Wrestling World Champions and their women

 

WWE Champion Bobby Lashley with random hos. (top left) 

NXT Champion Karrion Kross with Scarlett. (top right) 

WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns with his wife. (buttom left) 

AEW World Championship, the AAA Mega Championship, and the Impact World Championship Kenny Omega posing with the AEW World Tag Team Champions The Young Bucks (buttom right). Arguably, the best wrestler and tag team in the world. They don't call him the Bi-God for nothing.

They are the four Wrestling World Champions as of today, 2021, June 27.

HOW TO BE A COMBAT SPORTS PROMOTER

P.T. Barnum

This post was originally published on BillionaireGambler and can also be applied to people who want to promote themselve and/or their business(es). The people cited below are some of the greatest promoters of all time. They became MultiMillionaire, CentiMillionaire, and even Billionaire (VKM) from their craft. They got Rich by being promoter extraordinaire.

Dana White ranks the best promoters of all time (P.T. Barnum, Vince McMahon, Don King, Bob Arum, him last), and give a special place to Mama Kardashian / Kris Jenner.

“That’s a tough one, man. I think if you look at the fact that people still know who the (expletive) PT Barnum is, you’d have to go with PT Barnum as No. 1. Um, I’d probably put Vince No. 2. Vince and Don are both up there in age. Vince is still in there, (expletive) doing his thing, cutting huge major deals. I would put Don King No. 3. Who else did you have? You’d have to put Arum in there, too. You have to put Arum in there. And if I had to be on there, I’d put me last.”

"I have no idea. I don't think I'd be someone who would make that decision. I think there are a lot of great promoters. People know who Barnum is, Vince McMahon has been around a long time. Don King. Mama Kardashian, if she isn't the greatest promoter of all time, I don't know who is. The show is about nothing and her daughters are some of the most famous people on earth and are making millions. I don't think you could count her out. I'm very proud of what we've been able to do and we've done things that people have never done before, things even boxing couldn't do in its heyday. I don't think about who's the greatest promoter of all time."


VINCE MCMAHON vs P.T. BARNUM
Vince McMahon and P.T. Barnum lived a century apart, but have tremendous similarities in their desire to dazzle the public with a mix of reality and fantasy. Both showmen have sought to provide "bigger than life" attractions, which have been effective in very different eras.



Key traits of P.T. Barnum, the successful entrepreneur:

1. Started with no financial advantage or backing.

2. Major risk taker.

3. Dreamed big dreams.

4. Understood his audience.

5. Willing to ignore the truth; created his own "truths".

6. Hustler

7. Generated excitement

8. Self promoting

9. Master of promotion; able to get audiences to suspend disbelief.

10. Presented attractions "bigger than life" (George Washington’s "nurse," Jumbo the Elephant, Jenny Lind, etc.)


Key traits of Vince McMahon, the successful entrepreneur:

1. Started with no financial advantage, but did have a "foot in the door" with his father’s business.

2. Visionary.

3. A big risk-taker, who achieved big rewards as a result.

4. Amazing passion for the business; it is his life.

5. Willing to work non-stop to succeed.

6. Creative genius.

7. Understands his audience and delivers.

8. Brutal competitor.

9. Doesn’t just "think big" – thinks huge!

10. Seen by some as ruthless; by many as relentless.


Similarities

-- both built businesses that impacted the entertainment industry in ways no one expected.
-- both active participants "in the spotlight" in worlds that they created; both spent time at the microphone.

-- "bigger is better" -- Jumbo the Elephant for Barnum; Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant for McMahon.

-- both mixed reality with fantasy.

-- both risk takers.

-- both brought creativity, innovation to entertainment.

-- both pioneers in their achievements.

-- both used "shock value" to capture an audience.

-- both wanted to "wow" people.

-- both controlled their show’s content.

-- both appealed to violent nature and lurid curiosity.

-- both used Madison Square Garden as a key venue for their shows.

-- both supported hospitals and charitable causes: McMahon supporting Make-a-Wish; Barnum the first president of Bridgeport Hospital in CT.


Differences

 -- Barnum was a loner; Vince brought his family in.

-- PT took a bizarre and scary approach to entertain; Vince did it with more glitz and power.

-- Barnum performed himself aggressively on the lecture circuit: museums, ten gatherings, theaters, private homes. Vince became a central character on his weekly TV shows, as the WWE owner Mr. McMahon. 

-- Barnum was a politician: he held offices as Republican representative for Fairfield, CT, as well as Mayor of Bridgeport. To date, Vince McMahon has not shown a desire to run for office, although his wife Linda has.

http://www.businessjournalz.org/articlepdf/bmr1715o18.pdf



VINCE MCMAHON vs DANA WHITE

UFC fans don't want to hear this, but Vince McMahon is clearly Dana White's business role model. The WWE has built its business on the following:

• Use of free cable TV programming to reach fans and promote Pay Per Views
• PPV as the big revenue driver
• Aggressive international expansion
• Ruthlessly compete against domestic competitors and buy any that are too big to crush
• Use the brand and the company executives as the front man of the company to prevent any single fighter/performer from getting too big.

