Cageside Countdown: Top 10 Reasons Why You Hate Vince McMahon

Last week, we asked you, the Cagesiders of the world, one of life's great questions: why do you hate Vince McMahon. I get that envy is a perfectly imperfect human thing. It's a very normal emotion to have, especially when it comes to the chairman. He's rich. He's famous. He owns the #1 pro wrestling company in the world. He's by most any account living the good life.

But there are so, so many other reasons to hate the chairman of the board. And that's where you came in. So before we dig into the ten biggest reasons you hate the boss (no, not that one. Not that one either. Or that one.), here are...

10 honorable mentions. Or ten more reasons to hate Vince McMahon. Wait... did I mean 10? I mean 11 honorable mentions. Yeah, there was a tie for tenth.

1.  In 2006, Vince and Shawn Michaels were in a feud over a comment the "heartbreak kid" made in late 2005. He basically told Vince it was time to hang it up and enjoy your retirement (something Shawn himself would do five years later). Eventually Vince's son Shane got involved. And if you know Vince, no subject's too taboo if it can make a few bucks. Case in point: religion. Vince McMahon signed off on (nah, scratch that. Vince came up with the idea I bet) a tag match where he and Shane would take on Shawn Michaels and God. Just let that sink in for a moment.

2. In three months, Vince McMahon will be 70 years old. Seventy. Let me put that in perspective for you: that's the last time the Chicago Cubs won a National League pennant. I can only hope that when I turn 70, my mind is as sharp then as it is now. However, that does not seem to be the case, as the same mind that brought us Hulkamania, the Attitude Era, and a virtual monopoly on wrestling in America is now seen as out of touch with the very fanbase he built—and abandoned. P.S. Pro wrestling is not only what your father did, it's what you do, whether you want to be known for it or not.

3. The same mind that brought Hulkamania and the Attitude Era also birthed the PG Era. Granted, going PG meant getting sponsors they couldn't get before and bringing a new audience. But it comes at the expense of character development that's a step back from even the days of WWF in the 1980s. Compelling PG writing is possible, yet seven years later, WWE's had a hard time figuring this out.

4. Perhaps the most infamous moment in wrestling history, in November 1997, Vince McMahon made the call to pull the trigger on the end of Bret Hart's tenure in the WWF the Montreal Screwjob. The fear of a repeat of what went down in 1995 with Madusa throwing the WWF Womens Championship in the garbage had to have played a part in the decision, but it created bad feelings between McMahon and Hart that wouldn't subside for more than a decade. And many fans still haven't forgiven the boss.

5. Kane and Big Show have been in the wrestling business since the 1990s. The two have been in the WWF together since 1999. That's what year the picture of Big Show and Kane is from. And here's them in 2005. And 2010. And 2015. The two have been in main event programs since Bill Clinton was president. Move on from these guys already. Loyalty is what gets wrestling promotions killed.

6. It's pretty much common knowledge that to get in good with the boss, you have to kiss his ass. After the 2001 Survivor Series, he took the concept a little further. Many would say one step too far when Vince McMahon opened his own Kiss My Ass Club. There was some speculation that there would be such a club for Stephanie McMahon (it was brought up twice: in 2002 and again in 2008), but thankfully common sense prevailed.

7. A wrestler's death is always tragic, but when someone tries to profit off a person's death, it gets uncomfortable for everyone. There was no bigger example of such than in late 2005 and most of 2006 when "Eddiesploitation", a play on blaxploitation which itself is a play on exploitation, was rampant throughout WWE. I get the commemorative shirts and DVD retrospectives on his life, but using him as a central figure in storylines—dude. Not cool. Not. Cool.

8. To say that Vince McMahon had a special place in his heart once upon a time for Hulk Hogan would be an understatement. After all, Hogan's success was tied to McMahon's success , as the "Immortal" held the WWF Championship for more than half his time there in his initial—and most—famous run. In 1993, the two people meant to represent the first generation of WWF superstars post-Hogan era were both buried...just like many other talents that came up against the Hogan mountain: Bret Hart and Yokozuna. One thing was for certain: Hogan was the star of the show, and everyone else was a bit player.

