Mr. McMahon

[DanaK]

Quote

Netflix 6 part doc series that premieres September 25 2024

Mr. McMahon chronicles the rise and fall of Vince McMahon, controversial businessman and co-founder of WWE. From his transformation of the WWE from a small, regional business into a global entertainment powerhouse to the explosive sexual misconduct allegations that led to his eventual resignation, this six-episode series offers a deep dive into McMahon's life and his enduring franchise.

Full press release http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news/2024/08/29/mr-mcmahon-to-premiere-globally-on-september-25-825415/20240829netflix05/

[BetterButter]

 

[arachne]

I pretty much withdrew from watching WWF/WWE between 1997 and 2013. (Found WCW more interesting, and later I had other things to do.) After watching this docuseries, I'm glad I held back. Steve Austin and John Cena notwithstanding, some plot lines were just -- ewww! 

[Kel Varnsen]

Watched the first episode last night. It was interesting with the footage, but a lot of it was the same stuff they talked about on the Behind the Bastards podcast series about Vince McMahon. Especially the John Stossel and Richard Belzer stuff.

Also I haven't really watched wrestling since the Attitude Era but what happened to Vince's voice?

[arachne]

7 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Also I haven't really watched wrestling since the Attitude Era but what happened to Vince's voice?

I'm guessing it's just creeping age. His walk changed as well. 

[Kel Varnsen]

1 hour ago, arachne said:

I'm guessing it's just creeping age. His walk changed as well. 

As for the walk, he did tear both his quad muscles at the exact same time (on camera) in 2005.

He would have been 59 at the time so I imagine at that age that would have been a hard injury to recover from.

[thuganomics85]

As my user name obvious suggests, I definitely use to be big WWE fan; starting during the tail end of the Attitude/Austin/Rock era and dropping out around the time Cena/Batista/Randy Orton were the main stars; but still casually keep up with it to know who is currently the main faces of the company (Cody Rhodes, Romain Reigns, Seth Rollins, Becky Lynch, Rhea Ripley, etc.)  And I definitely remember Vince McMahon and the "Mr. McMahon" character he played and while I knew he was obviously off his rocker in a lot of ways in real life, the revelations these past two years have been truly insane, so I was curious to see how this was going to play out.

First thoughts were what I initially always suspected: that the McMahon family as a whole are really like a real life version of the Roys from Succession.  Shane is pretty much a spot-on Kendall Roy: the "oldest boy" always looking for his father's respect and love, but never seeming to ever actually get it.  I always felt that way when I'd see him do an outlandish stunt during his matches; like he was going the extra mile to earn his father's approval; and his and Vince's interviews really gave off that vibe.  Meanwhile, Stephanie is sort of like Shiv: someone who seems to be more business savy and has a better relationship with her father on the surface, but her interviews really gave off a vibe that she isn't as comfortable with her father as Vince wants us to believe, and probably has a lot of mixed feelings about him in general (after-all, it sounds like she did try to have him removed at one point.  And then left the company once he wormed his way back in.)

Meanwhile, Paul/Triple H really has seemed to somehow Tom Wambsgans his way into being the true "successor" on a lot of levels, and the business seems to have gotten a boost under his leadership.  I guess that would make Shawn Michaels his "Cousin Greg", since he's currently running the NXT/development program in the WWE.  If someone told me 15 years ago that the D-Generation X guys would arguably be running the WWE, I wouldn't have believed them.

On the other hand, Vince himself is somehow worse than Logan.  I don't care how great of a business man he arguably is: he is just a despicable human being on almost every level.  And even if he is gone from the company, I will wonder how much everyone else knew and either ignored it or covered it up.  The fact that so many still defend him, is frustrating.  Like I generally love John Cena and want to think he's a decent human being still, but I can't help but shake my head over how he seems to refuse to acknowledge the horrors Vince has committed or responsible for.

 

Random thoughts:

Kind of love that Cody was just there to be like "I don't know much, guys!  When I first joined, the Wellness policy was in place and I was gone when most of this crazy shit apparently went down!  I'm just back to hit a few Crossrhodes and finish my story!"  To be fair, he probably is the least likely to be in the know about most of this.  But him being the son of Dusty and being backstage in this business for so long, you know he's probably got some crazy stories!

