Vince McMahon turned 63 on Sunday….

It is fair to say that Vince dictates an entire sport (or entertainment industry to be exact) with his ideas, investments, booking, and directions of his company. This one man could change the entire face of an industry with an idea he wakes up tomorrow morning. How many people can make that claim in any industry?

Vince McMahon has been around the sports entertainment business longer than any other promoter, wrestler, owner, and writer in 2008. If it happened somewhere or sometime in pro wrestling, Vince has either seen it, known about it, or created it. Vince McMahon is to pro wrestling what Bill Gates is to technology.

Unlike others who inherit businesses, Vince worked for it. Vince began promoting long before he took over the WWF. Vince began by promoting rock concerts, minor league sports, Evil Knievel, and arguably the first world-wide MMA event headlined by Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki. Vince also spent years as an announcer in the WWWF.

Vince took over the company from his father twenty-six years ago. At the time, the WWF was a northeast company in the United States. Vince took the company from regional to national to international in just a matter of a few years. By 1986 there weren’t many people in the world who didn’t know who Hulk Hogan was. Vince McMahon became a marketing genius in the 1980s.

Vince McMahon’s success did not come without risk. Vince’s first WrestleMania gamble is legendary. Vince risked everything by promoting the first WrestleMania. WrestleMania III also came with the same kinds of risks. Both shows were a success and Vince McMahon took the number-one seat in pro wrestling for the next decade.

All of us at THE SAVSCI would like to wish Vinny Mac a happy belated birthday. We’d buy him a cake but everyone knows that the only time that cakes show up in pro wrestling are as part of an “angle”…

Happy Birthday Vince McMahon @ PhillyBurbs.com