VINCE MCMAHON’S FAILED ATTEMPT TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD OF BODYBUILDING

0
852

In the pre-net age of April 1990, whispers started to flow that Vince McMahon, head of the World Wrestling Federation (now WWE), was about to launch a bodybuilding magazine. The phrase became that it might act as a precursor to setting up a bodybuilding federation that might usurp the preeminence then enjoyed with the aid of the International Federation of Bodybuilders Opens a New Window. (IFBB). The WWF refuted claims of a brand new federation being launched, announcing they only had plans to supply a magazine, and as a part of their publishing group, they hired Tom Platz, Opens a New Window. , just about the most famous bodybuilder of that era. The new mag became Bodybuilding Lifestyles, and to sell its December 1990 release, McMahon hired sales space at that yr’sea Mr. year’smpia contest, which became staged in Chicago. So it was on September 15 at the Windy City’s Arie Crown Theater, directly as Lee Haney Opens a New Window. Becoming awarded his 7th Sandow, a grasp of Bodybuilding Lifestyles personnel in Trojan horse fashion, he went around the audience, handing out a press launch, describing the World Bodybuilding Federation (WBF) launch. The launch stated that the WBF might “Revamp professional bodybuilding with dramatic new occasions and the richest prize money within the game’s records.

Throughout the autumn and wintry weather of 1990, the WBF went on a recruiting force flying pinnacle-magnificence bodybuilders to their Stamford, CT headquarters to seal their offers. The result of their labors was eventually offered at a lavish press conference staged at New York’s Plaza Hotel on January 13, 1991. There, McMahon delivered his WBF stable of 13 athletes. They have been Aaron Baker, Mike Christian, Vince Comerford, David Dearth, Berry Dewey, Johnnie Morant, Danny Padilla, Tony Pearson, Jim Quinn, Mike Quinn, Eddie Robinson, Gary Strydom, and Troy Zuccolotto.

The depth and high quality of the WBF squad allowed Joe Weider to signal more athletes at better costs than the norm, which allowed you to maintain them within the IFBB. McMahon had splurged megabucks to assemble his group, with Gary Strydom Opens a New Window. Reportedly inking a 3-12 months contract well worth $four hundred,000 in line with the year. They promised they might be making further signings. Still, no more have been ever made, even though there was a relatively publicized to-and-fro over acquiring Lou Ferrigno’s services earlier than he determined to live with the IFBB. At the press conference, they introduced their first World Championships, which might be held in Atlantic City on June 15, 1991, at the now-defunct Taj Mahal Casino, which Donald Trump owned at the time. The Atlantic City contest on June 15 was heavily promoted through WWF’s mainstream TV programming, and it was a pay-according-to-view occasion.

From the get-go, it became clear that WBF’s approach to bodybuilding became a targeted extra on showbiz rather than display-me-the-muscle. Before each competitor came onstage, there was a two-minute video of each highlighting the character the WBF had attached to them. Thus, we had Troy Zuccolotto Opens a New Window. Acting as a California seashore boy, complete with surfboard and four bikini-clad women, Berry DeMey re-invented as a Dutch James Bond; Gary Strydom offered a person-approximately metropolis whole with top hat and cane. There had been no direct muscle-institution-to-muscle-group comparisons. The men posed, and then the outcomes had been announced: Strydom, first; Mike Christian, 2d; Berry DeMey, third. To pro bodybuilding fans, it changed into a farce. Despite the nearly widespread complaint, the WBF pressed ahead and announced that the 1992 World Championships might be held in Long Beach, CA.

But while the 1991 contest concluded, the WWF had turned out to be embroiled in an ever-widening drug scandal. It worried Dr. George Zahorian from Hershey, PA, who was indicted for offering performance-improving pills Opens a New Window. To positive individuals. Among them were wrestlers Hulk Hogan, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, and various grapplers affiliated with the WWF. When the names of those wrestlers were made public in June 1991, it became mainstream information, with USA Today going for walks a front-page tale asking, “Hulk: Bulk from a Bottle?” On June 25, Zahorian was discovered responsible on multiple counts and sentenced to three years in prison. Three weeks later, McMahon announced he could be invoking drug trying out for his wrestlers. The WBF had avoided mainstream scrutiny. However, such is the steroid stereotype connected to bodybuilding that the ultimate component the WWF wanted turned into to be related to a recreation infamous for drug use. It might be like Charlie Sheen claiming sobriety at the same time as shopping a whiskey distillery.

VINCE MCMAHON'S FAILED ATTEMPT TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD OF BODYBUILDING 1

Against that history, the 1992 WBF Championships still happened in Long Beach on June 13. Three months before the event, it was announced the WBF competitors could be drug tested. Sadly, the maximum number of these that competed was a long way from their fine as Strydom won again with Jim Quinn 2nd and Aaron Baker 1/3. It changed into the WBF’s death toll, and a month later, on July 15, McMahon placed a convention call to Joe and Ben Weider, calling them the fathers of bodybuilding. He informed them he was ceasing production of the bodybuilding magazine and final down the WBF. It became mentioned that McMahon had misplaced $15 million due to his foray into bodybuilding.

In 1990, after the launch of the WBF, the IFBB introduced the idea that those who became members of the new business enterprise would never be allowed to return to the IFBB. By February 1993, that ruling had been rescinded, however simplest on the condition that the former renegades pay a fine, which changed into 10 percent of anything their WBF salaries had been. Of the 13 WBF athletes, Mike Christian and Vince Comerford in no way competed again. Of those eleven who renewed their IFBB career, the best, Aaron Baker and Mike Quinn, ever qualified for an Olympia.