What if Disney bought the WWE?

[Albert T]

Over the past few years, Disney has purchased the likes of Pixar, the Muppets, Marvel Comics and most recently, Lucasfilm. The former three have flourished monetarily under Disney's control and it got me wondering if the WWE could have the same luck that Star Wars may very well experience in a few years?

I'd like to think that Disney could do better than those that run the promotion now. If they were to listen to those that know best than perhaps Disney would not make the mistakes that Ted Turner made. Who knows if Jim Ross and Paul Heyman would get the chance to reconfigure the company, but that has a better chance of happening than it does now. WWE would probably become a bit more kid friendly than it ought to, but may possibly find its Monday Night RAW broadcast getting moved to ABC, which is certainly a better venue for the show. A working relationship would most likely be established with ESPN, which I'm not sure would work given the child-oriented nature of what WWE would probably embrace.

All in all, there's so many different ways the WWE could go under Disney's possible ownership (if it occurs). What do you think? Good idea? Bad idea? A sign that hell can and will freeze over? All I know is that its got to be better than what we are working with now.

 

[Adalam]

This was bound to pop up thanks to Disney's shopping spree... Regardless I dunno. I don't think it would be a good idea as there's a chance they'd keep it PG. It could be a good idea cause they might just let them do their own thing like what happened to WCW. So honestly, no idea either way.

 

[The Scarred One]

If Disney keeps this up, in a couple of years, we'll probably be living in the United States of Disney. It might stop there. Later on down the road, the planet Earth may end being renamed Disney World.

But that aside, it would be strange to have Disney buy the WWE. But I doubt it will happen. It's Vince McMahon's baby and he'll most likely keep it in the family. I don't think he would hand over something that he helped build to someone else, regardless of how much he's offered for it. He just seems like that type of businessman. But if Disney was to buy WWE, it would probably stay as a PG product. At least under the McMahon family, there would be a chance for it to become edgy again.

 

[THE Great GAMMA]

If Disney bought WWE i have a feeling that it would change the face of the Pro Wrestling Landscape. All WWE in ring action would end up being like Saturday Morning Slam. Poor Form. Picture it now....”The following contest is scheduled for one fall and is for the WWE Championship. Introducing first...the challenger...from the Magic Kingdom..weighing 189 pounds PRIIIIIIIIIIIIINCE CHAAAAAARRRRMING!!!!!!” doesn’t work does it

As for the WWE having a chance of being edgier again...i doubt it especially after all the hoopla over the Lawler Heart Attack Segment.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

If it did happen, I don't think there'd be very many changes made to the overall product or product content. Disney has bought up a lot of very lucrative businesses the past several years and, from what I can tell, they haven't changed squat. They wanted to purchase those businesses because they saw what sort of money they were bringing in and they obviously wanted to get in on that.

I read a couple of Marvel Comic titles on a regular basis and the content of those titles has remained unchanged. The comics still feature a lot of violence, some of which would be easily considered R or TV-MA if it was shown on film or television, serious swear words are pretty frequently used, with stuff like $!#@!!! representing those words themselves, characters drawn in various stages of undress, some damn near nude, etc. The overall content of those same titles was the same before Disney and they've been the same since Disney took over.

Disney's bread & butter has long since been family entertainment and shows aimed almost entirely at kids and young teenagers. However, they've made a lot of PG-13 content over the years, including the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, so just automaticaly assuming that WWE would drop even further as far as PG content goes is definitely premature. Disney won't purchase a company just so they can run it into the ground. Disney hasn't become the global juggernaut it currently is by sabotaging itself.

I don't think it'll happen, however, as the WWE has been Vince MMahon's whole life. Vince probably wouldn't even consider it unless Disney offered money that ran into the 10 figure range. Disney bought Marvel Comics for a reported $4 billion and I've little doubt that Vince would want a similar offer before he'd give any thought of selling WWE serious consideration.

 

[Dagger Dias]

It would bring about countless changes. Some would be rather difficult to deal with, while others could be rather interesting to see. Disney is obviously very family oriented, and with WWE still trying to go the PG route it could help them out in a few ways. WWE is a huge brand. We would see their product get incorporated into places like Disneyland. How cool would it be to see a WWE themed ride or show at Disneyland or Disneyworld? Having been to both locations before I would love to see that happen if Disney ever were to buy WWE.

Then there of course are the bad results that would come out of this. You think we have cheesy segments now? Just wait until a Mickey impersonator guest hosts Raw, or all of the parodies we would see of all the Disney movies in some way, shape, or form. That's all something I would still give a chance, but I know for a fact that a large number of people would complain about it before it even airs. I'd rather WWE never get bought by Disney but if for some reason that happened we would need to look at the positives rather than just the negatives. Good things could come out of it too. Would they ruin the product? Who even knows. It would help increase awareness of the product though, and that's rarely a bad thing.

 

[Mustang Sally]

If Disney bought WWE, we might see this image. Of course, if they did it, the move would fly completely in the face of what Disney entertainment is all about. Given their precepts of family programming, I can't imagine how Disney would ever sell something like this to their Board of Directors.

Even if Disney wanted to bring WWE aboard, the concept is too wild to be practical. Plus, the edginess many fans hope to be see return to the world of wrestling would be gone forever.

If Disney wants any WWE personalities, they can have Santino. We'll even throw in Zack Ryder as Goofy.