Paul Heyman is so hilariously extra.  You just know he spent hours practicing what he was going to say in front of mirror and giving himself a shit-eating grin each time he finished.  No wonder the man excels as a manager/on the mic.

Glad Trish Stratus seems to be at peace and went to be a huge star that is an inspiration to a lot of future women wrestlers.  I remember watching a lot of that stuff at the time and... yeah, to say it doesn't age well would be the understatement of the century.

Eric Bischoff personifies the "You're now wrong, you're just an asshole" motto.  I found myself agreeing with a lot of he was saying, but you just know that man's ego is through the roof and probably could rival Vince's on any given day.

I admire Phil Mushnik's Kendrick Lamar-level hate for Vince, the WWE, and everything they stand for.

I don't care how much of a crank he is: Bret Hart never fails to entertain with his bluntness and not ever hiding what he really feels about everything.

Surprised they didn't get Mick Foley here, since he is probably the poster child when it came to taking the worst kind of hits imaginable (thrown off the cell in Hell in the Cell, the time he took dozens of chair-shots to the head from The Rock at the Royal Rumble, etc.)

Wish they had gotten Jesse Ventura here and went more into detail over how Vince and Hulk Hogan prevented the attempt at unionizing from happening.

Still crazy how some of the biggest superstars and moments were almost an accident like Steve Austin winning King of the Ring (and inventing his infamous catchphrases) due to Triple H being punished for the Curtin Call, Dwayne initially flailing as the smiling "Rocky Maivia" babyface until he turned heel and became "The Rock", and John Cena almost on his way out until Stephanie heard him rapping, suggested they do it on air, and then the "Doctor of Thuganomics" was born.  Can really be an unpredictable business, it seems.

All an all, a solid watch, but you can tell this probably initially started as more of a puff piece, until all of the major revelations came out and they had to scramble a bit with the last episode.  Granted, they did dive into a few darker moments they usually shy away from like Owen Hart and Chris Benoit's deaths, the steroid scandals, and Jimmy Snuka likely killing his girlfriend, but I suspect we only scratched the surface with what Vince and maybe others in the company likely did.  Curious to see what else might be exposed in the futures.  I suspect the WWE itself is "too big to fail" at this point, but I can see other big names having some bad stuff come out about them at some point.

[Kel Varnsen]

I have watched 5 episodes so far and so far it has been ok. I was a huge wrestling fan during both the Rock n Wrestling days as a kid and during the attitude era in my early 20's. So pretty much everything from episodes 1-4 and a good chunk of 5 I already knew (other than the on camera stuff from after the merger since by that point I stopped watching). 

So far I wish it had been more of in investigation into Vince and how terrible he is. Like they spent more time on the stupid Montreal Screw job than they did on the (what seem like credible) rape accusations from the former referee. Especially since unless you are going to reveal that Bret was in on the whole thing, what else is there possibly to say about Montreal. And they just briefly mentioned how he may have intervened when it came to Superfly Snuka and his girlfriend's murder.

The only interesting and surprising thing I have seen so far is the stuff at the end of episode 5 where Shane left the company. Especially the shit from Paul Heyman about how Vince told Shane that if he didn't like his management he would have to kill him to take over. Because I absolutely believe Vince would say that.

And the only other really shocking thing was footage of the PPV after Owen's fall. I don't think I have ever seen it before so actually seeing the blood on the mat was really shocking.

2 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

Surprised they didn't get Mick Foley here, since he is probably the poster child when it came to taking the worst kind of hits imaginable (thrown off the cell in Hell in the Cell, the time he took dozens of chair-shots to the head from The Rock at the Royal Rumble, etc.)

I haven't seen Mick Foley do an interview in a long time, but am pretty sure he has no memory of doing the hell in the cell. I think he said that shortly after it happened so I imagine his memories about the rest of his career aren't much better.

