Mr. McMahon – Episode One – “Junior”

Vince McMahon is a piece of shit.

Well, that was easy. Let me go back to writing about weird 2003 dark matches now.

I have to write more? Alright. Fine.

Like many of you, my fandom started in the boom era of the Hulk Hogans and Ultimate Warriors of the wrestling universe. SummerSlam 1991 was the first show I watched live on television and it was on from there. One constant figure in most of what I watched was Vince McMahon, the strangely muscular announcer with the tacky blazers that was always yelling WHATAMANUEVER and arguing with Jesse Ventura, Jerry Lawler or Mr. Perfect. Even as a nerd who bought every single wrestling magazine my mall’s bookstore would sell me every Friday (instead of Tiger Beat), I didn’t know that much about the behind the scenes things. PWI would mention him often and I’d see those photos of him in the neck brace at whatever the steroid trial was, but that didn’t have anything to do with the wrestling I was watching on TV, right? (I never said I was a smart kid.)

He’d continue to be a consistent part of the shows as the times turned and we entered the era we all know as the Attitude Era. Things would become more “insider.” We had Billionaire Ted skits and Eric Bischoff talking about things on Raw. I was a mere baby on wrestling Twitter, not quite at the level of subscribing to the Observer. I frequented the main WCW and WWF websites and (thanks to Yahoo, which I could’ve sworn would have taken over the world by now) discovered places like Scoops Central and Online Onslaught. I’d read little bits and pieces of backstage stuff without being deep in the trenches. Ratings never mattered. I didn’t care about the backstage gossip really besides that a wrestler I liked was moving to a different company.

As I got older, I noticed more. Vince became a prominent character on-screen as he evolved into Mr. McMahon. The stuff with Steve Austin was mostly amazing, yes, but there were other things that started raising flags. There were many stories of people being mistreated backstage of course. The women that I adored were on screen, but it was mostly in gravy bowl matches or some other stupid variation of a “substance in a pool” match. Vince McMahon, this weird looking old guy with bad hair, was in storylines getting action with all of the gorgeous women. Trish Stratus was mid-ring barking like a dog. And on and on. “This guy is a weird ass,” I probably thought. But we were used to it. And for a while, he was the only guy doing big time wrestling after he bought the competition. He was a weird ass, but we accepted him because he created the thing that we loved.

You can do a large time jump to today and his fall has been incredible. If you would have told me he would retire, force his way back in and find his way out a second time, I don’t think I’d believe you. 95% of us would tell you that, no matter what he did, Vince McMahon would never retire from WWE. He’d run it until the day he died. But then he didn’t because his empire started to unravel.

It had been unraveling for years, but it finally caught up to him. I’m leaving out a LOT of details, but if you’re reading Scott’s Blog of Doom, you probably don’t need me to fill in all the details for you. You’re on a niche wrestling site to begin with (or if you’re reading my stuff, you’re more likely to have clicked a link to this on Twitter, and I appreciate you). We’re in 2024 and we’ve had DISGUSTING details come out about the things he’s done for decades. The worst part? It’s not even as shocking as it should be. We knew he was a dirtball. We didn’t know he was THAT much of a dirtball, but we knew. As horrid as I felt reading all the details the first time, not one of them truly seemed that crazy for Vince McMahon.

My feelings on Vince are as stated above: he’s a piece of shit. You can legitimately say I’m coming from a moral high ground and that’s fine if you’d like, that’s my opinion. He disgusts me. I’ve been uncomfortable with him for years, I’ve been hoping he’d go away for years, yet here we are. I still consume the product from the company he created more than any other wrestling. I have thrown money and promotion at the company even at its worst. There is bias here, but there has always been some bias in what I write. I’m not a journalist, I’m a person writing about how I feel about things happening in professional wrestling on a wrestling blog. I’m also smart enough to know that Vince alone wasn’t the problem and there are probably more still in the company – and definitely more in the business. Time and/or karma will get them. Karma is a bitch. I watch to support those that I want to support.

