The World Bodybuilding Federation was Vince McMahon’s radical idea to revolutionize the sport of bodybuilding. The WBF planned to bring bigger prize money as well as more “dramatic” events to bodybuilding. The events would differ from other bodybuilding events by incorporating wrestling-style elements, like highly produced entrances, kayfabe ring names, and personas as well as hyper wrestling-style interviews.
The press release for the WBF stated that it would, "revamp professional bodybuilding with dramatic new events and the richest prize money in the history of the sport." Living up to their promise, Vince McMahon signed a number of the International Federation of BodyBuilding's top stars to big-money contracts, with some reaching annual salaries of $400,000, dwarfing the IFBB contracts, before the first WBF event had taken place.
Vince’s Ambush Marketing
At the IFBB’s Mr. Olympia event in 1990, Vince McMahon purchased a booth at the competition and during the event’s closing ceremonies Tom Platz, Vince’s right-hand man in the WBF endeavor, took to the stage to announce the formation of the WBF as a direct competitor to the IFBB and proclaimed that they would “kick the IFBB's ass!” At an IFBB event! A group of models in WBF sashes would then distribute WBF pamphlets to a dumbfounded audience and Vince’s team would secretly slip contract offers under the doors of the IFBB competitor’s hotel rooms.
The next day during a press conference, Vince McMahon explained the WBF planned to feature “bodybuilding the way it was meant to be,” which many experts interpreted as the WBF wasn't going to test for anabolic steroids. In the wake of the WBF’s sudden arrival, IFBB confounder Ben Weider said that the WBF’s ambush marketing “wasn't a sophisticated or very honorable thing to do,” though he wasn’t mad at their intrusion and condescendingly said, “But what the heck, we let them have their fun.”
The WBF’s Events
The WBF signed 13 competitors to its bodybuilding league, which included a number of IFBB regulars (who were subsequently banned from future IFBB competitions). With a roster of bodybuilders set, the WBF held its first event on June 15, 1991, at Donald Trump’s Taj Mahal in Atlantic City on pay-per-view. Members of the roster were named “WBF BodyStars” similar to wrestlers being named “Superstars”, the BodyStars were given ring names like Tony "The Jet Man" Pearson, and they were given entrance videos during their performances to showcase their kayfabe personas. The event was hosted by Regis Philbin and Bobby "The Brain" Heenan and the competition would consist of two mandatory pose rounds, followed by an “entertainment” round, which involved kayfabe skits that would conclude live in front of the audience.
The first event was met with mixed reviews, with many praising the high production values as well as the emphasis on the competitor’s personalities, although the use of professional wrestling-style antics turned off bodybuilding purists. As the whole thing was presented in a wrestling style, this led to many thinking the whole thing was predetermined like wrestling was, which was a death knell for the WBF being taken seriously as a legitimate competition.
To hype the second WBF event, Vince McMahon signed Incredible Hulk star Lou Ferrigno to a multi-million dollar contract. Ferrigno even appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson stating his intentions to compete in the WBF. Ferrigno said that the WBF had the "strictest drug testing in all of professional sports." However, that simply wasn’t true, the WBF didn’t do any steroid testing in its first event and in March 1992, just months before the next event, Vince McMahon announced they would begin drug testing. This announcement came as a great surprise to most of the roster, who despite spouting the drug-free company line, were definitely not drug-free.
In the lead-up to the 1992 event, many of the WBF Bodystars failed drug tests, resulting in fines and suspensions for most of the roster. Ferrigno pulled out of the event not long after signing, legitimately needing carpal tunnel surgery. At the event, most of the competitors were visibly out of shape as a result of their drug-free regime, a fact which was frequently acknowledged by Vince McMahon on commentary. The whole event was a failure, resulting in just 3,000 pay-per-view buys.
A month after the 1992 event, Vince McMahon phoned the IFBB's co-founders Ben and Joe Weider to tell them the WBF would be disbanding and asked the IFBB to allow the WBF members who were banned from competition to be allowed back in.
The WBF failed so badly as a result of its close connection to professional wrestling, wrestling fans didn’t care about bodybuilding and bodybuilding fans didn’t care about wrestling. The decision to mix the two was the real death blow for the WBF. Its wishy-washy stance on steroid testing also didn't help matters.