Edited September 30 by Kel Varnsen

[Kel Varnsen]

Watched the last episode tonight and it was easily the best one. I wish the whole series could have been like this. The whole thing with Benoit and the denial about CTE and then WWE developing concussion protocols was super interesting and could have been an episode just by itself. Especially since I have seen Chris Nowinski in a few other documentaries about CTE and he is always super interesting. Although what's up with Stone Cold Steve Austin not believing that CTE is real. Does he think all those NFL players having pretty severe mental health issues was just some weird coincidence?

And of course all the sexual misconduct could easily have been multiple episodes in its own. Although with what Netflix paid for Monday Night Raw they probably don't want to completely rip apart the company.

[Danny Franks]

I watched the first three episodes of this yesterday, and can definitely see where it was going to be a "Vince is a genius" hagiography, before the sexual assault allegations came to light (though there have been allegations floating around for a long time).

I found it curious that the Montreal Screwjob was presented relatively one-sidedly, with Vince, Hunter and Shawn getting the lion's share of the narrative and Bret not really being able to expand on his side of things. It was far, far more complicated than the episode showed and there was a lot more duplicity from Vince - towards Bret and towards other wrestlers and officials.

Still, it was funny to hear Undertaker accidentally expose Vince's lie about "giving Bret one shot" to punch him and reinforce Bret's version that there was a scuffle and a struggle, before Bret got a good punch in. 

Also interesting that they didn't talk about wrestlers threatening to quit, and Rick Rude actually quitting, in the aftermath. Mick Foley wrote in his book about having to be talked back from leaving the company by Jim Ross, the night it happened.

Something else that's fun - spotting Hogan lies, which occur basically every time he speaks. He's such a shameless carny that I'm not sure even he knows what's true any more. He didn't know if Andre would let him win at Wrestlemania III (at least he didn't repeat the one about "Andre died shortly after"), he didn't enjoy acting and wanted to go back to wrestling, as opposed to Thunder in Paradise being a flop. Just two that immediately spring to mind.

Bruce Prichard is as bad, with his revisionist history of everything that ever happened. There's a reason he's been so close to Vince for so long, and it's not because of his integrity and honesty.

Anyway, the Behind the Bastards six parter was a much better and much harsher examination of Vince, and of pro-wrestling in general. I highly recommend it.

[Danny Franks]

Onto the Attitude episode now, and we're still getting almost complete praise for Vince and his supposed creative genius. These episodes will not age well.

I will never stop finding it funny that the thing that saved the company - Vince allowing wrestlers to be themselves and responding to what fans were saying they wanted - is exactly what he abandoned after winning the Monday Night Wars. Becoming an obsessive control freak who wanted fully scripted promos, who decided who would be on top and pushed them even though fans wanted other people, actively sabotaging those wrestlers who the fans did pick.

If post-2001 Vince was running the WWF in 1997, Stone Cold Steve Austin as the main guy never happens. Vince would have actively buried Austin in favour of Triple H or Ken Shamrock. Mankind as champion never would have happened. The Rock would have crashed and burned as scripted, bland babyface Rocky Maivia.

Also funny - the clip of Stephanie's briefly stupefied look when she realised, mid-interview, that Tyson had been convicted for rape long before the WWF brought him in.

On 9/30/2024 at 9:08 PM, Kel Varnsen said:

And the only other really shocking thing was footage of the PPV after Owen's fall. I don't think I have ever seen it before so actually seeing the blood on the mat was really shocking.

The bit of that show I can't get my head around, even with everything else, is that the main event that night was The Undertaker vs Stone Cold. I can't even imagine how Taker must have felt, having to go out and be that character when he's just seen a co-worker fall to his death in the ring, and Owen's blood was staining the canvas.

And I'll never forget that look on Jerry Lawler's face in the clip from the commentary table.

But Vince having the gall to say their treatment of Owen was about making him a star is disgusting. By that time, it probably wasn't about Bret, but it sure as fuck wasn't about making him a star.

Owen had vetoed storylines that he didn't agree with, including one where he would have an affair with his tag team partner, Jeff Jarrett's, girlfriend. He didn't like the sleazy angles that they were coming up with for him, so they gave him a character that was designed to make a joke out of his principles - an oafish, clumsy, wannabe superhero who did nothing but fail.

