We live in a culture now where we talk about a lot of things that are super important. Diversity, empowerment, equality. It is the most disrespectful thing in the world to treat any class of people, no matter how you want to separate people, and I don't like to separate people, treat as if they need a leg up or they need like a helping hand. It's the opposite. The whole concept of empowerment is to create opportunity. Like look, 'I'm going to give you this opportunity and then you're going to kill it.' We're not here to cheat code anybody forward. Women, I've been saying it for 10 years, I said it in Forbes over 10 years ago. I said in Forbes, 'The future of professional wrestling is women.' Because the business has too long sort of overlooked one of the biggest marketing aspects of what makes professional wrestling great. So I was Nostradamus over here about that. I called it early. Now you're bringing a lot of people to the table that traditionally have not been watching professional wrestling for the last 30 or so years. This is all great stuff. So if people want to make controversy out of it, [big] f*cking deal. Because at the end of the day, we're arguing about something that's great, not bad. It's not like we're over here burying. It's like no, this is awesome, it has to be awesome to keep making the case. Don't forget, If you're a fan -- let's say you're a very casual fan -- and you wander into an event like Empower, if you don't walk out of there feeling inspired, well then you haven't done your job to that fan. To make them want to come back. To want them to go out and buy that person's T-shirt. That's the responsibility of the business. This is not the 1950s where we could just throw anybody out there to make a spectacle. The women, traditionally, back in the day were treated like spectacles. It wasn't taken seriously.
Why do you think I bought the Mildred Burke belt? Because I own this talisman of what started as a movement. What Mildred Burke went through -- mocked, humiliated, objectified, treated not like a serious professional athlete. And she went on to draw more than most of the men in the business and then they were grumpy about it. I'm a convert. I'm there. I've been there. I put my money where my mouth is. So anybody that wants to make hay out of that, that's fine. They can do that all day. You try to run a world-class event, again and again and again, that's what we're here to do. That's it. It's not anymore complicated. You want to make it more complicated, have at it.
