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BRUCE MITCHELL FEATURE
Original Headline: "Thinking of Your Mother"
Original Publish Date: December 12, 2007
Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter #1002

There were some interesting subtexts to Vince McMahon's over-long ratings-busting Raw Valentine to himself this week. Perhaps the most interesting was, out of the small and large Superstars who were there, which familiar characters over those fifteen years chose not to appear. The one thing the show did lack, and it wasn't from a lack of trying on WWE's part, was that one major shocking Superstar to cap off the night.

Really, there were only two all-time Raw greats who could have done the job and stood above Mick Foley, The Undertaker, and that nice Steve Austin at the end of the show. Neither happened. Dewayne Johnson is a real headline movie star now, McMahon has nothing to give Bret Hart that's worth his pride, and both have no illusion about the company, good or bad. McMahon had to settle for Hulk Hogan's capitulation on national television (and it was a hell of a consolation prize).

Still, the most interesting absence came early in the night when Linda McMahon, the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder, who had been advertised the previous week as part of the McMahon Family Portrait. She has also been married to Vince McMahon, who in this show was about, for 41 years.

Monday Night Raw, like all of WWE's many programs, holds up a fun-house mirror to Vince McMahon's reality and reflects his attitudes about a multitude of things. The Mr. McMahon/Vince McMahon character certainly has its layers. There's the powerful stooge stud Mr. McMahon. Peel away Mr. McMahon and you reveal the fiercely loyal family man Vince McMahon, who will do anything to entertain the true Superstars of WWE, the fans. Peel away that McMahon and you get the message-sending piggish lout who lives to settle score and bitterly complains, "you're all just waiting for me to die!" Under that, well, maybe it's best not to think about it.

Or maybe we got a glimpse of it when McMahon made an excuse for his absent wife, during the segment that was designed to get over what a funny sex maniac and cheater he, I mean his character, is.

McMahon at first ungallantly suggested that his wife, last seen on television sitting stoically at his side as he was grilled about the state of his company and business on CNN, wasn't there because she had "gastro-intestinal problems." Was she really sick? Was she tired of playing cuckold with that pasted on smile? If the pressure that Hulk Hogan and his wife faced after their son Nick's car accident helped split them, what did the pressure of Chris Benoit's murder/suicide, the media storm around pro wrestling's death rate, and the specter of congressional hearings do to the McMahon's marriage?


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