And it was the WWF's fault. The quick release system they wanted for the stunt was deemed unsafe by the company who they'd hired to do the rigging, so they found some other guy who agreed to do it. They knew it wasn't safe, but they went ahead with it.

Edited October 14 by Danny Franks

[jah1986]

Having finished the entire series, I'm surprised by how many of these wrestlers just sing Vince's praises, even saying he was like a father to them. Does the business draw men with bad relationships with their fathers? Because that is not how a good father would treat his kids.

Man, Hulk Hogan almost came away looking worse than Vince, what a jerk.

[Kel Varnsen]

7 hours ago, jah1986 said:

Having finished the entire series, I'm surprised by how many of these wrestlers just sing Vince's praises, even saying he was like a father to them. 

Not super surprising for me. I watched all three seasons of Young Rock (Dwayne Johnson's autobiographical show) and a major plotline is how Vince blacklisted his dad just before the 80's wrestling boom made them going from living a luxurious life to being working class living paycheque to paycheque. But even then within the show (like the narration) he would speak about how much he loved Vince. 

Also wasn't there some fallout between Owen's widow and the rest of the Hart family because Bret went back to WWE and the family decided to sort of settle things (personally) while she was against doing that.

Edited October 15 by Kel Varnsen

[Danny Franks]

3 hours ago, jah1986 said:

Having finished the entire series, I'm surprised by how many of these wrestlers just sing Vince's praises, even saying he was like a father to them. Does the business draw men with bad relationships with their fathers? Because that is not how a good father would treat his kids.

This has always been a key part of the Vince McMahon narrative - wrestlers talking about how great he is, even while acknowledging how terrible he can be.

Vince regularly did things like pay for rehab for wrestlers who used to work for him, or hired people, in the words of Mick Foley "just to be nice." He'd fire someone over a disagreement, then rehire them and never mention the falling out. And it's too simplistic to say he did those things because he is nice, or because he's an evil schemer.

From everything that I've heard, sometimes he was a great guy to work for, and sometimes he was terrible. And that always served to keep people off-balance and unsure. One guy might get a slap on the back and a "that's how a real man acts!" for standing up to Vince, another guy might get fired. And I doubt any of the wrestlers knew for sure which reaction they'd get.

Basically, he ran the WWE as a capricious overlord. He didn't treat people the same, he played favourites, he regularly lied to talent to manipulate them, and he clearly abused his power in horrendous ways.

But this is a guy who believes sneezing is a sign of weakness, who eats food as quickly as possible because he finds having to eat annoying, who had to be shown Asian porn to be convinced that people actually find Asian women attractive, who apparently shaves at least twice a day because he "can't let the hair win". He's impossibly maladjusted and I can't even fathom how his mind works.

Seeing Cena, Taker and others be lost for words when asked about Vince's legacy at the end should have been a message about how they were disillusioned in this man because of the accusations. Instead it came across like they were being reticent on camera, and probably feel the same way Tony Atlas does.

1 hour ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Also wasn't there some fallout between Owen's widow and the rest of the Hart family because Bret went back to WWE and the family decided to sort of settle things (personally) while she was against doing that.

Martha fell out with most of the Harts long before Bret went back to the WWE. While she was suing the WWE for killing her husband, Owen's brothers and sisters (except Bret, who sided with Martha) were cosying up to Vince to get hired, or get their husbands hired, by the company. They even took Owen's dad, who by then had dementia, to a WWE show and got front row seats for the cameras.

She fell out with Bret for reasons they've never really discussed, but I'd guess it had to do with Owen's wrestling legacy, which Martha wanted no part of. Bret had a stroke five years after Owen died, and one of the first people to call him while he was in hospital was Vince (see above, about him being capricious and capable of surprising kindness). They talked and Bret said he didn't want his career to be forgotten or diminished, so Vince said they could work on a DVD documentary about Bret's career.

I think him agreeing to work with the WWE again for that documentary solidified the break with Martha. A few years after that, Bret was back on WWE TV and finally buried the hatchet with Shawn Michaels (they had no contact at all, from the night of the Screwjob to the day Bret made his return, thirteen years later).

