Do What’s Best For Business: What Would Vince McMahon Do?

Former WCW President & RAW GM Eric Bischoff has begun contributing a weekly article to WrestleZone taking a look at the world of politics from the point of view of pro wrestling.

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Do What’s Best For Business: What would Vince McMahon Do?

Over the course of this election as we’ve learned more about the work ethic, intensity, and stamina of one President Elect Donald Trump I’ve often thought about the six degrees of separation between President Elect Trump and Vince McMahon. After all, the future President is a WWE Hall of Famer and the proximity and relationship between Vince and the future leader of the free world is an obvious one.

On Wednesday as I was preparing for my podcast, Bischoff On Wrestling, the reality of Tuesday nights election was finally beginning to sink in. Its not that I didn’t think that Mr. Trump could possibly win given the news that leaked out daily regarding the Clinton Foundation and its potential legal issues or the ongoing saga of the Hillary email scandal. Mainstream media collusion and denial along with what appears to be a concerted effort by the soon to be former President to protect Hillary Clinton against any and all charges appeared to be almost impossible to overcome. Until about 2am on November 9.

Now what?

Now that the election is over, the electorate has made their choice and reality begins to set in. It’s time to start thinking about how to bring the country together. Barack Obama campaigned hard to paint President Elect Trump as a supporter of the Ku Klux Klan in an attempt to further divide our country and shore up votes in the process. Hillary Clinton referred to millions of American citizens as ‘deplorable’ and without redemption in order to pander to liberals in hopes of adding more campaign dollars to the billion or so she spent trying to further divide and conquer a country that she hoped to add to her checking account. And now that the election is over millions of those who were the most impressionable to the vitriol spewed for the last 18 months are taking to the streets in an attempt to create anarchy.

It’s easy to understand why those who didn’t agree with Democrat policy and who supported Republican views would view this moment as an ideal time to start making a sports-entertainment version of a ‘come-back’ and finally start seizing a moral high ground.

That’s not what’s best for business. At least not the business of leading the free world.

The battle between WWE and WCW lasted about three years. During that time, Vince McMahon did everything in his power to convince his audience that Ted Turner was an evil billionaire trying to put his family business out of business. Vince created content for his flagship brand that only a few years earlier he would have rejected as being to ‘crass’. Yours truly did everything in my power to fight our way to television supremacy up to and including calling out Vince and offering to fight him in the ring on Pay-Per-View. Throw in a federal trademark lawsuit, rumors of financial problems and a litany of inside baseball insults that made their way to both Raw and Nitro broadcasts and its easy to understand the look of genuine shock on the faces of WWE talent and staff when I came walking through the backstage area to be named to new General Manager of WWE’s Flagship series Monday Night Raw by Vince McMahon himself.

It was what was best for business.

One of the things I learned about the McMahon family and the organization that they have built is that they will do what is best for their business regardless of the past. They put aside the disdain they must have felt for me when I was hiring talent out from underneath them and have them appearing on my show while WWE thought they were still under contract. Or what must have been a near seizure inducing moment when I first started giving away finishes for their taped episodes on my live broadcasts that I conveniently started three or four minutes before theirs. Simply to minimize their product and because….well because I could.

But despite all the hyper-aggressive-and I am certain in their minds deplorable-things I did while competing against Vince McMahon and WWE I was welcomed to the company with open arms.

Literally. On national television.

While I have no doubt that it was hard and in some cases a challenge. In personal and corporate discipline to do so on the part of WWE staff and family. I never felt for a moment that the people I worked with whether talent in the ring, producers outside of it, office staff, production crews, or even members of the McMahon family had any agenda other than to follow their Chairman’s lead and do whats best for business. That leadership is one of the things that I learned to appreciate and respect about Vince McMahon.

I can only hope that given their relationship and respect for each other Vince McMahon and President Elect Trump can spend a little quality time together and perhaps Vince can lend a little perspective about how what’s best for business, or in this case what’s best for the country, may be more about bringing people together rather than pitting them against each other. We’ve had enough of that.