Mr. McMahon – Episode Two – “Heat”

Previously on Mr. McMahon: Episode 1

We start this episode with the Slammy footage of Vince McMahon coming out to sing “Stand Back” as the intro titles roll. BABY WATCH ‘EM DROP.

Episode 2: Heat.

Ted Koppel reports on professional wrestling drawing a new generation of fans. Dave Meltzer tells us that 1985 was a time of growth for professional wrestling and Vince knew how to market with his bigger stars. Saturday Night’s Main Event is born on NBC during a break for Saturday Night Live. Vince mentions what a big deal it was to be on network television, while Bruce Prichard says “oh my god, that was crazy.” He calls it a huge coup. David Shoemaker pops in to say they’re out touring the country now on the backs of the wrestlers, working twice as hard. Tony Atlas says they wrestled seven days a week with no time off, which Jimmy Hart echoes. Bret Hart says they could’ve been better managing the schedule. Meltz pops back up to say the schedule today is easier and they have guaranteed contracts, but if you were hurt in the 80s, you’d wrestle hurt and use painkillers.

Bob Costas says wrestlers were often exploited and not unionized. Bret mentions that there was a need for a union and Jesse Ventura was trying to do it. Hulk Hogan says Jesse was trying to start a union “and undermine Vince” right before WrestleMania 2. Hulk says he ran right to Vince and told him. Tony says Hulk ratted him out, and Vince appears to say nobody in the locker room would ever get behind Jesse. Tony tells a story of Vince telling the locker room that if any went to a meeting for a union, they’d be fired. Dave thinks it’s less likely now to happen than ever.

WrestleMania 2. Vince has the idea to broadcast from three locations. Bruce calls it impressive and Hulk calls it a disaster. It was a money-making success but wasn’t the spectacle of the first. We move to Mania III with the stadium that seats 93,000 people. VInce thinks he could fill it and that’s where we return to Andre the Giant. Vince says they’d sell Andre-Hogan as if it had never happened. Hulk talks about Andre needing back surgery. Vince says he convinced Andre to get the surgery and then come back and draw the biggest crowd they ever had. We get the footage of Andre turning heel and setting up the big match as we watch news archival footage about the large crowd. Vince says they sold 93,000 seats. Yep, this old story!

We go through footage of various events from the show while we hear Aretha Frankin’s version of “America the Beautiful.” There’s nothing quite like footage of Hacksaw Jim Duggan set to Aretha. Of course, it was Hogan and Andre that was the story. Vince says Andre never told him Hulk would win, which freaked out Hulk. Hogan said he didn’t know if he was winning or losing, and Vince told him Andre would do the right thing. “What does that mean?” Hulk tells us he realized how bad Andre’s back was during the match. Hulk slams Andre and covers for the pin. He didn’t know he was winning until Andre didn’t kick out. Vince calls it the greatest attraction they’ve ever had.

Dave mentions WM III as one of the biggest parts of VInce’s mythology with Andre passing the torch, but really the Hulkamania train had already been moving and Andre had lost and been slammed before. We talk about 93,000, which Dave corrects to 78,000. Shoemaker thinks the truth is in the middle “and I’m not sure that it matters at all.” Vince says a victory for Hogan would reflect well on the brand and bring the brand up. Media clips of Hogan doing stuff. Tony says the building would sell out if Hogan was on the card, Costas calls him a figure of national fame. Stephanie McMahon,Vince’s Daughter felt resentment because her dad never got the credit he deserved for creating this. Tony says every word that came out of Hogan’s mouth was Vince. Hulk agrees because “everything he did turned to gold.”

Vince realizes the marketability of it all as we see action figures, Hulk workout gear and the hotline. Tony says Vince was a workaholic. Vince questioned Hogan going to Hollywood but said he’d do one with him. Hulk says they spent 2.5 days writing a script and that’s where we ended up with “No Holds Barred.” Bruce: “It wasn’t great. It was pretty hokey.” Vince says it didn’t prevent Hogan from going to Hollywood, but it slowed it down.

We go to WrestleMania VI, and Bruce feels that is when Hulkamania started to fade. Vince says it was time for Hogan to be on the bench as we see Ultimate Warrior run out. Hogan says he looked better, had brighter colors but wasn’t in love with the business. “I did what Andre did for me” and Hogan says he passed the torch. Warrior wins and was popular with the audience, but was not a popular person backstage. Vince talks about Sgt. Slaughter being a huge fan favorite and he had the idea to turn him into a bad guy. There was a “lot of heat” about Iraq and Vince said he would capitalize on that. Slaughter turns towards Iraq as we ride nationalism again. Desert Storm begins and Bruce says Sarge going Iraqi was “way too fresh and way too now” and the audience didn’t want to see it. Hogan mentions Slaughter getting death threats and Vince decides to back off the storyline after the match. Vince: “At the end of the day, the great American won.” Costas says wrestling took a nastier turn after the 80s and it quit being something he was comfortable being involved with.

Bruce tells us the audience was tired of Hulk being the All-American hero and the whispers of the steroid trial. Vince says Dr. Zahorian was appointed as the doctor of WWF but they had nothing to do with him. Dr. Zahorian began to sell steroids to the talent. Hulk says it was like people going to Starbucks in the morning. Costas: “WWE reeked of steroids. It’s obvious.” Bruce says Dr. Z prescribed steroids and sleeping meds to the talent, and Bret says you could negotiate with him. Ronald Reagan and the government declare steroids illegal and the government comes down hard on Dr. Z. Vince had just started the WBF as Vince tells us he’s always enjoyed physiques. He learned it wasn’t the time and folded WBF, feeling like he was getting hit with a lot of heat.