 

[boywithbluehanger]

I'm confused as to why people think Disney would screw stuff up. I mean, we all saw how great Avengers was after Disney acquired Marvel 2 or 3 years prior to it coming out. It became the third highest grossing film OF ALL TIME. Obviously, they aren't in the business of taking successful things and making them "kiddy" just for the hell of it. Sure they made a child friendly cartoon of The Avengers for their Disney cartoon network but that didn't interfere with the direction they went in keeping the action/violence in the Marvel films they shelled out.

As someone already mentioned earlier, they were responsible for the Pirates movies. And each of those movies had their share of innuendo and sexual content. I'm in no way worried about their ability to produce quality entertainment for all ages. If any company knows how to successfully make a family friendly product that fans of all types can enjoy, its Disney. I'm sure that if they were in control of the WWE, we'd have far better villains and storylines further down the road.

 

[Artemis Paradox]

There wouldn't be many changes to the overall product. It's already PG, so there's that. Then again, Pirates wasn't exactly PG, so who can say? I don't see this happening, but if it does, nothing too bad would come out of it- they make huge profits for a reason. I don't see them screwing any of their products up, WWE or whatever it would be.

 

[Xombi_woof]

One thing for sure is they would have access to writers who actually know how to tell a story! Not to mention, once word got out, a lot of folks would tune in just to see what The House A Mouse Built would do with it.

 

[Peoples_Champ]

I think people are getting confused about Disney purchasing WWE. If it were to happen, Mickey Mouse and similar properties wouldn't be incorporated into the WWE product. The only Goofy you see on ESPN is Skip Bayless. And not all of Disney's content is PG, they have created plenty of R rated stuff in the past and their subsidiaries include Marvel.

So my concern is not so much with the WWE content and storylines. I'm sure 'wrestling' as we have known it to be will essentially continue. What Disney will do, if they purchase WWE, will put a structure in place that ensures profitability and have better distribution of their products (PPVs on ESPN, better toys at cheaper prices, etc). They'll have greater oversight into decisions that are made (i.e. Jim Ross and Paul Heyman wont be fired because Stephanie McMahon doesn't like them) and they'll invest resources into ensuring its survival (spending more money to put on more shows in Canada, Mexico, Western Europe). Vince's campaign to change WWE from rasslin to sports entertainment fits in *perfectly* with Disney's core business and the more I think about it, the more I like it.

But it wont happen. Vince will not give up the business, and neither will heir to the throne Triple H or Stephanie. I get the feeling this is a decision that Shane would make, but as the lineage to the company currently stands, I can't see it happening (although it would be interesting to see what Linda McMahon does when Vince is dead). That's the first reason, the second is that although it would make perfect sense for Disney to acquire WWE, they would be hesitant to do so. It's a new space for them and the professional wrestling industry is prone to failure - every other major pro wrestling company in the history of the industry has failed (TNA is hardly a success story either). The kind of energy it would require to sustain and grow WWE would be indescribable. Plus, Disney has never had to deal with real life cartoon characters. It's easy scripting Mickey and Spiderman, but scripting Antonio Cesaro week after week? Disney would be under constant scrutiny for reinforcing negative stereotypes, which would make the product itself less enjoyable.

There's too much risk for Disney to take this venture. Do I think Disney could make WWE more successful than it's even been? Absolutely. But at the same time, there's a good chance than an industry that has a history of failures could have one more failing entity. And to me, the success / failure rate of a Disney-led WWE is 50:50.

 

[stonecoldstv86]

We would have goofy trying the frog splash.

No, we would have alot of people thinking that. But WWE product wouldn't change much. Well it could actually get better. We have people that would think well WWE is Disney so it has lost all of it's edge. It will be PG forever or what. But Disney owns Marvel comics, which the movies and the comics didn't get all kid friendly like people feared. They put more money into them and let them do what made them popular. Which id Disney ever did buy out WWE, they would throw more money into it, but in ways that will help enhance it. They would listen to the fans not like Vince pretends to do. Also seeing that whoever would be running WWE would have to answer to Disney they couldn't be as bias agenst people like Vince has been. So we would get more level headed thinking out of it. Maybe like someone said beable to have JR and heyman use their minds for the buisness to give us more of what we want.

As for if it will ever happen who knows. Vince loves it that he built the company and loves the power. As he has said many times, I made it I will kill it. BUT one thing he loves more then that i money. So if Disney would ever offer enough and with people thinking Vince has lost it, he may just sell out and go retire somewhere. Also WWE already did work with Disney seeing that they had the Muppets on.

So for if it will happen, I guess the bottomline is Never Say Never.

 

[Soulblazed]

I've been calling WWE "Disney Wrestling" for the past few years now..I mean you can't say "bitch" on WWE TV at the moment..You can only say "witch"..The angles are extremely tame, there's no more blood allowed, even in Steel Cage/Hell In The Cell/Elimination Chamber where there should be blood and overall, things haven't been edgy at all for a few years in WWE..And the ruling about not using moves which focus on the neck(no chokes, DDTs, etc) on the Saturday Morning Slam show because it'd "be too graphic for young children to watch", WWE has already been "Disneyfied" by watering it down to asinine levels..

But if Disney officially bought WWE..It could go either way, there's no guarantee it'd get more watered down than it already is and there's also no guarantee that it'll get edgier..It'd be interesting to see how that'd pan out