VINCE MCMAHON LOSES HIS DICK
By Justin Henry

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The headline indicates that WWE’s CEO and Chairman was involved in a bizarre Ginsu knife accident, but, as you likely guessed, the words I used are merely a pun relating to another story.

Instead, the story is about a man you may, or may not, be familiar with.

Duncan Ebersol, known professionally as Dick Ebersol, resigned from NBC Universal Sports today, leaving his future with NBC, dating back to the 1970’s, largely in limbo.

Ebersol’s had a very colorful history with the ‘Peacock network’. One of his first major moves, as a young man in his twenties, was to hire Lorne Michaels as producer of a genre-defining sketch comedy movement in 1975, something that exists to this day as Saturday Night Live.

The series that featured, in its first five years, not-yet stars such as Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, and John Belushi, brought a sense of giddy danger to America’s airwaves, with Michaels calling the shots. In 1980, citing burnout and a desire to move on to Hollywood, virtually everyone from the show, writers included (except Brian Doyle-Murray) left SNL. Michaels was off to Tinseltown with the rest of the troupe, seeking further fortune.

After the 1980-81 season, with an all new cast, proved disastrous, new producer Jean Doumanian was fired before the season had concluded. Ebersol was asked by friend, and future NBC honcho/boy genius, Brandon Tartikoff to take over.

Ebersol took over, and from 1981-85, the man who was more known for his political savvy than his creative mind (of which many claimed he had none), kept the show afloat by trusting the instincts of his talent and writers, while keeping the network and their attempts at censorship off their backs.

Acting as the show’s safety buffer, Ebersol watched new stars rise during his tenure. Some, like Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Joe Piscopo, achieved various successes, while a young black comic from New York City named Eddie Murphy became the face of the show, carrying SNL through one of its roughest periods, all while becoming a multi-millionaire before his mid-twenties.

Ebersol left SNL in 1985, with Michaels returning to previous post for the following season, a spot he remains in to this day. One month after he produced his final episode of Saturday Night Live, Ebersol found something else to do on Saturday nights.

Ebersol struck up a friendship with Vince McMahon around this time, and Ebersol, looking for shows to produce with his NBC-affiliated production company “No Sleep Productions”, helped bring professional wrestling back to network television for the first time in decades.

In May 1985, two unlikely friends created Saturday Night’s Main Event. McMahon, overdressed in suave three-piece suits, teamed with Ebersol, who never left home without his sweaters and slacks, looking as WASPy as Judge Smails, to co-produce a night of matches from Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum.

It was the perfect marriage. McMahon was the master of character development and storytelling, and Ebersol, thanks to nearly two decades of television production at both ABC and NBC, provided a foundation for camera blocking and lighting that the WWF, nor any other wrestling company, had ever thought to use before.

Dick Ebersol, in many ways, paved the way for the HD sets and multi-camera setups of Raw, Smackdown, Impact, and pay per views that you see today.

The tapings for Saturday Night’s Main Event took place on a Friday night. With less than 24 hours to prepare the video, Ebersol and his staff meticulously chopped and spliced video and sound together in their studio. Reportedly, when Ebersol showed Vince and Linda McMahon the finished product, McMahon was speechless.

As the expose book “Sex, Lies, and Headlocks” claims, McMahon “never knew wrestling could look like that”.

And so, thanks to this supposed uncreative Dutch Boy-lookalike, professional wrestling would change forever.

Previous television tapings for the WWF were held in agricultural halls and armories, and featured bland, straight-on camera setups. Now, it was off to arenas with thousands of sets, with four trucks carrying all of the production equipment necessary to present wrestling as many fans had never seen before.

Ebersol took over NBC’s Sports division in 1989, after several years of helping McMahon produce those SNME’s, as well as many early WWF pay per views. Outside of wrestling, Ebersol was instrumental in acquiring Olympic rights for the network, as well as several World Series, Super Bowls, NBA and NHL games.

Along the way, however, McMahon and Ebersol drifted apart. In 1991, Main Event aired for the final time on NBC, with two specials airing on FOX in 1992. As wrestling became less mainstream, thanks to the steroid trials and general waning interest, not to mention the raunchiness of the Attitude Era that kept wrestling off of network TV, Ebersol and McMahon seemed to have dissolved all future partnership.

Until 2006.

When WWE returned to USA in 2005, they found themselves part of a lucrative syndicate, now that USA, among other networks, was part of the NBC Universal family. Before long, Ebersol and McMahon were at it again, producing more episodes of Saturday Night’s Main Event, now airing in prime time, on NBC, running through 2008.

That’s not to mention the Tribute to the Troops specials, as well as WrestleMania recap shows that have aired in the late summer seasons.

Dick Ebersol is a divisive figure. To many, especially former SNL talents, he’s a bullying hack that rode Lorne Michaels’ coattails, and has never made anyone laugh in his entire life, except for his penchant to wear Christmas-style sweaters in June.

But to Vince McMahon, Ebersol is everything he’s wanted in a partner: not only did he provide a playbook on how to produce good television, making a fun wrestling product even more vivid and exciting, but he gave McMahon something that few others have given him.

Respect.

For every executive and higher-up that ever looked down on McMahon for producing “rasslin”, there was Ebersol to open doors for him, and make him feel important.

Wherever Ebersol ends up from here, there’s a 65-year-old billionaire in Stamford that’s grateful for everything he’s done.

And we, as fans, should be as well.

(Justin Henry is a freelance writer whose interests are rooted in NFL, MLB, NBA, wrestling, MMA, and entertainment. He can be found on Twitter and on Facebook so check him out)