9. For man who claims to love the fans, Vince sure has a funny way of showing it. His product has been stale for years and there's little sign of improvement. The hottest stars of the last decade have all been snuffed out one way or another. In consecutive years, the Royal Rumble winner was booed out of the building—vociferously—by some of the most vocal fans in sports, yet doesn't understand why they boo. Hell, this is a man who may or may not have once said the "Yes!" chants were over and not Daniel Bryan.  Sure, he loves the fans that pay their way in, but deep down, he ignores and probably hates those same fans.

10.  In 2005, ECW put one an event that was intended very much to be a one-shot deal: One Night Stand. But as the old saying goes: anything worth doing is worth doing again, and one year later, thanks in part to the overwhelming demand, ECW was brought back as a third brand. And it took all of a month for it to be ruined. Rob Van Dam, at the time both the WWE and ECW world champion, gets busted for pot. Big Show wins ECW title because reasons, RVD is kicked down the card, the brand puts on an all-time horrific PPV wrapped up by Bobby Lashley winning the ECW title and not say...CM Punk for example, and the rest is history. Vince McMahon ruins ECW. It looked less and less like the revolutionary shot in the arm wrestling needed in the 1990s and more like just another WWE show. An awful WWE show. It was Heat, but with even less people you cared about.

11.  For most of the 1990s and 2000s, baseball's very history was stained with the infamous—yet wildly popular—steroid era. The same could be said for the WWF and their steroid era, peaking in the early 1990s. The push for bigger and bulkier wrestlers contributed, at least in part, to many wrestlers dying before their time, and if it weren't for a lack of concrete evidence, probably would have resulted in McMahon being in jail and the WWF's foundation crumbling to rubble as we know it.

Yeah. These were the HONORABLE MENTIONS. Now the real fun begins. Here, as decided by you, the Cagesider, here are...

The top 10 reasons why you hate Vince McMahon.

As always, a reminder: if your favorite didn't win, that's your fault. On with it.

10. He's too stubborn to hand over the reins of his company to his son-in-law. (photo via GettyImages)

We know for a fact that the company is going to get passed down to someone in his family. Once upon a time, that someone was his son Shane. But once Shane realized screw it, I'm not getting the keys, I'm out, we pretty much knew it would be in the hands of daddy's little girl Stephanie and her husband Paul Levesque (that's Triple H, kids). As I mentioned earlier, Vince is nearing 70. He's not gonna live forever as much as investors insist otherwise. Sometimes the only way you know how well the company will run after you're gone is to... you know, let him have it. If it's not meant to work out, it won't. But I have a feeling it will. Look what he's done with NXT. He turned it from useless reality show to best wrestling show on the planet.

Hashtag give Triple H a chance.

9. Vince McMahon running interference on commentary. (photo via aveleyman.com)

Vince McMahon on commentary was serviceable at best and... well, awful at worst. His carnival barker, over-the-top style of announcing was both perfect for his WWF vision... and its curse. Of course, it's been nearly 20 years since he's been behind the commentary table, but his influence is there behind the scenes, encouraging its mouthpieces to "tell stories" and not call wrestling moves, or these days, call anything BUT the match in progress. Look, Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, Booker T, JBL, and Tom Phillips can be serviceable commentators on their own, but with Vince in their ear, they're gonna to be on some level of suck for a long time if they haven't been already.

8. Racist gimmicks.

Look, I like to believe that Vince McMahon is a progressive man who believes in equal rights regardless of race, color, creed, religion, or sexual orientation.

But it's hard to think that when his mind came up with some of the most racist gimmicks in wrestling history: Iraqi sympathizer Sgt. Slaughter. Papa Shango. The Mexicools. Cryme Tyme. Saba Simba. Kerwin White. Akeem the African Dream. Virgil. Muhammad Hassan. Pretty much every Samoan ever. And that's just scratching the surface.

And that's not even getting to the perceived notion that if someone is of any persuasion other than Caucasian, there's a ceiling that most anyone of color in the WWE WILL hit. I mean, I'm pretty sure you can count the number of minorities that never got a fair shake in the company. And you'll probably be counting well into the next dya.

