Now maybe Vince Mc”Macho”Mahon will quit acting like he’s Vince Lombardi. Now maybe he’ll quit trying to beat the NFL at its own game. Now he had better give his Extreme Football League what it needed from the start.
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Vince McMahon to the extreme.
Saturday night’s TV ratings should hit McMahon between his reptilian eyes like a Ray Lewis forearm. Opening-night curiosity– Would the all-access cam catch a cheerleader and quarterback sharing the shower?–drove up NBC’s number to 10.3. This time it plunged to 5.1.
The ratings will continue to fall as long as the XFL pretends it’s a real football league.
McMahon’s problem has been trying to sell what the NFL has tried to hide. I’ve been covering the “XFL” for nearly 30 years. From the Bears of McMahon and Hampton to the Raiders of Snake Stabler and John Matuszak to the Cowboys of “North Dallas Forty” and Michael Irvin to the Giants of Lawrence Taylor to the camouflage-wearing, trash-talking Ravens, the NFL has been Vince McMahon’s wildest dreams. It has been sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll hitting by the biggest, baddest athletes on the planet.
As a reporter who covered the 1985 Bears says: “Most of the guys on that team were one step from Cook County Jail.”
But somehow the NFL’s best-in-sports PR machine has been able to put sheep’s clothing on most of its big, bad wolves. Many moms and dads fear the NFL is teeming with talented thugs, but as long as the league controls the taunting and showboating and the marquee stars keep doing United Way spots, parents trick themselves into giving the NFL a “PG” rating instead of an “R” (for Ravens).
The NFL has even been able to sell its “cheerleaders” as pillars of the community. Not that I studied them, but for years the Raiderettes, Philadelphia’s Liberty Belles and the Rams’ Embraceable Ewes wore more revealing outfits than any I’ve seen on an XFL telecast, including the Las Vegas showgirls. The famed Cowboy Cheerleaders? The closer you look, the less you can see. But Dallas has been the only team that sells “wholesome” sex appeal in the form of seductive calendars.
So along came the WFL and USFL trying to out-sex-and-violence the NFL. Those leagues even outbid the NFL for some up-and-coming stars. It took America one weekend to realize this was still watered-down NFL.
Now here’s McMahon, who has turned scripted pro wrestling into some of the most entertaining and hilarious live theater on TV, trying to sell us real football played exclusively by NFL rejects. Who’s he kidding? Fans don’t want to hear riches-to-rags stories about stockbrokers coming out of retirement for the standard $45,000 salary. That only validates just how minor this league is.
Won’t work. But McMahon knows what will. The XFL has an audience out there that could make it a ratings-stealer. That vast audience is hooked on pro wrestling. McMahon’s only hope is to turn the XFL into pro wrestling in helmets and pads. This league needs more Vinsanity.
Maybe he doesn’t need to script the outcomes–though he’ll be tempted if he hasn’t already. But he definitely needs to choreograph some chair-throwing locker-room tirades and helmet-throwing huddle tantrums. He must make it heavy-fine clear to his players, coaches and cheerleaders that they’re also actors. The players and coaches must turn pro wrestler when the microphone is in their faces, snarling, gloating or vowing revenge. Too often they treat sideline interviewers the way real players would–as intrusions.
Soap-opera skits need to be rehearsed. Cheerleaders need to fight over a heartthrob player or kick a rival player when he’s down along their sideline. After all, how much skin will Enforcers cheerleaders be able to show during night games at Soldier Field without suffering frozen silicon?
The XFL needs more late-hitting villains, more camera-loving heroes. Coaches need to go nose-to-nose with analysts Jesse “the Body” Ventura and Brian Bosworth over critical remarks. Pro wrestling fans certainly don’t mind that their sport is staged. Who’d watch if it weren’t?
The XFL’s niche should be as NFL parody “Any Given Sunday” with a sense of humor. It should be over-the-top clever. It should shock and amaze the easily amused and attract NFL diehards in need of an off-season hoot. Right now McMahon isn’t giving us much more than bad, boring, cheap, no-name football.