Pro wrestling has found its current niche by shedding the coy is-it-real-or-fake stage to embrace its status as pure over-the-top entertainment that "like all stories, dramas, movies, books and plays . . . is dependent on characters and story lines." That comes from the 2-year-old legal battle in which Connecticut-based Titan Sports--producer of World Wrestling Federation shows--accuses Atlanta-based Turner Broadcasting of stealing characters and story lines for its World Championship Wrestling.
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The Ultimate Grudge Match
Thirty-five million viewers. Two wrestling impresarios. One steel cage. (OK, we made that last part up.) But Vince McMahon and Eric Bischoff are going toe to toe inside and outside the TV ring.
COVER STORY
For the Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday November 29, 1998 Home Edition Calendar Page 87 Calendar Desk 2 inches; 38 words Type of Material: Correction
Wrestling czar--A Nov. 15 Calendar article incorrectly reported the disposition of a New York case in which Vince McMahon, the head of the World Wrestling Federation, faced federal steroid conspiracy and possession charges. McMahon was acquitted on all counts in 1994.
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Don't for a minute think this competition isn't real. It's been deadly serious since Turner's wrestling team--led by Bischoff--signed up Hulk Hogan and "Macho Man" Savage, vowed that "WCW is about to dominate the globe" and on Sept. 4, 1995, positioned its marquee "Nitro" show directly against Titan's "Raw."
In quiet moments, both sides agree "the wrestling war" has been good for each, helping triple their combined audience and shrink that of "Monday Night Football." But that doesn't stop them, like other TV producers, from battling for any edge, whether by exploiting the competition's commercial breaks or pushing their shows--minute by minute--further past the supposed 11 p.m. cutoff, each seeking the last word with wrestling fans.
"The economics involved is simple--more people watching your television programs equals to larger potential markets for pay-per-views, arena events and merchandise sales," McMahon's lawyers noted in an early brief in the suit in U.S. District Court in Connecticut.
These days, the competition extends far beyond Wrestlemanias and toy Andre the Giants. Who will put an arm-bar on the Latino market? Whose restaurants will score a pin-fall? Whose celebrity alliances and "synergies"--was that really Leno in the squared circle? or Chucky?--will be counted out by fans as too absurd?
One pair of characterizations doesn't seem a stretch to audiences, though--the roles played by the heads of the rival empires, the beefy perfectly coiffed McMahon and the Yuppie pretty-boy Bischoff. Put 'em before the camera, and they both become control-freak wrestling impresarios forever conspiring against their enemies.
Fan Fascination
They are fighting, in effect, over the Minutaglio brothers, Matt and Mike, 20 and 26, from Staten Island. The brothers will pay to view, buy the merchandise, phone the hotlines and drive people at work nuts by using wrestlers' lingo, calling everyone a "Jaboni" and asking, "You smell what the Rock is cookin'?"
