Sports Entertainment vs Wrestling
By Scott Keith on 30 May 2015
Hi Scott,
I was wondering when Vince first got the bug up his ass about it being
"entertaiment" instead of "wrestling"? I can't recall ever hearing the
term "Sports Entertainment" until sometime in the Attitude era and
when I go back and watch stuff from the 80s and early 90s, the word
wrestling is everywhere and no one seems to have any ideas about
calling it anything else. My own theory is that it stems from the
story he always tell's about Turner calling him up to let him know he
was in the "Rasslin" business. I was wondering what you thought
though. Thanks.
The term was invented in the early 80s, specifically to get around things like athletic commissions or Boxing and Wrestling commissions. You'd have to kick up a portion of the gate to them and pay doctors for ringside and such, and that's money out of Vince's pocket. "Ah", he would say coyly, "we should not be governed by wrestling commissions, because we are not wrestling, we are Sports Entertainment". And then later he outright went to places like New Jersey and admitted to courts that his show was predetermined and thus a unique entity. This of course is completely nonsensical and flies in the face of wrestling being fixed since literally day one when naked Greeks were working out spots in the Acropolis dressing room, but it was more of a political deal anyway. So there you go.