When Scott originally asked me if I wanted to review this series, I declined. I had no real interest in watching it, especially when looking and seeing that it was six episodes that were an hour or so a piece. Six hours of anything is a lot for me nowadays. I’ve been rewatching Buffy for the last four weeks and I have made it through two episodes – and I like Buffy! Naturally, there’s also a very problematic person in the Buffyverse and rewatching is tainted by his part in it all and the problematic person isn’t even ON SCREEN in Buffy.

I thought about it that night. I was intrigued. Can I put my little spin on this miniseries? Can I make it interesting? Can I make it something others want to read about? Probably. (Can I do it in a timely manner? Ha.) I decided that yeah, I’ll watch it. It’s a good writing challenge. Will I enjoy it? Very debatable. Will it be fun to read me unraveling at it? Possibly! Will the comments section be absolutely unhinged? Yes. Will I probably never read them because of this? Probably also yes.

I woke up on release day at 6:30 a.m. EST and did what I do when I wake up – scrolled social media. I am part of the habitually online generation. I have to doomscroll forever while Charli XCX songs play in my head. I don’t know how this happened. I do it when I wake up and I fall asleep doing it. My life is truly that exciting! Anyway, I was surprised to wake up and see people tweeting about things happening in the sixth episode of a show that had been for hours. The opinions have been all over the internet ever since. The reaction has been that this series is mediocre, a fluff piece, and not worth the time. I am going to fight the need to watch all six episodes in six hours and watch one every few days. Let’s start here with the first.

First, I’m offended that I have Netflix with Ads. Maybe if I used Netflix more, I’d have noticed this. That’ll probably change when January and Raw on Netflix hits.

We start with a chair in a ring. Vince McMahon, in a fairly tame gray suit, steps into the ring and sits in the chair, looking every bit of 94 years old. “2021” appears on the screen. We see shots of Linda McMahon, Bob Costas, Shane McMahon, Stephanie McMahon, Triple H, Hulk Hogan combing his ten hairs left in a mirror, Undertaker drinking water, Bret Hart, Eric Bischoff, Trish Stratus, Rock and a bowl of fruit, Steve Austin, John Cena, and Cody Rhodes preparing for interviews. On screen: “Beginning in 2021, over 100 hours of interviews were filmed with VInce McMahon and his family, business associates, and some of World Wrestling Entertainment’s most popular stars.” The producers ask Vince if he’s ready and what we’re doing here. He says he’s here to talk about himself and his dyed eyebrows are DISTRACTING. That’s all I see. For those of you who are familiar with the infamous Vince mustache, they’re the same color. Vince says talking about himself is strange and different.

THe narrator tells us that Vince has been called the PT Barnum of wrestling, turning WWE into a billion dollar business. Vince says people have wondered who he really is but nobody really knows him. He is still trying to figure himself out. Stephanie says people know who he is – but they don’t. HHH says a lot of it is a character and he’s going to show you what he wants you to see. Dave Meltzer and his jeans appear to say that Vince was in control of the world. HHH says he’s built something so big and powerful, Eric chimes in to say he took no prisoners. Rock says you get what you get, while Bret thinks he often lied to him. Ah yes, there’s our Bret. The producer asks Shane if Vince gets a bad rap, and Shane says Vince gets the rap that he wants. We see Vince walk off as the on-screen graphic tells us, “Before a final interview with Vince McMahon, breaking news halted production.”

We intercut with sports clips of Vince McMahon stepping aside, secret $3 hush funds, an affair and other news. Ted Mann, Wall Street Journal reporter, tells us that it started with a tip received anonymously which said Vince had a secret affair with a coworker that was covered up. Joe Palazzolo, also a WSJ reporter, says the first story set off a series of events that set off reporting on other NDAs, investigations, Vince stepping down, returning, selling the company and the lawsuit. “The majority of the following interviews, including with Vince McMahon, were filmed before the sexual misconduct allegations were made public.”

Vince: “I wish I could tell you the real stories. Holy shit.” The producer asks him to tell one and he says, “No, I don’t want to tell you these stories. I’ll give you enough that it’s semi-interesting. I don’t want anybody to really know me.” Then he gives a creepy smile to the camera as we cut into the opening credits, telling us a very basic intro to Vince McMahon and the things he’s gotten away with.

Episode 1: Junior.

