Two historical blog questions

Hey Scott,

Continuing fan with 2 Qs :

1. A Montreal question (drink!) that I honestly haven’t seen dealt with . Let’s just say that, despite his averred choices, Bret swallows his pride (for extra money or some similar reason) and goes out ‘looking at the lights’ by laying down for Shawn in Montreal (let’s assume a screw-job, for the sake of argument). Would things significantly change? Would Bret be happier, would ‘Mr McMahon’ have still taken off, would Shawn have still been drunk on power (and alcohol) to the same degree?

2. Following the WWF(E)’s financial renaissance from 1998 or so onwards, has Vince ever entertained in any meaningful way any proposal for buying his (and Linda’s) interest, and is there any point at which he should have?

​1. Bret probably would have done exactly that if Vince had just said "Tonight, you’re laying down for Shawn, and that’s how it is." But Vince never did! No one ever asked Bret to lose. It seems clear that "Mr. McMahon" might not have become a thing quite so fast, but it would have emerged eventually. Bret wouldn’t be happier, because WCW would have still wasted him. And Shawn was drunk on power well before that happened anyway.

2. It’s actually incredibly difficult for Vince or Linda to sell majority interest, from what little I understand about it, because any of their stock that they sell (Class A) immediately converts ​to Class B, which is worth about 1/100th of the voting power. So they’d have to sell billions of shares to give someone different controlling interest. That being said, I think inevitably Disney or NBC/Universal is going to buy WWE someday and it just depends on when or if Vince himself becomes too out of it to run the company. I just can’t see Wall Street accepting his doofus son-in-law as CEO. He might be able to run a hell of a wrestling company, but the financial empire of WWE is an entirely different matter.