Dr. Z testifies he treated Hulk Hogan for a steroid abuse problem. Footage is shown of Vince declaring the WWF logo as a sign of drug-free action then sneers in a weird clip, calling WWF the standard bearer for drug-free entertainment. Hulk goes on Arsenio Hall’s show, telling Vince it was a bad idea. Vince told him to come clean, but Hulk goes on and says he has only taken them three times. Hulk: “I self-destructed my own self.” Wouldn’t be the last time!

Phil Mushnick, New York Post columnist, began to write about wrestling in his columns. Bruce says there is nothing nice to say about him and Vince says he had – and still has – a vendetta. Phil: “Because he’s a dirtbag.” Phil says his mailbox was filled with messages saying he didn’t know half the story, so he returned calls and it was mind-blowing. Tony says they’d be looked upon in today’s society as some of the worst people walking the earth. “We abused the hell out of womens, all of us did.” Shoemaker mentions being a woman in or around the pro wrestling world at that point was not a safe place to be. Psst, it’s still not great. Meltz says Jimmy Snuka was the most popular wrestler in the company and his girlfriend hit his head and died in a hotel room. No charges were filed and thinks Vince had a hand in making it go away. Shoemaker says that most fans didn’t know about these stories until Mushnick brought them out into the public space.

We move onto the “ring boy scandal.” Mushnick mentions that Mel Phillips would bring ring boys with him, often underage, and they were being sexually abused by top WWF executives. Mushnick learned there were others involved – Terry Garvin and Pat Patterson. Bruce says the business was very homophobic and Pat was openly gay, prospering and becoming a top guy. We get a news clip of a gentleman accusing Pat and Terry of groping them, followed by Phil saying he thinks Vince is guilty of letting it happen. Vince thinks Phil didn’t care if anyone got hurt in the story as long as he got to write his story. Bret thinks there was a lot of turning a blind eye to things but he isn’t sure how it could be proven. Vince settles the case and Mel and Terry are let go. Patterson resigned, with Dave saying that Vince told him Pat was innocent. Pat was back months later. Bruce says nothing has been substantiated against Pat and he doesn’t believe it. As far as the others, “no comment.” Tony says he knew Pat was doing it and Pat was “grabbing my pecker.” When asked why he didn’t complain, Tony says “To who? He was the #2 guy in the locker room!” Tony says Vince didn’t protect Pat, he protected the business.

Vince goes on Phil Donahue’s show. Vince says he enjoys confrontation and he had no problem confronting someone. Steph is here to say it was an opportunity to stand up for himself but it didn’t go the way he wanted. Dave says Vince was not comfortable, Bruce says “everything was coming down at once.” Jimmy recounts there being so many scandals, saying he wasn’t sure what they wanted out or not. Bret brings up Rita Marie (Chatterton) saying she was sexually assaulted. Vince: “An alleged rape that never happened.” She says she was forced into oral sex with Vince and if she wanted a million dollar contract, she had to satisfy him. Vince says it was consensual and “actually, had it been a rape, the statute of limitations had run out so it’s all kind of crap like that that people are digging up.” Wow. Just wow.

Dave says people thought it was sleazy and others just looked away. Mushnick says it should have resonated deeper with the public than it did but most newspapers ran from it. Phil kept going and Dave thinks the headlines led to the indictment of Vince in the steroid distribution story. Vince says Phil triggered all of it. Mushnick says he was an FBI informant because the FBI read what he wrote and acted on it. Vince says the federal government are the biggest bullies and so many people can’t afford them, so that’s why they wanted him to go down. “I wasn’t guilty of anything.” Vince has neck surgery and Dave laughs at the neck brace. Vince denies it was for sympathy as Shoemaker tells us about heels wearing neck braces for show as we see clips of Bobby Heenan. Kay Koplovitz of USA says if he was guilty, they’d be off the air. Hulk is back to say he started hearing boos and he didn’t feel he was in control of the crowds. He told Vince he needed to go. Sure. Bret thinks things looked dire and it was a great opportunity for competition to make a move.

Enter Ted Turner. Vince calls him his biggest competitor. Shoemaker tells the story of Turner founding networks and broadcasting professional wrestling nationwide. Eric Bischoff, WCW Executive ‘94-00, says they were number two but a very distant number two. He calls early WCW a bad imitation of WWE and they were just throwing things against the wall to see what works. He knew that Hulk had left and was going to pursue movies. He was at Disney-MGM Studios shooting his show while Hulk was shooting his show there. Hulk talks of Eric asking him to come back at least part time and Hulk says he wasn’t enjoying acting. Jimmy Hart talks about Ted Turner giving guarantees and set numbers of dates compared to WWE being 24/7/365. Hulk says he’d never go against Vince. Vince: “Next thing you know, he’s with the other guys.”

Vince recounts his close personal relationship with Hulk and it emotionally hurt him and broke his heart. Shane says it was an enormous slap to the face and hurt Vince, even to this day. Bruce questioned if Vince or WWE was even going to be there when the case was over. Hulk says he was told if he didn’t testify the way the government wanted, they’d make him the target. Dave says the conviction rate was high and the odds were against Vince. Vince felt it coming from every angle at him. Hulk was granted immunity and “I knew what I’m gonna say.”

On-screen graphics:

“In 1994, Vince McMahon withdrew his defamation lawsuit against Rita Chatterton and Gerald Rivera.

In 2023, during a temporary life of the statute of limitations for alleged victims of sexual offenses in New York state, McMahon paid a million-dollar settlement to Chatterton.

McMahon continues to deny any wrongdoing.” End scene.

Well, episode two was a lot more terrifying than the first. These aren’t new stories to those of us who have followed along, but they’re still pretty horrifying. Vince’s statute of limitations line was ESPECIALLY gross.

Up next, episode 3 which is titled “Screwjob.”