Terry “Hulk Hogan” Bollea, WWE Hall of Famer, is our first proper talking head. He says we’re not going to totally understand this and you have to live it to understand it. Thanks, Hulk! Anthony “Tony Atlas” White, WWE Hall of Famer, is wearing a black dress shirt with no sleeves and a tie. Phenomenal. He says wrestling is fantasy meeting reality. Bret Hart says it was an artform and allows people to let out their aggressions while watching it. Bret says, “I was a true artist.” Paul “Triple H” Levesque, WWE Chief Content Officer and a guy that is required to appear at the beginning of any important WWE show for five minutes of applause, says that people are smart enough to know it’s a show and engage in it. Bob Costas says wrestling is a soap opera. Vince says they give us the opportunity to “feel.” “It’s what America is.”

Sharon Mazer, author of “Professional Wrestling: Sport and Spectacle,” says that wrestling matters in that it’s so much of American culture. She says Vince’s influence and impact is ignored but has affected the world around us. We zip to 1985 footage of 39-year-old VInce McMahon, saying he hopes WWF is recognized one day as a premiere source of entertainment. We talk about his father, with VInce saying he didn’t know his last name was McMahon until he was 12 because he grew up in a trailer park with an abusive stepfather. “You just live with it until you get out of it.” He never heard a word from his dad and ran up expecting a big hug, getting a pat on the back instead.

Vince says they never had a conversation about why his dad wasn’t in his life. David Shoemaker, author of “The Squared Circle,” tells us that it is indisputable that Vince came from nothing. Vince could point to his dad and say that’s what he aspired to be. Vince was drawn to wrestling when he first saw it. Even at his young age, he and his father talked business. Linda McMahon, Vince’s Wife / Former WWE CEO, tells us she met Vince when she was 13 and he was 16. She says she never heard him talk about doing anything but being involved in wrestling. Vince Sr. puts Vince in as the announcer in the place of an announcer asking for more money. Vince says he BSed his way through as we watch clips of him on All-Star Wrestling. Bruce Prichard, WWE Executive Director, laughs and says Vince was a horrible commentator but was good at telling stories. Vince says he realized he was good at storytelling and it was his job to advance the story.

Vince Sr. wanted to sell to someone, and Vince says he never thought of him. Linda tells us he wanted to sell to Gorilla Monsoon, who Vince describes as the heir apparent. He says he felt tension from Gorilla. Vince made an offer to Vince Sr under conditions, with Linda saying they were “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” Vince says he thinks his dad didn’t want him to succeed, with Linda saying he didn’t want to make it easy for Vince. Vince says there was friction because his dad then worked for him. Vince wanted to upgrade the product. “I didn’t want it to be pro wrestling.” We get the usual territory map we get on these types of things and I am not the person to tell you how correct they are, but Bruce explains that Vince had the northeast territory and nobody crossed into others. Vince tells us that he was going right for other territories, with Bruce saying it ruffled other feathers. Vince Sr. told him to take it easy, but Vince says he was in business.

We see Eric Bischoff, WWE Hall of Famer, on AWA. He joins us to tell us Vince was seen as the devil by Verne Gagne who thought Vince ruined all the territories. Eric explains that top talent came to WWE because there was money there, with Bret saying it was cutthroat and nobody could do anything about it. Tony Atlas tells us that others did the work to build up the names, but Vince would call them and take them. Vince says he wasn’t taking things away from others, he was building. “If you can’t compete with me… it’s America. Tough.”

Archival footage of Vince tells us that WWF is growing by leaps and bounds. Vince tells us that his dad chose Bob Backlund as champion but he was looking for someone with more charisma as we see Dusty Rhodes footage. He says Dusty was a possibility. Cody Rhodes, Dusty Rhodes’s Son / WWE Performer, says that Dusty always told him he didn’t believe in it and it seemed too large of an endeavor. Vince says he kept looking for someone charming and exciting. We get footage of “The Hulk” as Vince tells us he was Sterling Golden. His dad didn’t think that was the name, changing him to Hulk Hogan. Hulk says he was brought in to beat Andre the Giant, one of the company’s big stars. Cody says Andre was the first big draw, with Hulk saying he was Andre’s other half. Hulk wanted to do Rocky 3 and Vince Sr. told him no, he was a “wrassler.” Vince tells us Senior wanted his investment out of him, and Hulk left to do the movie.

