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Brian Damage
The ‘If Factor’ are a series of articles that takes a look at real scenarios in pro wrestling that at one point or another were suggested, planned, considered…but did not get the green light to continue. What would the landscape of professional wrestling look like if these ideas came to fruition?
The If: The New WWF Logo
After disappointing and low television ratings came out for a pre recorded edition of Monday Night Raw taped in Europe, WWF CEO Vince McMahon was livid. It did not help that not only was the Raw rating very low, but his main competition from WCW h a better rating for Monday Nitro. This led McMahon to elevate WWF magazine writer Vince Russo to head of the creative department. It also led Vince to summoning all of the WWF’s top brass for an emergency meeting at WWF headquarters aka Titan Towers.
During the meeting in Vince’s office, McMahon took the famed block letter WWF logo that was prominently displayed and smashed it up. He then ordered a brand new logo be created to replace the one he just destroyed. Bruce Prichard and Shane McMahon started doodling ideas on paper, as Vince brought into his office a whiteboard. Vince looked at Prichard and Shane’s sketches and eventually came up with the infamous “scratch” logo used during the Attitude Era and through 2014 without the F part of course.
While everyone was in agreement with the new look logo, Vince took it a step further by adding balls/testicles at the bottom of the scratch logo. Vince felt that the logo lacked “attitude” and by adding balls to it, made it stand out more. Vince was all ready to debut the new scratch logo with balls, but other WWF executives were able to convince McMahon that the balls would look bad to WWF’s television partners and affiliates and it was removed and replaced with the red line underneath. Vince said it reminded him of a scar and actually liked it enough to approve it. What if the WWF executives did not step in and convince Vince to remove the balls from the logo? Would it have made any kind of impact either positively or negatively?
To read other articles in the If Factor series…Click Here.