Jump to content

XFL 2020 Season


ozzyman314

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 2.5k
  • Created
  • Last Reply
6 hours ago, BringBackTheVet said:

There's not a reasonable human alive that considers WWE to be Vince Sr.'s.  WWWF?  OK, but WWF/WWE are for all intents and purposes VKM's.  I cannot imagine that he has any feelings otherwise, and I doubt this is his attempt to prove he can build something from scratch to step out of Sr's shadow.

 

Odds are BBTV, you've never taken over a business your father's created.  I have.  There are personal demons involved in that I simply can't explain; in order to understand them, you'd have to experience them first hand.  But they are there all the same, no matter to what new level you take the enterprise to.

nav-logo.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, C-Squared said:

 

Supplemented by, not built on... and the press would be glowing. Besides, Maurice Clarett was a blue-chipper and jumped ship with no alternative... the XFL could be that alternative.

 

I guess this is a better way to phrase it: what would the XFL gain by NOT expanding their talent pool, whether kids make the rosters or not?

 

Here's what the XFL could accomplish by agreeing to take players with sufficient talent directly out of high school:  it would force the NCAA to modify its rules to allow colleges to finally provide players with "stipends" along with a scholarship.  But I don't see that happening in significant numbers, if at all.

 

I think the player talent level hinges entirely on what McMahon's ultimate vision is.  I don't think he goes the USFL route and signs top flight collegiate talent, but on the other hand I don't think he goes the UFL route and signs 320 guys named "Earl."  I think some mid-point:  grabbing some CFL talent, some Arena talent, recent NFL cast-offs and a few "name" players, is the path to take.  Whether that's what happens or not?  Only Vince knows.

nav-logo.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On ‎1‎/‎26‎/‎2018 at 12:39 PM, Ice_Cap said:

Vince’s ego won’t let the XFL stay as a “supplemental” league, even if they do find some stability in that niche.

 

I don't know about that. It would take at least 2-3 years for the XFL to get a solid footing. By the friendliest estimates, it would probably be a decade before the league would be in any position to compete with the NFL, and even then it would take a huge amount of good fortune and NFL blunders. Vince is going to be 73 soon. He may be crazy at times, but he's not dumb.

 

As you know, four years ago when the WWE network started, it was considered a failure and Vince supposedly lost half his net worth. People thought he was a senile and had lost it. Within a year, WWEN was in Canada and Europe, and he may have doubled his original wealth. He built the company, then the network. He's done what people said couldn't be done. I believe that the failure of the XFL has eaten away at him since 2001. That's why he's restarting it. He has nothing left to prove outside of succeeding at football. Topping the NFL is a pipedream, but if he can start a Spring league that takes footing and establishes itself as a minor league, eventually getting bought out by the NFL (and getting him back his investment many times over), I think it would be considered a success. Having a successful mid-level pro football league will rewrite the line in his obituary about swinging for the fences and striking out the first time around.

OldRomanSig2.jpg
Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, TheOldRoman said:

I don't know about that.

I do, based on Vince's ambitions each and every time he's started a business venture.

He takes over the WWF? He wants to take over the wrestling world and destroy the territories.

He starts the WBF? He wants to take down the IFBB.

He starts the XFL? He wants to show up the NFL.

 

Say what you will about Vince, but he aims for the top of the mountain every time he gets into something. Sometimes it works. Oftentimes it does not. Either way? Vince doesn't enter something with the intent on being "second best."

 

24 minutes ago, TheOldRoman said:

...but he's not dumb.

Vince isn't a dumb man, but he has proven time and time again that he's susceptible to letting his ego cloud his judgment. There are two examples in the my list above.

 

24 minutes ago, TheOldRoman said:

I believe that the failure of the XFL has eaten away at him since 2001.

And you just validated my point. A truly smart businessman knows when to walk away from a loss. A man with an ego too big for his own good revisits past failures that have no chance of success.

What's that they say about the definition of insanity?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Ice_Cap said:

I do, based on Vince's ambitions each and every time he's started a business venture.

He takes over the WWF? He wants to take over the wrestling world and destroy the territories.

He starts the WBF? He wants to take down the IFBB.

He starts the XFL? He wants to show up the NFL.

 

Say what you will about Vince, but he aims for the top of the mountain every time he gets into something. Sometimes it works. Oftentimes it does not. Either way? Vince doesn't enter something with the intent on being "second best."

