Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
Vince McMahon can be considered a great businessman. He turned a relatively regional wrestling promotion and expanded it globally. He made household names out wrestlers like Hulk Hogan, The Rock and John Cena. With all the success that he has had, he has had some epic failures. There are a few instances that comes to mind, but the first on the list for me is ICOPRO. ICO pro stands for Integrated Conditioning Program and was around the WWF from 1992 until 1995.
What exactly was ICOPRO? It was a line bodybuilding supplements that the WWF heavily promoted in the 1990’s. They coincided with Vince’s other failed project called the World Bodybuilding Federation or WBF for short. This was a passion project for McMahon who was heavily interested in the bodybuilding lifestyle…so he created his own competitive league for it.
It made perfect sense for ICOPRO to be advertised alongside his WBF…after all…it was all about building lean muscle mass and all that. Once the WBF went under, ICOPRO still remained for a couple of years after the league’s demise. McMahon was intent to get his WWF fans to purchase the program and become muscular. He pulled out all the stops to get WWF fans excited about ICOPRO. A banner was hung on the balcony of the Manhattan Center and easily visible for every episode of Monday Night Raw.
Print and television ads were all over WWF programming and magazines talking about the benefits of using ICOPRO. The tag line was “You Gotta Want It.” The problem was, nobody did. At least the majority of fans wanted nothing to do with it. If by chance there were a minority of people who bought the ICOPRO system….there was nobody that the company could tout as being a success story. There was no before and after photos of an ICOPRO user.
Instead, McMahon threw his wrestlers into the mix to help promote the supplements effectiveness. Guys like Razor Ramon, Lex Luger and WWF champion Bret Hart all praised the products. WWF executive, Bruce Prichard said that he tried ICOPRO and it tasted nasty. The powders didn’t completely dissolve in water and the protein bars (which were a bit ahead of its time) weren’t the most delicious things to eat.
With the ICOPRO products not flying off the shelves, McMahon decided to ditch the supplements altogether. Bruce Prichard claimed that Vince didn’t lose any money with the supplements…he just about broke even. Apparently another company purchased the naming rights and reissued ICOPRO briefly…but that too went under.