Vince McMahon on Undertaker’s HoF Induction, Competition, Talent Releases, Saudi Arabia

Thursday’s episode of The Pat McAfee Show podcast had WWE Chairman Vince McMahon as the guest. Some of the topics discussed included McMahon revealing that he will be inducting The Undertaker into WWE’s Hall of Fame, his thoughts on WWE’s competition in the wrestling industry, his mentality towards releasing talent from the company, and his thoughts on WWE’s current deal with the Saudi Arabian government.

On the topic of inducting The Undertaker into WWE’s Hall of Fame, McMahon stated:

“Undertaker, of course, is going to be in the Hall of Fame. I’m going to have the distinction of inducting him into the Hall of Fame. It will be one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done in my life. I like the guy. I love the guy. We’ve known each other for so many years and have been through all kinds of situations. When you live on the road like that, you have your family at home, but when you live on the road, you have to have a family on the road and people you can count on, rely on, that are loyal and trustworthy and not have to look over your shoulder. He’s that kind of guy. He’s an extraordinary human being and one of the all-time greats in the ring. As a human being, I could talk about the character and it won’t bug me at all, in my mind I’m thinking, when I’m inducting him, ‘I know who he is.’ That’s tough when you know someone that close and you care about them so much, it’s going to be one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done.”

On the topic of WWE’s competition in the wrestling industry, McMahon stated:

“I’m probably one of the few people in the world that enjoys confrontation. I enjoy confrontation. it’s one of those things that revs you up and puts you on your toes to say, ‘what am I going to do in this split second.’ I enjoy confrontation, physical confrontation, I enjoy that. With a background like that, and a further background when I was a kid — we don’t want to hear another ‘bad kid’ story or anything — my philosophy is, I learned a long time when I was a kid, I lived through that beating. If you live through the beating, and I won, what can you do to me? In terms of competition and confrontation, I’m not afraid of it. I relish it. I’m just wired differently than most people. Heredity plays a part in it. It’s just who you are and you accept that and accept your weakness and strengths and use them in the best appropriate way. I wanted to be everything I could be. I grew up in an eight-foot-wide trailer in a trailer park, which is great. I didn’t know any different, it was awesome. A step up from where I lived before with no running water. It’s not one of those things where ‘one day I’m going to have a ton of money.’ You want to be successful, there’s a better life than where you are, you want to reach beyond that. People bullshit and say they would do what they do without the money. I would. I know I would. I don’t know what’s in the bank and I don’t care.”

On the topic of his mentality towards releasing talent from the company and viewing them as being “dead weight” in terms of value, McMahon stated:

“I’m always concerned about what’s best for the audience. What does the audience want? If you have dead weight around you and you have situations where someone is not cutting it and you have an opportunity for someone else to come in, ‘okay, that’s probably the best thing.’ It’s one of the reasons with Hogan, and a lot of guys who left me at one time and why I brought him back. ‘I’ll never bring that son of a bitch back.’ When you say stuff like that, you’re really hurting yourself because you’re not thinking about your audience. You’re not thinking about your product. It’s not about you and your ego. ‘Yeah, maybe I really felt that way, maybe I didn’t, but it doesn’t matter.’ What’s the best thing for business. If the audience wants Hulk Hogan back, you bring him back. He has value that way.

It’s not personal, it’s business. Once I took the company public, it helped me be a better businessman because prior to that, I was running the business, with my head, but mostly my heart. These decisions are so damn tough when you do that. You don’t know who has kids, someone has cancer in the family, all that is in your head. When you’re a public company, you go, ‘stockholders.’ It is the business end. You have to make an easier and better business decision. My heart, there is still some of it in there, there is. At the same time, it’s business. There’s nothing personal about it in terms of whether I like somebody or don’t like someone or whatever. Sometimes, athletes, maybe more so in our type of business, are not given the opportunity, or even if they are and it doesn’t work, people from all walks of life, seldom look themselves in the mirror and say, ‘I’m the guy who fucked up. It’s on me.’ Instead, everyone has a million excuses as to why things didn’t work, and generally speaking, the heat has to go someplace, the old blame game, and I’m the bad guy. That’s part of the job.”

On the topic of WWE’s current deal with Saudi Arabia for events in the country, McMahon stated:

“Saudi is no different than any other people, WWE fans all over the world. I’ve known for years (they are fans). We’ve had a presence there for years. There is no place in the world we don’t have a presence. Saudi fans are really enthusiastic like they are everywhere else. It was an opportunity to play before the audience. People love Western culture all over the world. They don’t love our government, but they love Western culture. Our form of entertainment with WWE fits everything. It’s larger than life. It fits everything imaginable like, ‘Oh my God,’ the spectacle of it. It fits everywhere. We translate it to 40 languages or something like that. Even if it’s just English. You get it, you understand. Saudi is no different. People are people. Cultures are cultures and you have to respect that. Just because we as Americans, ‘this is the way we should do this. The whole world should be like us. We know the way and any other way is not the right way.’ Come on. Culture has been around for thousands of years. Long before us.”

Full interview:

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1, 2, 3, & 4