 

Vince isn't a dumb man, but he has proven time and time again that he's susceptible to letting his ego cloud his judgment. There are two examples in the my list above.

 

And you just validated my point. A truly smart businessman knows when to walk away from a loss. A man with an ego too big for his own good revisits past failures that have no chance of success.

What's that they say about the definition of insanity?

 

Him taking on the territories is totally different than him taking on the NFL. The territories were... territories, and he was the first company to establish a national footprint. Him taking on the NFL would be more like 5 or so year ago when TNA decided it was going to take on WWE, which lasted all of a few months. Also, the NFL is the most powerful sports league in America and the most powerful entertainment company outside of Disney. That's way different than taking on mom-and-pop wrestling companies.

 

Furthermore, I don't remember necessarily that the XFL "took on" the NFL last time. They played in the Spring. They had a lot of bluster about being a different brand, tougher than the NFL, more fun, etc. But there was no reason Bears fans couldn't have been fans of the Enforcers. I was in high school at the time, and most of my friends didn't follow wrestling. We were all excited for the league and watched at the start of the season. The problem was the league was not run as a legitimate league, but as a combination of WWF and the NFL Blitz video games. They had kayfabe heel announcers! Nobody other than wrestling fans could take it seriously, so nearly everybody tuned out shortly thereafter. I think their problem last time was buying too much into the Attitude Era of wrestling and not that they tried to take on the NFL. Had the league been a wild success, maybe Vince would have moved the games to the fall five or so years later, but we'll never know.

 

Like I said, if it takes a decade to go toe-to-toe with the NFL, Vince would be 85 at that time. I don't think he needs to beat the NFL here to prove that he's a success. I think he just needs to prove that he can form his own league and have it make money. If his goal is to take on the NFL, he's going to fail within his own lifetime. But if he "settles" for a league which makes a profit without being the top dog, he can be fine. Plus, unlike Lamar Hunt and the pioneers of the AFL, he would own all the teams. I think it would be a huge notch on his belt if he could pull it off. Will he? I wouldn't bet on it, but it's not out of the realm of possibility if he treats it like a legitimate league and doesn't make the same mistakes as last time.

OldRomanSig2.jpg
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, CRichardson said:

The WWE won't be Vince's legacy alone? That's insane. He took it from humble beginnings and made it into a multimedia empire. Just because he didn't start it doesn't mean that he didn't make it into what it is today. That is solidly his, just like (please for the love of God don't take this as any kind of political argument) how President Trump's businesses will forever be associated with him despite the fact that he got his start thanks to money from his father. McMahon and Trump both took something that someone else provided the foundation for and made them bigger.

 

Ray Kroc took over a restaurant founded by and named after somebody else, but I don’t think anyone would say McDonald’s isn’t his. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Ice_Cap said:

I do, based on Vince's ambitions each and every time he's started a business venture.

He takes over the WWF? He wants to take over the wrestling world and destroy the territories.

He starts the WBF? He wants to take down the IFBB.

He starts the XFL? He wants to show up the NFL.

 

Say what you will about Vince, but he aims for the top of the mountain every time he gets into something. Sometimes it works. Oftentimes it does not. Either way? Vince doesn't enter something with the intent on being "second best."

 

Vince isn't a dumb man, but he has proven time and time again that he's susceptible to letting his ego cloud his judgment. There are two examples in the my list above.

 

And you just validated my point. A truly smart businessman knows when to walk away from a loss. A man with an ego too big for his own good revisits past failures that have no chance of success.

What's that they say about the definition of insanity?

 

But what, in this case, does the 'top of the mountain' represent?  I don't think it looks like XFL taking over a dominant position in the football landscape; if he were trying that with either XFL, they'd have played a fall season and from the outset he'd have done it AFL style by raiding NFL rosters and signing away top flight college talent.  That didn't happen in 2001, and that's not terribly likely to happen in 2020.  I think with the XFL's the top of Vince's mountain is to be the top alternative to the NFL (or even works in concert, but not under the control, of it), a spring football league that survives.

 

And while ego can cloud judgment to be sure, a smart businessman learns from his losses, applying those lessons in his future ventures.  McMahon has had nearly two decades to study what was done wrong with the original XFL, and unlike most businessmen, he's prepared to apply those lessons learned along with his own money to take another crack at it.  I find that rather commendable, frankly, succeed or fail.

nav-logo.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Mac the Knife said:

And while ego can cloud judgment to be sure, a smart businessman learns from his losses, applying those lessons in his future ventures.  McMahon has had nearly two decades to study what was done wrong with the original XFL, and unlike most businessmen, he's prepared to apply those lessons learned along with his own money to take another crack at it. 