7. His loyalty to Kevin Dunn and Michael Hayes.

I'm sure by most accounts Kevin Dunn and Michael Hayes are good people. But the red on their ledger would be more than enough to have most people in their position unemployed.

Kevin Dunn while being a talented television producer has views on the wrestling business that are so backwards it makes you wonder if he can even get a job if he were born in a different decade. He's the man behind the RAW Diva Search, basically the competition that provided the WWE with a majority of its female talent from the time Trish Stratus and Lita left to the NXT era. Basically he sees the fairer sex as little more than eye candy. And he has a hatred for tradition for some reason. Of course, I could tell you why people hate Kevin Dunn. Or I could let someone who worked with Kevin Dunn do it for you. Take it away, ex-Smackdown creative member Alex Greenfield:

When I took over as the head writer of Smackdown in the summer of 2006, one of the first things we pitched was to replace Kevin Dunn as the executive producer and promote Tim Walbert to take over the position. Tim was one of our directors (something KD is actually no good at doing - he can't actually direct a live show to save his life) and was more than qualified for the job. We wanted Smackdown to look and feel like a completely different television than product - think in terms of Nitro vs. Raw - and for a little while Vince was intrigued by the idea (and Stephanie supported it as well).

Kevin, naturally, cared more about his fiefdom than trying something different with a show. He started his whisper campaign with Vince the moment we got off the plane (I intentionally did the initial pitch of the idea in Kevin's presence on a flight back from TV). He buried Tim, me, the idea of a different feel to the product as a whole. It's not just what another commenter said - that KD doesn't give a shit about wrestling and is all about sports/entertainment - it's that he wants to create an entertainment product that's like fast food. He wants his job to be easy.

That means neutralizing any threat. Stephanie took a shine to me pretty early in my time at WWE and started grooming me to take over a show. She was no fan of KD at that point and it was very clear to me that he and handful of Vince's other stooges would be gone at the moment of she and Hunter's coronation. There are plenty of writers out there who bury Steph at every opportunity, but I remain convinced that the company will be in better hands when she takes the reins.

Any rate, the faith Stephanie had in me did not go unnoticed by KD and he did not like that at all. He didn't like Stephanie having someone ambitious working for her, and he didn't like that I was clearly on her side. So he started burying me with bullshit. It got back to me that he'd told one of the segment producers that I'd been slipped a roofie and passed out in a hotel lobby.

This was not the case.

I got my heat back on him plenty, but it was a constant fight long before I was given the head writer nod. The more instructive part of the story is that Kevin did this with anyone he perceived as a threat. Vince is a bit capricious about who he lets in his ear. Whenever he got close with Bruce Prichard, KD would be right there the first time Bruce was out of earshot burying him. Same with Brian Gewritz. Same with JBL. Same with JR. Same with a long list of people, and this I personally observed. KD once tried to turn ME against another writer who was similarly ambitious. Anyone who posed a danger to Dunn's position from any perspective - a producer at the studio, a talent, whoever - KD would bury them to the boss. This was true even when there wasn't any real threat.

So yes, KD still has a job, but I think the way you treat people matters. There is certainly something to be said about being cutthroat in a corporate culture that rewards sociopathy. I was no kinda freaking angel to get ahead as quickly as I did. At the same time, WWE would be a better place to work that would present a better product if Kevin Dunn were gone.

This is a portion of one of the most rec'd comments in the history of this site. I'll get back to the misogyny a little later.

And then there's Michael Hayes. He has a history of spats with minorities and women, yet continues to be employed. A confrontation with Mark Henry got him suspended in 2008. His relationship with Milena Roucka (aka Rosa Mendes) got her off track towards recovery from her alcohol issues, and that got him suspended. He and Kevin are about as old school as old school can get. And Vince hanging on to both of them is preventing the WWE from truly progressing.

6. His continued insistence on pushing big men at the expense of smaller, better talent.

There's no secret that Vince McMahon loves his big men. Don't believe me?

I've always wanted to use this GIF in a post. Check one more off the bucket list.

