go away till next year

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I think the company would have eventually gone out of business or it would have been purchased by Ted Turner. Turner would have loved to have added the WWF library to WCW and I think he'd have made a strong pitch for the company.

Gorilla Monsoon was a pure, 100% wrestling guy. During the 80s, wrestling companies that were owned by pure, 100% wrestling guys were going tits up with or without the WWF being there. The growing availability of satellite, cable TV and syndication made the territory system obsolete, so staying in your own backyard in the hopes of keeping your hardcore audience watching & preferring your show simply wasn't an option. Besides that, the 80s was a time when things were changing, some for the better and some for the worst. The economy was booming, there seemed to be a good deal of optimism among people and things that were low key and old fashioned were going out of style. People were spending money for gadgets and gizmos that most of them probably had no real use for. Television was changing, music was changing, sports was changing, so wrestling had to change with it in order to survive. Vince McMahon was able to recognize this and even though some thought he was crazy, it turns out that he was right. He saw change coming whether anyone in wrestling really wanted it to or not and he embraced it.

 

[PingPongBundy]

Great responses guys!! I'm inclined to agree with all of you. I think he would have had a good business acumen but I highly doubt he could have gone anywhere near Vince did. To answer Slbrey's question: no, I couldn't imagine wrestling without the entertainment. I don't think I would have become a fan twenty years ago, as an nine year old, if wrestling was like it was in the "old days." Vince had the vision. While he's just plain out of his mind these days, nobody can argue that he changed wrestling for the better. He took wrestling from catering to the cigar chomping, beer bellied men to whole families who were more likely to buy merchandise.

 

[Slbrey]

I think the company would have eventually gone out of business or it would have been purchased by Ted Turner. Turner would have loved to have added the WWF library to WCW and I think he'd have made a strong pitch for the company.

Gorilla Monsoon was a pure, 100% wrestling guy. During the 80s, wrestling companies that were owned by pure, 100% wrestling guys were going tits up with or without the WWF being there. The growing availability of satellite, cable TV and syndication made the territory system obsolete, so staying in your own backyard in the hopes of keeping your hardcore audience watching & preferring your show simply wasn't an option. Besides that, the 80s was a time when things were changing, some for the better and some for the worst. The economy was booming, there seemed to be a good deal of optimism among people and things that were low key and old fashioned were going out of style. People were spending money for gadgets and gizmos that most of them probably had no real use for. Television was changing, music was changing, sports was changing, so wrestling had to change with it in order to survive. Vince McMahon was able to recognize this and even though some thought he was crazy, it turns out that he was right. He saw change coming whether anyone in wrestling really wanted it to or not and he embraced it.

Problem with ur post is WCW wouldn't buy the WWE library because WCW wouldn't exist without Vince....WCW was sports entertainment which was a vision of Vince and Ted turner saw its success and decided to take a stab at it.

Vince will go down in history in the highest regard in wrestling but he will also get notoriety in the TV buisness in general....The man basically created his own form of entertainment from the ground up and ran with it and ended up with the longest reigning television show ever...and there is no bar he's trying to reach either because nobody has ever done this before.

 

[JoeFromTomsRiver]

Wrestling would be like Monster Truck Racing or the Harlem Globetrotters.

Something fun for families to go see live that is relatively inexpensive.

I'm not even sure what kind of television coverage they'd get, if any.

The presentation, in-ring work, the financial well-being, none of it would resemble what we have now.

 

[Slbrey]

Wrestling would be like Monster Truck Racing or the Harlem Globetrotters.

Something fun for families to go see live that is relatively inexpensive.

I'm not even sure what kind of television coverage they'd get, if any.

The presentation, in-ring work, the financial well-being, none of it would resemble what we have now.

Exactly...and it's nothing against monsoon he would have done a fine job and kept WWF alive but he just didn't have the vision Vince did.

 

[JoeyJoeJoe]

Um, do we have some special insight into Gorilla Monsoon that makes us somehow aware of his business management style that I'm not privvy too, or is it simply based on the idea that "Well, he wrestled in the 60s and 70s, therefore he's old, and must've been an old coot like the rest of them"?

What forms the basis for the majority of these opinions besides McMahon uber alles?

 

[JoeFromTomsRiver]

Um, do we have some special insight into Gorilla Monsoon that makes us somehow aware of his business management style that I'm not privvy too, or is it simply based on the idea that "Well, he wrestled in the 60s and 70s, therefore he's old, and must've been an old coot like the rest of them"?

What forms the basis for the majority of these opinions besides McMahon uber alles?