 

I don’t get that at all from his announcement. But we’ll see.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Mac the Knife said:

McMahon has had nearly two decades to study what was done wrong with the original XFL, and unlike most businessmen, he's prepared to apply those lessons learned along with his own money to take another crack at it.  I find that rather commendable, frankly, succeed or fail.

I've been down this road with Vinnie Mac before. And while Vince often knows what to say? "Learning from his mistakes" is rarely something you attribute to him.

 

And to be frank? I don't find it commendable. I don't find anything praiseworthy about throwing good money after bad.

 

4 hours ago, Mac the Knife said:

But what, in this case, does the 'top of the mountain' represent?  I don't think it looks like XFL taking over a dominant position in the football landscape

Sure, on the planet Earth simply establishing a supplementary league that can stand on its own during the NFL offseason and maybe serve as a "feeder" would be enough to be considered a success.

On planet McMahon? Not so much. Again, Vince doesn't enter a venture with the intent on being "second best." His past history provides evidence of that in spades, and interviews conducted through the years show that being "second best" is something he finds abhorrent. It's not something he can tolerate. He doesn't have the stomach for it.

 

Which is why I'm actually going to disagree with you, OldRoman, and everyone else going to bat for Vinnie Mac, even if it seems like it hurts my point. I don't think this has anything to do with Vince letting a failure 17 years ago gnaw away at him. If that were the case? We would have seen at least one other incarnation of the WBF.

 

No, he sees angry people complaining about players kneeling for the anthem. He sees the NFL rocked by scandals regarding domestic abuse. He sees people complaining about how commercial-heavy the NFL has gotten, and how games are too long. He sees circuses like "Deflate-Gate" making the NFL's commissioner and one of their star players laughingstocks. He sees people complaining about how a complicated NFL rulebook has made it impossible to determine what a "catch" is.

 

So I look at this, and I look at his announcement for XFL 2.0. No kneeling for the anthem. Faster games. A simplified rulebook. No players with criminal histories. And I see a man who's trying to create a league specifically tailored to take advantage of the NFL's perceived shortcomings.

Vince thinks he's learnt from past mistakes, and he thinks that he's got the NFL at a weakpoint where they're relatively easy pickings.

 

This will be doomed to fail though, for two reasons. The first is that he vastly over-estimates the "moral guardian" folks who aren't watching due to anthem protests and "criminal" players. The second that he's failed to learn the most important lesson from XFLv1; that pro football fans simply aren't interested in watching an inferior product.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, OaklandIsBack said:

 

Spent years wondering why a guy named Kroc called it McDonald's

Watch The Founder; it’s on Netflix. It’s a good movie, except (spoiler alert) the bad guy wins.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I honestly don't see the XFL being any more successful in 2020 than it was in 2001. At the end of the day, the talent won't be anywhere near as good as the NFL. Maybe slightly better than college football, but college football has the benefit of decades of brand identity and loyalty.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Quillz said:

I honestly don't see the XFL being any more successful in 2020 than it was in 2001. At the end of the day, the talent won't be anywhere near as good as the NFL. Maybe slightly better than college football, but college football has the benefit of decades of brand identity and loyalty.

 

And that’s why I can’t help but wonder what he thinks his target audience really is. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Quillz said:

I honestly don't see the XFL being any more successful in 2020 than it was in 2001. At the end of the day, the talent won't be anywhere near as good as the NFL. Maybe slightly better than college football, but college football has the benefit of decades of brand identity and loyalty.

That's just it. Vince can go on and on about a faster game and a simplified rulebook. At the end of the day? XFLv2 will be the same thing as XFLv1. An inferior pro league with sub-par talent. With crappy games as a result.

 

The two versions of the league don't seem to be any different. The only changes are superficial. Instead of selling it as an edgier, sexier, more in your face version of the NFL? He's selling it as a faster, simpler, less "political" alternative. The cores of both- sub-par pro players playing subpar football- remains. It's just the window dressing that's changed.

 

Vince hasn't actually learnt his "lesson" from the first XFL. He, as a professional ringmaster, has merely decided to change the buzzwords.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.




×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.