Vince McMahon

In the world of sports and sports entertainment, few promoters have been as successful as Vincent K. McMahon. He was born Vincent Kennedy McMahon on August 24, 1945 in Pinehurst, North Carolina, to Victoria (Askew) and Vincent McMahon, a second-generation wrestling promoter. The young Vince eventually transformed his father's regional wrestling promotion, the northeastern U. S. 's World-Wide Wrestling Federation (later World Wrestling Federation, or WWF), into a worldwide success. Vince, who attended Fishborne Military School as a youth, was a star wrestler in high school. He eventually graduated from East Carolina University with a degree in marketing.

He graduated from East Carolina University in 1964 with a degree in Marketing.

By the early 1970s, the younger Vince convinced his father to hire him as promoter for his company, Capitol Wrestling Corp.

(which promoted wrestling events as the WWF) He promoted his first WWF wrestling card in 1971 (in Bangor, Maine); the event was a rousing success, and started Vince Jr. 's rise to professional wrestling glory.

In 1972, the then 27-year-old McMahon began providing play-by-play commentary for the WWF's weekly syndicated program; at the same time, he helped increase market clearances for the WWF's syndicated programs from nine northeastern U. S.

stations (in 1972) to more than triple that by 1980.

In 1982, the younger Vince purchased the Capitol Wrestling Corp.

Brought Hulk Hogan back to the World Wrestling Federation in 1983. Before, his father had dismissed the then-unknown grappler as nothing more than "flavor of the month". But after _Rocky III (1982), Hogan's popularity skyrocketed and McMahon decided to hire him.

from his ailing father (he died in 1984), and began planning a vision to become the world's largest and most successful wrestling enterprise by giving the WWF a much broader audience. McMahon accomplished that through combining the traditional sport of wrestling with elements from the entertainment world (hence the term, sports entertainment); and giving the promotion a national audience (by promoting WWF events and selling airtime to local stations nationwide; airing weekly programs and pay-per-view events on cable and satellite TV).

He also initiated one of the first successful major wrestling events, 1985's WrestleMania.

Both WrestleMania IV (1988) and WrestleMania V (1989) were held in Trump Plaza in Atlantic City, NJ. When WrestleMania magazine asked 'Donald Trump' what the best part of the show was, he replied, "Getting to know Vince McMahon". At Madison Square Garden, when Trump was asked why he was sitting front row at a WWF house show, he replied, "Because I love the action and I'm a great friend of Vince's".

On July 22, 1994, he was acquitted of conspiracy to distribute steroids to wrestlers.

At the Survivor Series (1997) in 1997, he shocked the wrestling world by screwing Bret Hart out of the WWF title. He then used the screwjob incident to turn himself into the biggest heel in the company.

Won the WWF Royal Rumble: No Chance in Hell (1999).

Purchased Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling organization after former WCW President 'Eric Bischoff' in March 2001 and his partners in Fusient Media Ventures backed out of the deal, thereby owning his own competition. In real life, McMahon's World Wrestling Entertainment now owns World Championship Wrestling, its film library, and all its trademarked items, and his son Shane McMahon is the man who oversees everything that happens in WCW, but in television story lines Shane bought the WCW out from under his father and thus is now being billed on TV as WCW owner Shane McMahon. [March 2001]

Listed at #260 on Forbes.com's "400 Richest Americans" list, reportedly worth $700 million. [March 2002]

When Kane was forced to remove his mask after losing a match in 2003, he and Glenn Jacobs were the only WWE employees who were completely behind the decision.

Became a grandfather on February 13th, 2004, when son Shane McMahon's son, Declan James McMahon, was born.

In January 2005, during the Royal Rumble (2005) Pay-Per-View, he injured his quad while entering the ring. The injury caused by a wrong foot plant, similar to injuries suffered by both Paul Levesque (aka "Triple H") and Kevin Nash.

Daughter Stephanie McMahon and her husband Paul Levesque welcomed their new baby daughter. Aurora Rose Levesque was born on Monday July 24 2006. Aurora weighs in at 8lbs 7oz.

The first WWE personality to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The star was awarded/placed on Friday March 13, 2008 and sits adjacent to Kermit the Frog's star.

Inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2011.