Anyway, Vince's love for men with muscles within muscles within muscles has prevented many a performer from getting significant pushes in his company. Don't get me wrong: larger than life personalities are cool, but larger than life personalities come from people of all sizes and abilities. Case in point: Shawn Michaels. Ricky Steamboat. Randy Savage. Daniel Bryan. Seth Rollins. But the purveying thought, even in 2015, is if you have "the look", you go right to the front of the line, even if you have limited wrestling ability (looking at you, Roman Reigns pre-March 29, 2015). A roster full of people having "the look" is what drove the WWF--and its boss--to the brink of a jail sentence in the early 1990s.

5. The burial of WCW post-purchase.

Vince McMahon's always dreamed of a wrestling world where he was the only game in town. He tried it in the 1980s with Hulkamania and the WWF's rapid national expansion wiping out the territorial system as we knew it. Most everyone was swept away--except for what would become WCW. But in 2001, even they were swallowed hole for pennies on the dollar by the McMahon machine. Immediately, wrestling fans salivated over the thought of dream matches that would have never taken place otherwise.

Then the Invasion happened.

WCW were made to look like fools over, and over, and over again, never looking like a credible threat to the WWF juggernaut. The storyline was mercy killed by the end of the year, with four WWF guys actually fighting for WCW's future. In fact, the final Winner Take All match at Survivor Series had exactly three people who spent significant time in WCW, but two of the three had become so associated with the WWF by this point, their WCW time was just a blip on the radar. And if you thought Vince was done kicking the competition he bought in the dirt, you'd be wrong.

In the decade and a half since, Vince has willfully allowed--hell, he might have ordered it for all I know--to continue burying the company that nearly drove him out of business. Many of WCW's top names during their prime years didn't come over until long after the Invasion ended, and once they came, most were made to look like fools. Their contributions to the wrestling business have been diminished or outright whitewashed. And even more than a decade after the last shots of the Monday Night Wars, Vince still has to get his digs in on the corpse: Triple H, career B+ player, defeated the "franchise of WCW" at Wrestlemania this past March.

We get it, Vince. Your side won. Now move on from it already.

4. The "brass ring" comment.

In terms of recent comments he's made, I'm almost certain if given a do-over, Vince would take this back.

Ok, who am I kidding?

McMahon's infamous "brass ring" comments from the Stone Cold Podcast late last year ended up doing more harm than good, not for the roster, but for the man that made it. It basically was a look into the psyche of the man who many argue is driving his creation into the river. In separate comments in the SAME INTERVIEW, Vince (a) told his roster needs to step up, (b) yet aren't seen as ambitious as those of the Attitude Era because "haha, millenials", (c) yet don't piss anyone off.

You see the problem with this, don't you, Cagesider?

Why would anybody step up for fear of pissing off management and losing their jobs? Why would anybody bother to be ambitious if they'll never be seen in the same light as their predecessors? Why would anyone try to become a star when people who get over largely on their own or organically (i.e. Zack Ryder, Dolph Ziggler, Cesaro, Daniel Bryan, and a LAUNDRY LIST of others) get snuffed out? The brass ring isn't imaginary, as CM Punk once said in his infamous "pipebomb". It totally exists. It only goes to the ones McMahon deem worthy. Thus the reason why even though logic dictated Daniel Bryan main evented Wrestlemania 31 for a chance to regain the championship he never lost in a match, Roman Reigns got the slot instead. This is the reason why your favorite midcarder is just that: a midcarder for life. It smacks of another promotion. One that existed in our lifetime. One McMahon bought. You know the one.

3. His constant bullying of Jim Ross.

I know this will chap the ass of a few of you, but Jim Ross is the greatest voice of professional wrestling in my lifetime, and it's not even close. Ok, maybe it is close. Like being down 10 at the two-minute warning with the ball and a chance to score close. But I digress. Ross has voiced many of the greatest moments in wrestling history, including nearly every significant moment of the Attitude and Ruthless Aggression eras. Behind the scenes, Ross was largely responsible for forming the rosters for those eras as head of talent relations.

Yet, McMahon treated Ross like shit his entire time there.

It started literally on day one of the job at Wrestlemania IX in 1993 when Ross dressed in a toga outfit. Mind you, kids: Ross took a buyout from WCW for his more famous gig. There's so much more kids. Take it away, Keith Harris.