It's not about being an old coot. To me, it has to do with the fact that he was at heart, a wrestler. Not a promoter's son who saw the business going in a different direction. McMahon took risks that needed to be made and did things that many people called "disgracing the business". All these things that he did, that didn't go over well with traditionalists, he did because he didn't come from that background. He didn't adhere to some unwritten rules about how business should be done.

I just have a hard time thinking that Monsoon, or anyone else for that matter, would have taken all of the risks that were needed to get to the business is at now.

 

[JoeyJoeJoe]

It's not about being an old coot. To me, it has to do with the fact that he was at heart, a wrestler. Not a promoter's son who saw the business going in a different direction. McMahon took risks that needed to be made and did things that many people called "disgracing the business". All these things that he did, that didn't go over well with traditionalists, he did because he didn't come from that background. He didn't adhere to some unwritten rules about how business should be done.

I just have a hard time thinking that Monsoon, or anyone else for that matter, would have taken all of the risks that were needed to get to the business is at now.

Okay, but can we at least dispel this idea that McMahon himself was infallible? I don't know if you've been reading any of the WrestleMania retrospective threads in the Old School Wrestling forum, but while McMahon certainly had his times of genius, he's also someone who has had his fair share of tunnel vision, been bankrupted, and drove the WWF into a nadir of viewership at times that brought into question whether the company would survive. In the meantime, his only competition was someone for whom wrestling was a minor aside and not really a full-time focus.

I just hate that we're doing this exercise on the back of a guy for whom there's no record, as far as I know, of his objections to anything McMahon did. Who's to say, that Monsoon wouldn't have been able to sway McMahon away from some of his dumbest mistakes had he actually held onto his stake in the WWF?

 

[JoeFromTomsRiver]

Okay, but can we at least dispel this idea that McMahon himself was infallible? I don't know if you've been reading any of the WrestleMania retrospective threads in the Old School Wrestling forum, but while McMahon certainly had his times of genius, he's also someone who has had his fair share of tunnel vision, been bankrupted, and drove the WWF into a nadir of viewership at times that brought into question whether the company would survive. In the meantime, his only competition was someone for whom wrestling was a minor aside and not really a full-time focus.

I just hate that we're doing this exercise on the back of a guy for whom there's no record, as far as I know, of his objections to anything McMahon did. Who's to say, that Monsoon wouldn't have been able to sway McMahon away from some of his dumbest mistakes had he actually held onto his stake in the WWF?

No, Vince is not infallible, he obviously has made a lot of mistakes along the way. You're going to make a lot of mistakes when you think outside the box to the level that he used to. But its that balls to the wall mentality, the willingness to throw shit at the wall and hope something will stick, that got his company to this level. Can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.

I agree with your point regarding the specifying of Monsoon. I thought it was an interesting topic, but I thought of it more on the side of "what if it wasn't McMahon" as opposed to "what if it was Monsoon".

 

[MrMojoRisin]

It's so hard to say what would have happened if Gorilla had gotten the company instead of Junior.

It's easy to say that he would have been a traditionalist and kept the territory lines intact... and that very well might have been the case. But at the same time, it's not like Vince was the only promoter back then that had the idea of crossing the lines and going national. Ole had begun running in some WWF towns in Pennsylvania. Crockett absolutely had intentions of going national first. Von Erich had some of the biggest stars in the country as well as some of the best production values, and had translated that into an ESPN deal, which was taking him national. Watts as well, had aspirations beyond his own area. Vince just happened to get the jump on everyone else, and did it better than they could have. Gino could have honestly been of the same mindset as all of those guys and tried his own expansion as well. That was where the world was going anyways.

If not Vince, I think it would have been between Crockett and Von Erich as to who got the jump and controlled the market. Crockett probably had the better product, but Von Erich had the star power in his boys that could have rivaled Hogan, as well as greater exposure with the ESPN deal. Then again, if it had been Von Erich who controlled the market, you also have to factor in that his boys would have had a harder time handling the fame nationally than they did just in Texas, and what happens to the company then? Also if it had been Crockett... what happens when the nation eventually turns on Dusty's booking?

I think in the end, if it's not Vince that instead of one company being at the top for decades (WWE), the business cycles flip between different companies that are the most popular for a while, as each becomes more national and traditional territorial lines are erased through cable, but still relatively honored for live shows... until a product that's more based in the more realistic NWA style as opposed to the cartoony WWF style actually ends up in the WWF anyways. The fact that they controlled the New York area and that population base always made them one of the most attractive territories even before Junior took over. That would have kept them in the game, and in the end, I think helped them win out.