The UFC has built its business on those five pillars.

http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2011/4/13/2106234/the-difference-between-mark-cuban-and-dana-white-and-vince-mcmahon


SO YOU WANNA BE A FIGHT PROMOTER!

TOP 5 PROMOTERS EXTRAORDINAIRES

Vince McMahon
Pro Wrestling / WWE

Don King
Boxing

Bob Arum
Boxing

Dana White
MMA / UFC

Joe Weider
Bodybuilding

GREATEST COMBAT SPORTS PROMOTERS

How to Become a Billionaire Promoter like Vince McMahon

How to Be a Fight Promoter (Boxing, Wrestling, MMA) part 2

This article was originally published in BillionaireGambler.com by yours truly.

https://www.billionairegambler.com/2013/02/promoter-how-to.html

Jon Jones is a Kung Fu Fighter

If you think Kung Fu is dead. 

Think again.

Kung Fu fighting is alive and kicking (pun intended) right here, right now in the UFC.

Furthermore, Jon Jones should be considered its most efficient practionner.

Need proofs?

Here are some of Jon Jones' most effective and favorite maneuvers. All originating from Chinese Martial Arts umbrella aka kung fu.

• His trademark eye pokes/finger jabs. 👀
• His fearsome knee stomp kicks (directly from Wing Chun Kung Fu and also used by Anderson Silva)
• Trapping elbows.
• Shoulder strikes (also used successfully by Connor McGregor)
• Shoulder and elbow breaking clinch techniques (also used by "Iron" Mike Tyson himself but borrowed from Feeding Crane Fist Kung Fu).
• Crawling around the floor (from Animal Kung Fu).

Proofs that Kung Fu can be extremely effective when you drop all the flowery bullshit surrounding it.

Unlike what you think, Kung Fu wasn't created to look cool in martial arts movies. 

And Kung Fu wasn't created to be a sport with points, rules, figures, and all that bullshit.

Kung Fu was originally a self-defense Art. 

And a damn effective one...

Jon Jones is a former two-time UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, holding the title from March 2011 to April 2015 and from December 2018 to August 2020. 

Jon Jones also held the interim UFC Light Heavyweight Championship in 2016. 

Jon Jones is #1 in the UFC men's pound-for-pound rankings.

Became the youngest UFC Champion in history at age 23.

Has an MMA record of 26 - 1 (1 no-contest). 

His only loss is a disqualification. Not for eye pokes but for 12-6 elbow, another of his kung fu technique. 

His no-contest is in fact a win against Daniel Cormier who was overturned after he tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. Oups!

Only 33 years old, 13 years pro, 6'4" with a wingspan of 84.5". 

He is maybe the future UFC Heavyweight Champion.

Now, knowing all these facts, can we add one more accolade to his impressive resume?

Jon Jones is the Greatest Kung Fu Fighter of All Time

You can bet your ass he is.

Sources and interesting links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Jones

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_martial_arts

https://www.dynastyclothingstore.com/blogs/editorial/kung-fu-on-the-cusp-of-a-modern-fighting-resurgence-mma

https://www.dynastyclothingstore.com/blogs/editorial/where-are-the-chinese-fighters-why-mma-has-not-flourished-in-chinese-society

https://youtu.be/HuKp0G_tLKA

https://youtu.be/Me561PrMRp4

https://www.dragoninst.com/blog/wing-chun-in-mma/

https://expertfightingtips.com/en/i-dont-want-you-to-look-at-me-i-dont-want-you-to-see-me-the-finger-jab-in-the-eyes/

https://mmajunkie.usatoday.com/2017/07/how-many-fouls-does-jon-jones-commit-in-the-cage-let-us-count-the-ways

Matt Hardy Family Office

Matt Hardy Family Office emblem.

While watching the weekly AEW (All Elite Wrestling) episode, with my mind on my Money and my Money on my mind, something caught my attention.

The Hardy Family Office. I know that a family office is a family/company having the sole purpose to manage the assets of the filthy rich family in question. This strategy is usually used by disgraced hedge fund managers who can't trade OPM (Other's People Money) anymore.

But, being a nerd who happens to be passionate about Money and all things around it. I naturally wanted to know more.

I wanted to know if Matt Hardy is rich enough to be a Family Office?

A Family Office aka SFO for Single Family Office is a privately held company that handles investment management and wealth management for a wealthy family or entrepreneur, generally one with over $100 million in investable assets, with the goal being to effectively grow and transfer wealth across generations (King Maxel, Lord Wolfgang Xander, and Baron Bartie's future grandchildren). 

The company's financial capital is the family's own wealth. Family offices also may handle tasks such as managing household staff (Senor Benjamin), making travel arrangements, property management, day-to-day accounting and payroll activities, management of legal affairs, family management services, family governance, financial and investor education, coordination of philanthropy and private foundations, and succession planning. A family office can cost over $1 million a year to operate, about 1% of the asset under management (AUM), so the family's net worth usually exceeds $100 million in investable assets. 