Hulk says the Rocky franchise was bigger than Godfather and Scarface. He knew it would put him on the map as we get movie clips interspersed as well as footage of Hulk on The Tonight Show. Verne brings Hulk back to AWA and Hulk says he started “the Hulkamania stuff.” Vince was impressed at how he was honing in on his talents. Dave says singing with Vince was an easy decision for Hulk, while Hulk says he had been dreaming of going back his entire career. Insert Hulkamania footage here. Vince explains using the Iron Sheik, one of the most disliked figures in the company during a time of nationalism, to move the belt from Backlund to Hulk. We hear about American hostages in Iran as we see footage of Sheik waving a flag, with Vince saying it allowed people a way to interact in real life. Bruce says you could go to the wrestling matches and see an Iranian Sheik being beat up, something you couldn’t see in real life. He mentions it didn’t age well while relating it to international characters being painted as bad guys in movies. “We were taught at an early age that these people – foreigners – were bad guys” as we intersperse footage of various international talents. YIKES.

Vince tells us that you can look back on anything and regret it, then saying things and values were different then. He says he didn’t think it was a big deal then. Hulk tells us it was the American Hero against the Iranian villain. Hulk says he called the match on the spot and didn’t tell Sheik what he was going to do. If only Sheik was here to tell us “FUCK HULK HOGAN.” Hulk wins and Hulkamania explodes, with Hulk saying it was a business decision to improve the company’s business. Dave says you can’t over-emphasize the importance of Hulk Hogan and Vince would fail in his expansion without it, with wrestling being a “star-driven business.” He notes that Vince Sr. was better at making top stars, which is why Vince was also good at it. Vince tells us that Senior told him he was proud of him and his dad waited until he was a success to tell him. “It was one of the biggest moments of my life until…”

Howard Finkel announces the death of Vince Senior to the crowd. Vince says dad told him it was the day before his death that he announced he was proud of him. Tony doesn’t think Vince liked his father. Paul Heyman, WWE Hall of Famer, appears to say the clashes between the two McMahons were due to Senior’s lack of acceptance of the industry changing. Tony says Vince’s ideas were crazy and “not wrassling,” while Linda said he didn’t want to stray away from people knowing it was scripted. Kay Koplovitz, Founder of USA Network, says Vince was looking at a bigger distribution and USA became the marketing channel for WWF. Tony tells us Vince was never in the wrestling business, he was in the entertainment business. We talk about TNT, with Vince saying it was so much fun. Tony says it was always going to be a stepping stone into other stuff.

David Letterman introduces Vince McMahon in an archival clip. Bob Costas tells a story of VInce McMahon being on Letterman’s show, with Costas knowing VInce loved it. Linda thinks Vince always wanted to cobrand with other entertainment brands to make them allstronger. We cut to Cyndi Lauper on MTV, with VInce noting what a huge star she was. Cyndi Lauper met Lou Albano on a plane as we see him in her video and her on WWF programming with Lou and Roddy Piper. VInce thinks it started the MTV relationship, getting great ratings on MTV. Vince says women’s wrestling wasn’t popular and maybe if she connected with a women’s wrestler, it would help.

I’M SO GLAD HE CARES SO MUCH ABOUT WOMEN’S WRESTLING. He clearly CARED SO MUCH. ME IN 1994 LOVED THE ENDLESS WOMEN’S WRESTLING HE GAVE US.

Sorry. I don’t know what just happened. We move to WrestleMania talk, with Costas saying he loved it. Hulk talks about becoming friends with Mr. T and how hot of a celebrity he was. Jimmy Hart, WWE Hall of Famer, appears to say MTV was red hot and it wasn’t just wrestling in the back rooms for people who smoke cigars. Lots of celebrity involvement clips. In the funniest thing that has ever happened to me, VInce is talking over a photo of him in a Speedo and Netflix cuts to an ad about stomach pain. Your experience may vary. Vince says they went on vacation and he realized he needed to have one event a year, WrestleMania. He calls it the Super Bowl of wrestling. “Why wouldn’t we have one big end of the season type deal?” He mentions putting it on closed circuit television, with people paying to go watch it on a large screen. Hulk and T host SNL with Hulk saying the goal was to invite the media to promote the show.

