During the World Wrestling Federation’s national expansion, aside from the wrestlers themselves, Vince McMahon and ‘Mean’ Gene Okerlund were two of the more recognizable faces of the company. Vince was the owner, but served as a play by play announcer, while Okerlund was the man who interviewed all the WWF’s cast of characters backstage. The two men certainly were major cogs to the company’s success growing the promotion from a territory to a national phenomenon, their relationship with one another was another story. It ran both hot and cold and was more of a love/hate relationship filled with hirings, firings and quitting seemingly on a daily basis. This is the story of the relationship between Mean Gene and Vince McMahon.
When Vince McMahon took over the WWF from his ailing father, he envisioned taking the territory and expanding it across the country and around the world. When his dad Vince Sr passed away, Vince Jr went full steam ahead with his plans in a national takeover. One of the very first talents that Vince poached from his competition was in fact Gene Okerlund from the American Wrestling Association based in Minnesota. McMahon wanted credible announcers and interviewers to be taken seriously on a national level and felt that Mean Gene checked all the boxes. Okerlund was hired by Vince in 1984.
Gene quickly became the lead interviewer for the promotion delving deep into the minds of the wrestlers like Hulk Hogan, the Iron Sheik, Jimmy Superly Snuka, Wendi Richter and the Magnificent Muraco. At the same time, could easily transition to talking to celebrities like Danny Devito, Billy Martin and Andy Warhol. According to Okerlund, what made his interviews work so well, was because he was allowed the freedom to adlib and improvise. There were hardly any restrictions on him by McMahon. He let Mean Gene be Mean Gene.
As the WWF grew more and more, that’s when things began to change between Okerlund and McMahon. Vince became much more hands on behind the scenes and wanted things to be more rehearsed and polished. Frustrations began to creep in with Mean Gene and the two would often be seen getting into loud arguments. The tension between both men rose during the run of Tuesday Night Titans. Tuesday Night Titans or TNT for short, was a sort of talk show mixed in with a little bit of variety show and sketch comedy and was hosted by Vince McMahon himself for the majority of the show’s run. When word came that the show was being shelved, Vince walked away as host and place Mean Gene in his place. Gene believed that Vince did this intentionally to make it look like he was the reason for the show’s cancellation and not Vince.
Whether that was actually true or not, it did cause a small rift between Vince and Gene. At the Slammy Awards show in 1987, Gene was the host and got into a backstage argument with Vince on how the show was being run and Okerlund quit the company after the show went off the air…only to return the next day and act as if nothing happened. Vince began bringing in other talent like Ken Resnick and Craig DeGeorge to prepare for possible Okerlund replacements if need be. Things really started to change for the worse when Vince no longer wanted Okerlund to travel with the company (which he enjoyed) and stay behind in Stamford, Connecticut to host the WWF Event Center.
The WWF Event Center basically was a brief news like format that ran down all the house shows and pay per views coming to different areas around the country. It was done 4 days a week, 8 hours a day with over 90 cities getting individual mentions. If a wrestler was injured and was to be replaced on a show, Okerlund had to return to re-do event center segments. It became too intense for Okerlund to handle and demanded he no longer do them or he would walk. Craig DeGeorge replaced him and eventually, Sean Mooney was hired as his replacement and after some mentoring from Gene…Sean Mooney took over the job. In June of 1988, McMahon fired Okerlund after finishing his training of Sean Mooney. Okerlund’s voiceover work at the beginning of a WWF broadcast where he said, “The World Wrestling Federation…What the World is Watching” was immediately replaced by the voice of Howard Finkel.
Like Okerlund quitting the company, McMahon’s termination of Mean Gene did not last too long either and after a couple of months, was brought back to the WWF. Okerlund was given a much lighter schedule where he was used as an interviewer on pay per views and hosted a show called All American Wrestling. Despite this, tensions between them continued and according to Mean Gene, he didn’t speak with Vince for the last three years he was with the company.
Add to that, All American Wrestling did very well ratings wise, but McMahon ignored the program, instead putting a boatload of money into a new program called Monday Night Raw. Okerlund said he felt somewhat slighted by that. He also made it known that he wasn’t very fond of Vince hiring on air talents like Todd Pettengill and Jim Ross, although he never got into great detail as to why. When Okerlund’s contract was expiring in 1993, he said that McMahon didn’t even bother to make him an offer. Instead, he allowed Okerlund to walk away and join the rival WCW. Jim Ross would say years later, he didn’t agree with Vince’s decision feeling that Mean Gene was one of the faces of the company. Vince simply wanted fresh and younger faces representing the WWF.
After Okerlund joined WCW, he went on the WCW hotline to bash Vince McMahon and spill the details on their lack of relationship over the last few years. Vince would eventually parody Gene Okerlund with a character called ‘Scheme’ Gene. The relationship didn’t finally start getting repaired until WCW folded in 2001. Okerlund briefly tried to be a part of a brand new promotion called the XWF, but when that project fell through, Gene made his triumphant return to the company at Wrestlemania 17 gimmick battle royal where he and Bobby Heenan did play by play for. Okerlund also hosted a show called WWF Confidential for two years, starred in a reality series and was on discussion panels for the WWE’s 24/7 on demand service. Finally last, but certainly not least was inducted into WWE’s Hall of Fame in 2006. The relationship was mended between Vince and Gene somewhat until the day Gene died in 2019.
Mean Gene said it best during his Hall of Fame induction speech…
When I die, I want to be buried face down, so all my critics can ‘Kiss my ass!”
