The squared circle is a hallowed, holy land where miracles happen right before our very eyes. An art form not only in the displays of physical agility, strength, and charismatic acting, but also in a specific brand of live theater that can make even the most fantastical situations feel real. No matter how much a person knows “wrestling is fake,” a good match can make even the strongest non-believer forget the predetermined outcome, and give themselves over to the scripted dance of grappling and glory. It’s also home to some carny-ass jabronis who would be fun to laugh at if they weren’t so vile and dangerous.
Vincent Kennedy McMahon did not invent the culture of professional wrestling, but he certainly shaped it in his image like a malevolent God — at least, the image he has chosen for the world at large. “The person he puts out there, the larger-than-life promoter, a lot of that is a character,” says Paul Levesque aka Triple H, the current chief content officer and head of creative for WWE. “When it comes to him personally, he’s going to show you what he wants you to see.”
Beginning in 2021, director Chris Smith (“American Movie,” “Tiger King”) filmed over 100 hours of interviews with McMahon, his biggest stars, his business associates, journalists, and his family (who double as his employees and on-screen co-workers). Before a final interview, production was halted because inescapable allegations of sexual abuse and trafficking against McMahon hit; allegations that forced him to finally retire from WWE.
This means a flurry of WWE-owned footage that they’d never have signed off on to be used in something so critical is well on display in the new Netflix docuseries “Mr. McMahon,” and the talking head interviews feature people who would have never sat with a production to discuss McMahon with a pending lawsuit against him for such abhorrent and deplorable behavior. For wrestling fans, “Mr. McMahon” isn’t revealing anything new, but the way Smith exposes the parallels between Vince McMahon’s behavior, attitude, and personality and the way pro wrestling has evolved in tandem is some world-class craftsmanship.
This Netflix docuseries didn’t screw Vince McMahon. Vince McMahon screwed Vince McMahon.
‘I think my dad gets the rap that he wants’
I don’t know what angle was initially pitched to Vince McMahon when he agreed to sit for this docuseries about his life and career, but Smith makes an absolute feast out of self-incriminating statements straight from the horse’s mouth. McMahon is used to having total control of his own narrative, but with Smith’s direction and the work of some incredibly gifted editors, “Mr. McMahon” lets Vince McMahon shatter his own kayfabe illusion. “I wish I could tell you the real stories. Holy s***, I don’t wanna tell you these stores,” he says. “I’ll give you enough that it’s semi-interesting. I don’t want anybody to really know me.” Famous last words for a man the world will see for exactly who he is whether he wants them to or not.
“I think my dad gets the rap that he wants,” says his son Shane McMahon. For my money, this is the moment that sets the tone for the entire six-episode series. The cruel irony of it coming from Shane — the McMahon family’s Kendall Roy in this world of “Succession” with suplexes — is not lost on me. When even a person who has spent his entire life desperately seeking the love and respect of his father (even if it means literally jumping off of 50-foot tall structures) admits his dad has been manipulating his public perception for decades, the series’ philosophy is clear.
From a business standpoint, this is a genius move by Netflix, the future new home of WWE. This docuseries becomes a way to tell the general public that Vince McMahon and his reign at WWE is dead and that the Netflix era under Triple H and the company’s new owners, TKO Group Holdings, Inc., will usher in a new regime. But from a wrestling standpoint, it’s hard not to see this as just another work. It’s easy to pin wrestling’s darkest hours on Vince McMahon instead of the countless people and a culture who enabled him, but he’s just the ringleader of this f***ed-up circus.
Fortunately, the series leaves plenty of room for people like Hulk Hogan, Tony Atlas, and Bruce Prichard to bury themselves right next to him. Smith worked these fools into a shoot and out carnied the carniest creeps in the business. If Vince McMahon wasn’t the subject, he’d have been proud, but there aren’t enough shovels in the universe to bury the number of people complicit.
Unfortunately, everything is wrestling
Here’s the thing a lot of my fellow wrestling fans frequently fail to recognize — the general public doesn’t care about wrestling, thinks it’s a joke, and doesn’t know the depths of the depraved underbelly that continually poison the industry we love so much. We know the mineshaft beneath our feet is still burning but we learned how to live with the horrors a long time ago.
The overwhelming majority of society doesn’t know Rita Chatterton, the first female WWE referee, accused McMahon of sexual assault in 1986. They don’t know about Owen Hart’s preventable death mid-show. They don’t know about McMahon nearly fighting Bob Costas mid-interview in 2001. They don’t know about Vince dropping the n-word on live TV in front of Booker T as a joke. They don’t know about the weird, incestuous storylines McMahon pitched regarding his daughter Stephanie. They don’t know about Katie Vick. They don’t know about Chris Benoit’s double-murder/suicide and the CTE he endured in-ring.
Or they do know … but they’ve only ever heard about what happened through the narrative pushed by Vince McMahon. Professional wrestling as we know it does not exist without Vince McMahon and he’s a ruthlessly aggressive blowhard with a rap sheet that rivals another powerful billionaire in the WWE Hall of Fame. There’s no “but” here, because one aspect of McMahon’s personality does not cancel out the other. And it’s even harder to dissect the landscape McMahon has shaped considering it’s never just been wrestling. Everything is wrestling and I mean everything. To critique Vince McMahon is to critique the very fabric of American culture and it’s impossible to expect a six-part docuseries to even begin to break the surface of how deep this iceberg goes. But you don’t need to know how big the iceberg is for it to still sink what was thought to be unsinkable.
The end of the Greater Power
Vince spent years trying to convince the world that Mr. McMahon was just a wrestling persona and that he was merely the puppet master behind the character, and was often very successful at the task. But here’s the thing — Vince McMahon is a businessman first and a performer second … and he is not a good actor. The puppet strings of his entire empire have been visible the whole time, but the culture and fandom elected to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Many of the greatest wrestling characters of all time were just the real personalities of the performer dialed up to 11. How could anyone have ever believed the same wasn’t true for Vince?
Wrestling is a world of magic, but it’s also a world with a harrowing history of untimely deaths, drug abuse, sexual abuse, public humiliation, bigotry of all forms, suicide, and even murder. It’s a make-or-break business of people’s lives dictated by whether or not they play by Vince’s rules — on screen or off. Before the most recent allegations came to light, McMahon had already killed a biopic that was supposed to be made about him, with co-director John Requa saying, “So, yeah, we are on a very long list of people who got f***ed over by Vince.” Had he been able to see what “Mr. McMahon” had in store, he likely would have tried to kill this too. Honestly, the biggest question I have regarding this series is wondering who at WWE saw this and signed off on it, and whether or not they were also Vince’s children.
25 years ago, Mr. McMahon revealed himself to Stone Cold Steve Austin as “The Greater Power” in disguise, exclaiming “It was [him] all along.” As “Mr. McMahon” rightfully confirms — it wasn’t a storyline, it was a confession.
/Film Rating: 8.5 out of 10
“Mr. McMahon” is streaming on Netflix September 25, 2024.