John Stossel was there to promote and interview about the phenomenon of Hulkamania for NBC. Hulk tells a story of John asking him if they use razor blades to bleed. Hulk tells Vince that John was there to expose the business. He reported it was fake. Tony says Vince said, “I wish someone would take care of that guy.” Dave Schultz steps into the shot and slaps Stossel. Tony says they all celebrated it happening and Hulk says they were very protective of the business.

Stossel hits the talk shows and files a lawsuit, with Shoemaker telling us wrestling wasn’t ready for prime time. This leads to Hulk on the Richard Belzer show. Hulk tells us that Richard told him to put a wrestling hold on him. He puts him in a chinlock, then lets it go and Belzer drops to the ground and hits his head. Linda says it was not good as archival Richard tells us he sued everyone. Hulk says it was a vulnerable time, Dave says Vince had everything on Mania, and Stephanie McMahon, VInce’s Daughter says they mortgaged everything they owned for Mania. Shane McMahon, VInce’s Son (no other labels on the graphic) tells us the parents never talked about finances in front of him.

Vince says they didn’t have the money to do it and if it failed, it was trouble. Gorilla Monsoon welcomes us to WrestleMania. “Eye of the Tiger” plays and we watch clips of the main event. Vince says it was a big success. Hulk: “It was the sum of all the parts.” Vince says it was all parts of entertainment combined – sports entertainment, the perfect storm as Hulk calls it. Dave notes how all the other territories were going on, but WrestleMania was when he won the war. VInce tells us he only cared about his organization, while Jimmy Hart notes how many more cameras appeared after Mania. Hulk says it changed the business from “cigar smokers and beer drinkers that want to see violence” to families in the front row buying merchandise. “It made wrestling so mainstream that there was no denying we were here to stay.”

Shoemaker says Mania was a huge success, but greater success brings greater scrutiny. Vince becomes a bigger target as headlines pop up about steroids. We fade out of the episode with newspaper clippings and courtroom drawings of Vince and Hulk.

On-screen graphic: “In 1987, John Stossel settled his lawsuit against David Schultz and Titan Sports (WWE). In 1990, Richard Belzer settled his lawsuit against VInce McMahon, Hulk Hogan and Titan Sports (WWE).”

End scene. Dramatic closing credit music.

So, my thoughts. I’m somewhere in the middle as far as the general reaction goes based on just this one episode. It’s a decent overall history of the road up to that first Mania. Obviously it’s a little WWE-clouded, as most stories are nowadays. There are far better historians than me who can point out every flaw in the story and I promise they’re probably in the comments and/or all over Twitter. I internally screamed, for example, about Vince McMahon’s desire to promote women’s wrestling. I also lived through it not being on TV for the first few years I watched, then Alundra Blayze and her two evil foreign challengers and otherwise not really existing, and the many, many stereotypical things that the women went through after that. I’ve seen a lot of discussion about the whole smoke-filled arenas story as well.

That said, I don’t think it did that bad of a job with this episode (please note I mean this episode and I haven’t watched further yet). The talking heads were a little more interesting than the usual names we get on the Vice documentaries and WWE docs – Tony Atlas in particular really put his best foot forward, stepping all over the fun stories. Hulk told stories as always. Nobody was particularly annoying in this episode, though I know we have far bigger rocks to move and stories to tell in the five episodes to come. There wasn’t much from actual current WWE talent in this episode, and it’ll be interesting to see how Cody for example is interspersed into the more controversial takes to come (or if he will).

Vince himself was modern day Vince, in that his eyebrows were distracting and he’s talking in such a gravelly voice that it’s hard to interpret. On the “Vince is an asshole” level, the rating is fairly low for me for THIS episode.

I imagine I will not retain that feeling in future episodes. Stay tuned, I’ll have episode two – titled “Heat” – up in a few days. The episode description mentions scandal and scrutiny in the media and a new competitor rising up.