 

[Kel Varnsen]

On 10/14/2024 at 8:24 AM, Danny Franks said:

found it curious that the Montreal Screwjob was presented relatively one-sidedly, with Vince, Hunter and Shawn getting the lion's share of the narrative and Bret not really being able to expand on his side of things. It was far, far more complicated than the episode showed and there was a lot more duplicity from Vince - towards Bret and towards other wrestlers and officials.

I have heard so much about the Montreal Screwjob over the years that I am kind of tired of hearing anymore about it. Especially since I kind of think that if Bret did go ahead and agree to lose his career would have gone so much better. I mean a lot (maybe most) fans at the time knew that the storylines and the outcomes were fiction. So if he went out and had an epic A+ match I don't think fans would have cared that he lost. I also think Vince likes talking about the event because it totally plays into his evil boss character and it's not really that bad compared to other stuff he has done.

I mean I totally believe he used his influence to make sure his biggest star wouldn't get charged with murder. And while he probably wasn't handing out steroids, he did have business where guys had to travel 6 days a week and somehow managed to be gigantic (and quickly recover from injuries and training) while living off takeout food and working out in crappy hotel gyms. So in that situation what else are you supposed to do? Especially since I remember reading an article back during the Stone Cold days about how most wwf contracts back then had a fairly small salary you would get. But you could get all kinds of big money bonuses if your merch sold really well or if you were in a PPV that a lot of people bought. Which means you have to be available to be on TV all the time.

Also I was surprised they didn't talk about any of the controversy over the events held in Saudi Arabia.

[Danny Franks]

6 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

I mean I totally believe he used his influence to make sure his biggest star wouldn't get charged with murder. And while he probably wasn't handing out steroids, he did have business where guys had to travel 6 days a week and somehow managed to be gigantic (and quickly recover from injuries and training) while living off takeout food and working out in crappy hotel gyms. So in that situation what else are you supposed to do? Especially since I remember reading an article back during the Stone Cold days about how most wwf contracts back then had a fairly small salary you would get. But you could get all kinds of big money bonuses if your merch sold really well or if you were in a PPV that a lot of people bought. Which means you have to be available to be on TV all the time.

The fact that the Snuka thing was so briefly mentioned was a surprise, but I have another podcast recommendation to cover it in more detail - Crime in Sports did an episode on Snuka, and painted a very clear picture of him as an abusive asshole. They covered statements made at the time that strongly suggest Vince paid the cops off.

As for the steroids, I remember a quick scene in Beyond the Mat that showed how wrestlers could easily be influenced into using steroids. There's a thread in the film that follows two young guys who wrestle in an indy federation and get a dark match in the WWF - a chance to impress and get hired. 

The WWF guys (I think it was Jim Ross and Jim Cornette) quickly dismiss one of the guys as not what they want, but express interest in the potential of the other - he's taller, handsome and looks like an athlete - Jim Ross tells him specifically to "work on your upper body, get bigger," and they might give him another look. There's nothing at all in that conversation that tells the guy to use steroids, but you could easily draw that implication from it.

All wrestlers will talk about working hurt, because they knew they needed to take every chance they were given. And that's where other types of drugs - painkillers and stimulants - entered the picture. Vince takes no responsibility, as he made clear in this series, but his entire business model was abusive towards wrestlers and pushed them towards using drugs to progress their careers.

Edited October 15 by Danny Franks

[Kel Varnsen]

1 hour ago, Danny Franks said:

All wrestlers will talk about working hurt, because they knew they needed to take every chance they were given. And that's where other types of drugs - painkillers and stimulants - entered the picture. Vince takes no responsibility, as he made clear in this series, but his entire business model was abusive towards wrestlers and pushed them towards using drugs to progress their careers.

The thing about working hurt is I would imagine it's not just about a bad fall off the top ropes onto the concrete or taking a bad pile driver. But to be as big as some of these guys were especially in the 80's you would have to work out all the time. I think I read Hogan's autobiography (I can't remember for sure) but I think he talked about how often he was working and the number of times he flew across the Pacific. So if you are spending that much time traveling the time you actually spend working out would have to be pretty intense. Which means lots of opportunities for injury or just being really sore. So if you want to perform well, you have to find something to help you.