Citizen Vince McMahon

"I hope that from an ego standpoint that when I'm eaten it's by the biggest, baddest carnivore of all time, and second thing I hope is that the son-of-a-bitch gets indigestion." - Vince McMahon

For those of you who aren't familiar with the film Citizen Kane I will summarize it for you. It's the story of a young boy named Charles Foster Kane who is given a huge inheritance by his father and is taken away from home at an early age. As he gets older, he uses his wealth to establish one of the largest publishing companies in the world. He becomes one of the richest men in the universe and tries to expand his wealth all over different areas of interest including politics and entertainment. He becomes an American icon. Some shady details of his personal life are discovered and he later becomes reclusive and dies in the midst of his wealth. The movie follows a newspaper journalist in an attempt to discover the true meaning of Kane's final word: "Rosebud." Rosebud, as it turns out, was the name of the sled he played with as a boy.

You may be able to see the tie-in to Vince McMahon Jr. already. McMahon is a fabulously wealthy man who inherited his father's company and turned it into the largest professional wrestling organization in the world. He has grown wealthier over the years. He is ruthless against competition of any kind. He has tried to use his wealth to expand into various fields of interest including the film industry, the music industry, body-building and professional football. There are some shady details about his public life that have continuously caught the eye of the public. He's had affairs, he was indicted by the federal government and he's been called a complete jerk by many ex-employees. Through thick and thin he has remained the king of his industry. He isn't a well-respected man in the eyes of the public, but many of the public have never actually come face to face with the man himself.

If you've heard of Citizen Kane, you've probably heard discussion of it being the "greatest movie ever made." I can't get into that right now as this is a site about pro wrestling, but Citizen Kane was technically innovative in so many ways that its innovation alone gives it such a distinction of greatness. One thing about Citizen Kane that made it unique for it's time period was the way it was completely subjective towards the main character. Charles Kane is at the center of the film but we are always looking in on what he is doing. We see his story being told through the eyes of others. We never get to see anything that happens through his eyes. His story is one of gossip and voyeurism.

I point out the subjective relationship that the camera has with Citizen Kane because our relationship with Vince McMahon is a completely subjective one. We only know the Vince McMahon through the eyes of the media. We know the characters he's portrayed on television, we know the rumors and gossip we have read about him, we've read the interviews with him where he only sort of dwells into the details of his life. But do we really know Vince McMahon? Do we really know this giant figure at the center of this form of entertainment we are so consistently entertained by? None of us have met Vince McMahon in person, and I bet even if we did we'd only get to learn so much about him. Just as the camera was subjective towards Charles Kane, our eyes our subjective towards Vince McMahon. There is much more that the two men have in common…

"You're right; I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars next year. You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place in...Sixty years."
-Charles Kane

"I'm not afraid to get knocked down literally or figuratively. When that happens, you just get back up. There have been times when people got tired of knocking us down, because we just kept getting up. And then we knocked them down, because they got tired. So I think not being afraid to fail has been a personal and professional asset."
-Vince McMahon

Vince McMahon and Charles Kane both view themselves as completely immune to anything negative that could happen to them. They are both incredibly wealthy men who stop at nothing to get what they desire and to keep their businesses on top of the world. Charles Kane bought out the newspaper that was his main competition. Vince McMahon bought out the company that was his only competition.

Both men put lots of money into ventures beyond their regular field of business and lost quite a bit of money and respect because of it. Charles Kane spent lots of money campaigning to be Governor of New York. Before the election, he was caught in an affair and ended up losing. Vince McMahon pumped a bunch of money into a body-building franchise to put on Pay-Per View and ended up losing money and getting laughed at because of it. Charles Kane spent millions of dollars to have an opera house built in Chicago that would be the exclusive home of his wife Susan Alexander. Susan Alexander was a talent less hack that couldn't sing. Kane wanted her to be an opera singer in order for it to look like he has a respectable wife. His wife tanked as an opera singer and Kane was made out to look like an embarrassment. Vince McMahon started a brand new professional football league called the XFL due to his desire to branch out into other forms of entertainment. The league tanked in its first year and Vince lost a great deal of money in the process.

Neither man was particularly altered in their ways of thinking due to their losses. Both men felt that their wealth and power made them immune to failure.

"Six years ago, I looked at a picture of the world's greatest newspapermen. I felt like a kid in front of a candy store. Well tonight, six years later, I got my candy, all of it."
-Charles Kane

"WCW got in my way, so I bought them out."
-Vince McMahon
Charles Kane took the staff of six newspaper experts from the enquirer and made them his own. Vince McMahon took the company that supplied him with competition (and almost supplied them with his downfall) and made them his own. In Charles Kane's newspaper business as well as Vince McMahon's wrestling business everybody succumbs to the man with the most wealth and power at some point. The six newspaper men may have been strong individuals at one point but were eventually molded into the Charlie Kane way. Every single person that Vince McMahon gained control of with the purchase of WCW was used by McMahon in his own way. In McMahon's case, many of the wrestlers were either stripped of any former success and some even lost their jobs altogether. There is no limit to the amount of power and money spent by either man, but both men had to continue spending. Vince McMahon had WCW. He had a monopoly over the wrestling business, but that wasn't enough for him. After that he had to buy out Ric Flair, then the New World Order, then Eric Bischoff, then Scott Steiner. He even bought out Paul Heyman. All of these men were molded into the McMahon system regardless of whether or not they liked it.

"Mister Kane was a man who got everything he wanted and then lost it. Maybe Rosebud was something he couldn't get or something he lost. Anyway, it wouldn't have explained anything. I don't think any word can explain a man's life. No, I guess Rosebud is just a piece in a jigsaw puzzle - a missing piece. "
-Dialogue about Charles Foster Kane

What do you think the headlines would read after Vince McMahon dies? What would his final words be? How would his life be looked back upon? I don't have any of these answers as Vince McMahon is obviously still alive. But will the life of Vince McMahon have been a wonderful success story of a happy businessman or the story of an incredibly wealthy man who was never truly happy?

There are many indications that Vince McMahon may not be the hard-edged, no-nonsense businessman he would like you to believe he is. He has alluded to abuse and neglect from his parents when he was a child during some interviews. He has displayed antisocial, erratic behavior on television programs that were unrelated to pro wrestling. He is a persistent spender who refuses to believe that he and his company can do any wrong. I look at this towering figure, this giant in charge of the industry that I have such a strong following of and see that there might be a very sad man under that hard muscular exterior. I can't truly say whether or not I am a fan of Vince McMahon. I think he is a good businessman and he is responsible for the wrestling product that I love to watch. Like Charles Kane, Vince McMahon didn't get much of a childhood. Both men grew up fast. Both men became fabulously wealthy. Both men had wives and families. Both men had successes and defeats. In the end, Charles Kane longed for the childhood happiness of his sled "Rosebud." What piece of Vince McMahon's past would he look back on and long for? We might never know.