A family office either is, or operates just like, a corporation or limited liability company, with officers and a support staff. Officers are compensated per their arrangement with the family, usually with incentives based on the profits or capital gains generated by the office. Family offices are often built around core assets that are professionally managed. As profits are created, assets are deployed into investments. 

Family offices might invest in private equity, venture capital opportunities, hedge funds, and commercial real estate. Many family offices turn to hedge funds for alignment of interest based on risk and return assessment goals. Some family offices remain passive and just allocate funds to outside managers.

More Tony Khan league than Matt Hardy.

Tony Khan net worth: $7 Billion. More than enough to buy a few tag teams.

Matt Hardy (self-proclaimed richest man in North Carolina... Jeff) net worth: $7 Million. 

Wealthy and confortable but thousandfold less than AEW owner Tony Khan.

Maybe that's the difference between a patron and a carny. Vince McMahon is most likely a mixture of both. Something between 20% patron and 80% carny.

Okay, my mistake. VKM is 99% carny. And I'm far from being certain about the 1% patron if he ever was.

Let's get back to the Family Office stuff....

I love Money so I've got a little overwhelming during my researchs.

But wait a minute, there isn't managing the career of mid-card wrestlers mention anywhere in the Family Office tasks. Maybe it's under the Private Equity / Venture section. I hope he has a good exit strategy. Maybe a tax write-off?

Maybe it is in fact a Matt Hardy's machiavellian long-term plan to turn into cheap labours for his Hardy Compound?

Senor Benjamin doesn't seems to need help that bad...

 

Jade Cargill would have been a much better investment than this bunch of jabronis.

More expensive, but a lot more prestigious for the Hardy Family Office.

If Matt Hardy had all this structure around his hypothetical $100 Million. I don't think he would waste his time playing a sleazy wrestling impresario aka rich manipulative money grabbing carny trying to screw his wrestlers out of a couple $10Ks. No even enough to pay for the administrative fees of his Hardy Family Office. But maybe just enough to pay for the Hardy Compound management.

The Hardy Compound in North Carolina

The Hardy Family Office just failed my "if this shit was real" test.

Delete.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_office

https://www.opalesque.com/horizons/29/workforce-family-office-c-level-executives-have.html

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/family-offices.asp

https://qz.com/1412024/how-to-invest-like-a-billionaire-tips-from-family-offices/

https://www.sundialvfo.com/virtual-family-office/

https://www.advisor.ca/news/industry-news/the-family-office-evolved-3/

Interesting links that I've found while googling VKM and carny:

https://prowrestlingstories.com/pro-wrestling-stories/evel-knievel-vince-mcmahon-snake-river-canyon-jump/

https://www.kayfabenews.com/mcmahon-re-launching-world-bodybuilding-federation/

https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/why-vince-mcmahon-cant-stop-obsessing-over-trying-to-beat-the-nfl

Shaw Brothers Universe (Hong Kong Kung Fu movies)

Between 760 to 1,000 films in all.
One movie every week and turning a profit on each.

The Shaw Brothers ruled it all. They make movies with their own stars, actors, stuntmen, technicians, fan magazines, editors, sound stagers, composers, editors, etc. Everything was done in house.

Shaw Brothers Studio was modeled after the classic Hollywood system, with hundreds of actors signed to exclusive contracts. While other studios rotated cast members, Shaw Brothers assigned certain groups of actors to work exclusively with certain directors.

In its heyday, it was considered to be the world’s largest privately owned movie production studio with around 23 buildings laid out across the 46 acre site. With residential buildings for actors and crew as well as private homes, it was somewhat of a movie sweatshop, and it came to be known as Movietown.

Shaw Brothers Studio is largely known for his Martial Arts movies. However "only" 260 are Martial Arts movies.



260 Kung Fu movies over 22 years. (average 11.8 movies per year)

Since you all know how much I love Money, I will throw you some number$.

In 2007, Forbes estimated the worth of the Shaw media empire at $3.5 Billion.

1 HK$ = 0.129 USD$

Movie magnate and philanthropist Run Run Shaw’s total assets were more than HK$20 Billion (USD$2.58 Billion).

Interesting links:
http://shawbrothersuniverse.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaw_Brothers_Studio

https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2016/07/06/get-your-infinite-shaw-brothers-fix-at-great-new-website
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/gigiriva/complete_list_of_shaw_brothers_martial_arts_movies/
https://vallandingham.me/shaw_bros_analysis.html

https://www.yanggallery.com.sg/news/billionaire-art-collector-movie-magnate-he-lived-till-107-donated-47-billion/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/run-run-shaw-dies-at-668752
http://www.presidiopenthouse.com/tycoonvillage/runrun.html
https://hongkongfp.com/2015/09/18/hkfp-lens-exploring-the-shaw-studios-as-the-grade-i-listed-site-faces-demolition/

http://iloveshawbrothersmovies.blogspot.com/2015/12/beginnings.html