Bully Ray Explains Why Vince McMahon Tried To Distance WWE From 'Pro Wrestling' Label

Bully Ray has explained why Vince McMahon referred to WWE as sports entertainment rather than pro wrestling, and why the company no longer needs to do so.

One of McMahon's many idiosyncrasies was his directive that everyone refer to WWE as sports entertainment. Ray explained on "Busted Open" that McMahon wanted it to be referred to that way purely for financial reasons.

"There's no reason why it shouldn't be referred to as professional wrestling, because at the end of the day, the only reason why Vince wanted to get away from the word is because he wanted to get past paying Athletic Commission taxes. This was not a legitimate sport. This was staged sports entertainment, thus, I don't have to pay the taxes for the Athletic Commission or stuff like that. He was trying to get around stuff like that. That's a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," declared Ray.

The Hall of Famer pointed out that fans don't have an issue with WWE referring to itself as pro wrestling rather than sports entertainment.

"There's nothing wrong with referring to it as pro wrestling and fans appreciate it. I haven't heard one fan go, 'I'm so pi**ed off the WWE started referring to it as pro wrestling yet. Damn it. It's still sports entertainment to me.' It's pro fu**ing wrestling," Ray said.

WWE moved away from using the sports entertainment tag sometime in 2024, after TKO took over WWE and McMahon's exit from the promotion. McMahon famously despised his employees using several words on air, including "belt," "strap," and "hospital," instead insisting they use terms like "title" and "medical facility." But now, with WWE having moved on from McMahon, commentators and wrestlers are free to use these and other previously banned terms on air.