Tiger Ali Singh and a fan Singh paid $500 to impersonate Ross (played by Ed Ferrara) mocking his Bell's palsy in an angle in the spring of 1999 at a time when Ross was being portrayed as a bitter heel for being outraged at being permanently replaced by Michael Cole in his absence.

Always being booked in humiliating angles in his hometown of Oklahoma City, most notably being booked to be forced to join Mr. McMahon's Kiss My Ass club by The Undertaker in late 2001. (ED: And being beaten down by Stone Cold Steve Austin in the same city earlier that year.)

Triple H giving him a black eye and damaged vision during a match together allegedly as payback for lowballing him on contracts and stiffing him on payoffs.

Mr. McMahon making fun of his real life colon surgery in a mean spirited skit.

Being given a surprise birthday present of being soaked in champagne by a dancing Big Dick Johnson, ruining his suit which he had to fly back home in.

Not being told in advance that he was being drafted to Smackdown in 2008 in what was an intentional snub.

Being removed from the WWE TV opening video without any warning as punishment for giving a gushing interview with Ariel Helwani at UFC 116.

Somehow getting legitimately injured by an "overexcited" Jack Swagger on Raw earlier this year when he was put in a basic ankle lock.

Pulled from the Summerslam 2011 broadcast...on the day of the show.

McMahon mocks Ross' Bells' Palsy condition.

McMahon blames--then fires--Jim Ross for Ric Flair's behavior at a legends' symposium to promote WWE 2K14.

If I can be blunt, I don't think McMahon ever liked Ross. Maybe he did on some level; after all, you don't keep anyone around for 21 years...unless he knows things you don't want out there and will get out there the second you let him go. The fact that McMahon went with Michael Cole over a man who's forgotten more wrestling than I'll ever know pretty much tells you all you need to know about the man.

If you got about ten minutes, Keith put together a (mostly) complete list of what Ross had to deal with on McMahon's watch. It's ugly to say the least.

2. CenaWinsLOL.

This dates back to the days of Hulk Hogan, but it perfectly applies here. It's known among the Internet Wrestling Community as the "Cena Mountain". You debut, you get over with the fans, you make a name for yourself, maybe even win a title.

And then you feud with John Cena. Then after getting kiddie insults and your face Photoshopped on weird pictures and being called Justin Bieber and the like, you get beaten by Cena. You might beat him once, but it will ALWAYS be due to shenanigans. Eventually, the feud ends, Cena goes over, and it's bitch, you don't have a future territory for you... which is where Bray Wyatt and Rusev, two of the four hottest heels in WWE in recent memory, reside. It's where Wade Barrett resides. It's where Ryback resides. It's where so many countless others reside. Vince is DEATHLY afraid of letting his cash cow lose. While the mantra of "the champ" is "Never Give Up", the audience that he caters to most are the ones that probably will when Cena goes on a losing streak.

And we can't have that now, can we Vince?

1. His misogyny on constant display.

I've addressed this earlier in the countdown: WWE has a warped view on women. This "Mean Girls" vibe amongst the main roster is nothing new. Decent character development among the fairer sex has been almost nonexistent since the days of the Diva Search era. Generally, WWE's divas have been seen as slutty, catty, crazy, or bitchy. Sometimes two or more of these things. Sometimes all four at once.

Actually, Vince and misogyny when it comes to the women of WWE goes back a lot further than that. I'd tell you, but I'll let a representative of the fairer sex take it from here. Cagesider LadyBlack, take it away:

His company actively discriminates against and treats women and female characters like crap. Pure and simple. Women in the WWE are treated as one-dimensional objects meant only to meet the sexual satisfactions of men. That is it.

This pretty much sums it up.

Even in 2001, this was uncomfortable to watch. And that's why you, the Cagesiders, decided, this was the biggest reason to hate Vince McMahon.

P.S.: They're women, Vince and Kevin. Women.

Maybe CM Punk is right. Maybe the WWE will be better off after Vince McMahon is dead.

But we shouldn't be wishing death on anyone. That's just bad karma. However, wishing for a healthy retirement sooner than later is fair game. Vince: do that. For all of us.

Did your reason make it? What other reasons are there to hate the chairman?