Vince McMahon had a different vision for his wrestling company when he bought the WWF from his father. Vince wanted to do things with his company that pro wrestling had never done. For one thing, Vince wanted to make his company into a national, and even international, wrestling company. In order to do this, he had to make his company different from all the others. Starting in the mid 80s with Hulk Hogan, the WWF became part of mainstream entertainment. At the first WrestleMania, there were a lot of well known celebrities that took part. Musical legend Ray Charles sang America The Beautiful and sang the shit out of it. Muhammad Ali was running around, arguably the greatest professional athlete in American history. Cyndi Lauper, the biggest female pop star in the world at that time, played a role in a prominent storyline. Mr. T, the biggest tv star in America at that time, wrestled in the main event, etc. Vince McMahon took a gamble on putting together a show that brought in a lot of mainstream media big wigs at the time and it paid off. The WWF was everywhere and it just kept getting bigger.
Some might ask why Vince wanted to take the WWF in that direction as a "national" company. The reason, at least one of them, is that Vince was smart enough to know and to see that the Territory System of the NWA was rapidly becomong obsolete. With the advent of cable television, the writing was already on the wall. When cable started become more and more available throughout the country, the Territory System was irrelevant. Part of what made the Territory System so viable was the fact that you could only see certain wrestlers at certain times. For instance, if you lived in Florida and were a fan of Dusty Rhodes back in the day, then you had to wait for Rhodes to come back and work in Championship Wrestling from Florida to see him do his thing. But when cable tv became more widely available and companies began using syndication, you could potentially see Dusty Rhodes when you wanted no matter if he was wrestling in Tampa or Los Angeles. Vince knew that times were changing and, most importantly, he knew that he had to change with the times or the WWF was going to go the way of the dinosaur. Changes didn't just include expanding the WWF's territory, it came in the way WWF marketed itself and its wrestlers. They were much more colorful, more charismatic than most of their contemporaries. The quality of production in the WWF was often vastly superior to everyone else and so on and so forth. And Vince changed with the times and his company flourished while the wrestling promotions during the 80s all over North America dropped like flies.
Wrestling "purists" might not like a lot of what they see with the WWE and that's all well and good. However, to succeed on the WWE's level, and by that I mean making money, average fans simply aren't going to respond to a program that's comprised almost entirely of wrestling matches. From what I understand, Ring of Honor's televosion show went that route and look what happened to them: they were getting the ratings that HDNet was hoping for and they got cancelled. We all know that wrestling is "fake" and, because of that, it needs something extra to hook the fans and keep them interested. It's not like MMA where there's legit competition going on. The fact that most MMA fighters have the personalities of fungus growing on the underside of a rock doesn't matter because the thrill provided by watching real fights makes up for that.
What is it that makes so many people feel that a company should limit itself so much? What's the harm in wanting to make WWE more than "just a wrestling company" exactly? The core product continues to be wrestling, but what's wrong with wanting to grow and encompasse more than just pro wrestling? Personally, I think that far too many "wrestling purists" have forgotten or outright try to ignore a simple basic fact: professional wrestling is supposed to be a business, not a fantasy league to cater to the momentary whims of fans with small attention spans and narrow minded views. At the end of the day, it's about making money. These guys sure as shit don't put their bodies through the rigors that they do for the hell of it and anything that can put more money in their pockets is what they want. Any wrestling company in the world whether it be AAA, CMLL, TNA, ROH or whomever would trade spots with the WWE in a heartbeat if they could.
