Speed Dial

Vanities

'I daresay it's the most unusual speed-dial directory ever," boasts Vince McMahon, chairman of the World Wrestling Federation. "'Boss Hoss,' 'Taker,' 'Rock,' 'Mr. Ass'! Who are these people?"

Aside from Boss Hoss, the company which maintains the Chevy 350 V-8 engine of McMahon's custom-built motorcycle, "these people" are McMahon's employees, better known as "Undertaker," "the Rock," and "Bad Ass Billy Gunn," three of the W.W.F.'s more prominent performers who headline this month's SummerSlam, a live event that is expected to attract more than 100 million viewers in 100 countries. As the 54-year-old impresario behind the unspeakable growth of "pro" MR. ASS wrestling—he's the genius who admitted it's all bogus, and beat a federal rap alleging he abused steroids—McMahon can certainly talk the talk. His directory, located on his Stamford, Connecticut, office phone, is revamped "at least quarterly" and connects him to such New York institutions as Madison Square Garden, Smith & Wollensky steak house, and the St. Regis hotel, whose Sal Fodera grooms the Greenwich resident's pompadour. Buttons for his wife and kids are more than personal—it's a family business, after all (when son Shane isn't battling in the ring, he serves as the W.W.F.'s president of new media). One name does stick out: Barry Diller, chairman and C.E.O. of USA Networks, home of the W.W.F.'s ongoing soap opera. "I don't speak to Barry that often, something like once a week," McMahon says. "Usually it's to say, 'What are you doin' trying to buy some Italian network?'"

BOB MACK