Netflix’s Mr. McMahon Review

The Boss loses Creative of his life

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WARNING: THIS ARTICLE MAY CONTAIN Spoilers from the Netflix mini series. There may be discussions of sexual abuse, murder, and other disturbing pieces of history. CONSIDER WHEN AND WHERE IT WOULD BE APPROPRIATE TO READ THIS PIECE.

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No Chance In Hell

When it comes to professional wrestling, no single individual in the history of the sport will have a footprint larger than Vincent Kennedy McMahon. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise, especially this documentary. There is no professional wrestling as we know it without Mr. McMahon. As influential as he was to the business, his personal misdeeds have been well documented over the decades and Netflix explores the troubled billionaire promoter through a fractured misguided documentary series. 

Mr. McMahon, a 6-episode miniseries directed by Chris Smith, the director who rose to fame through another Netflix documentary Tiger King, aims to generalize and illustrate the career of the longtime WWE owner to a broad audience.

I love watching Netflix documentaries as it gives me an introductory access to knowledge in history I’m not familiar with in entertaining ways. What they aren’t always good for is non-biased representation of a narrative. It seems like no one is ever happy with the narratives spun from Netflix docs. Just ask Scottie Pippen what he thinks of the Jordan worshipping piece known as The Last Dance (but seriously go watch it it’s entertaining as hell!). In Mr. McMahon, with interviews from heavy hitter names like Hulk Hogan, The Rock, John Cena, and Stone Cold Steve Austin, this documentary series weaves a narrative that coincides with current popular opinion of the fallen heel.

I’m a longtime fan of professional wrestling dating back to the 1990’s during the height of the Attitude Era and the Monday Night Wars. I’ve consumed a ridiculous amount of wrestling content over the years and have gained a broad knowledge of the industry thanks to things like Twitter and Reddit.

Wrestling fans are a strange lot. In a sport that is pre-determined, they pride themselves in being on the inside. These ‘Smarks’ as the industry calls them, swarm wrestling forums and social media as they clamor for the behind the scenes knowledge of the what and where of the business. Half of the time they’re fed to believe they know more than they actually do.

Then on the other side there are the ‘marks’ or viewers who believe what they are watching is real. Mr. McMahon presents itself as if it has smark knowledge, but plays out in actual reality with mark views. There is no deeper substance in this 6-episode series that presents any source of information that isn’t well documented already. A majority of the talent that the production picked to interview were popularity grabs for name recognition that Netflix is banking a general audience will recognize. 

“Oh hey that’s the guy from Peacemaker! Isn’t that Dwayne Johnson, Black Adam?”

Yes, there are key people that are vital to the story of Vince McMahon that are featured heavily like Bret Hart, Hulk Hogan, and The Undertaker. However, if the king of the dirt sheets, Dave Meltzer is the leading narrative historian, there isn’t much validity to the story being spun on-screen by the production. The writer was once the biggest insider in the business, but between his obsession with strong style and his ever moving goal post of a star rating system, Dave has become a character himself more than he is a journalist nowadays.

I do have some experience working on documentaries during my time out in Hollywood, and don’t be surprised to learn that documentaries are not supposed to be unbiased. The on-screen interviews are catered and warped to fit the narrative spun by the production team. It’s all about what you ask the talent and how you ask it.

I will say that I at least give the production credit for intercutting a pro-McMahon point of view from his staunch supporter Bruce Prichard into the mix during the onslaught of negativity nearing the end of the coverage of McMahon’s reign with the company. There was even a scene filmed after the sexual abuse lawsuit was public that had the longtime WWE executive criticize the Netflix team behind the documentary for portraying his boss unfairly in an early preview episode that he had seen. 

A Legacy Tainted?

The truth behind Vince McMahon’s legacy in professional wrestling is and never will be in doubt. Wrestling fans know this. It’s ingenious to spin it in any other way. Yet it was evident that the talent interviewed answered that “controversial” question of what Vince’s legacy will be at the end of the series guarded. They were speaking as if their own careers and reputations were on the line.

I guarantee that none of them truly feel that Vince McMahon’s legacy is in question. The wrestling world will never forget the character nor the promoter behind the international entertainment juggernaut that is World Wrestling Entertainment. In fact, it’s not a stretch to say that professional wrestling would probably not even exist today without McMahon. As documented correctly by the show in a story well glorified nowadays, Vince McMahon rose out of the ashes from an abused childhood to overtake his father’s wrestling federation. Breaking from the conventional business practices at the time, the future mogul trampled over the barriers of his fellow promotor’s territories and made the WWF a national product.

McMahon never finished his interviews with Netflix

Netflix does give him credit and portrays him as a creative genius. Breaking norms, smashing traditional wisdom, changing with the times, these are all things that Vince utilized to survive for decades. Not only did he survive, he thrived on his insatiable lust to compete. His rivals Eric Bischoff and Paul Heyman, two other mainstays in the 1990’s wrestling promoter world, perfectly summed up the beauty and chaos that led to McMahon’s domination of the wrestling world.

Don’t mistake my recalling of events as praise for Vince McMahon. I’m simply acknowledging undeniable historical facts that can easily be traced based on the fact that the WWE survived and became a global phenomenon because of Vince McMahon. He’s also a man who was ensnared in drugs, abusing power, sex, death, and betrayal. All of these things can be concurrently true at the same time. They are not dependent on one or the other.

Herein lies my main problem with Mr. McMahon. The titular former owner of the WWE agreed to the documentary series as an opportunity to present himself to the world outside of his legendary heel persona. It was originally billed to him as his chance to tell his story the way he wanted to.

Of course, it was never going to be presented that way and I think he must have known that one way or another. What he didn’t know was that the documentary would continue long after he departed from the production. Never completing his interview segments due to the sexual abuse allegations, the narrative of the documentary was swayed early into the show. There was no mistake about it, Mr. McMahon was spun to showcase a narrative about a monster who will be forgotten with time. At least that’s what the filmmakers here want people to think.

I will applaud the inclusion of legendary NBC broadcaster Bob Costas into the series. He and McMahon had a notoriously tense interview years ago. The one little piece of new information I did learn from Mr. McMahon that I didn’t know prior, was that the voice of NBA on NBC once called WWF shows for a short period of time. He’s an extremely biased contributor to the documentary as his distaste for modern wrestling is well documented, but I found his parts on this series to be highlights to an otherwise lackluster documentary.

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Archived footage of Vince being interviewed by Jim Ross

Backstage Politics

I for one am still flabbergasted that of all the people Vince McMahon had wronged over the decades, one of the most obvious ones to speak to about abuse, not to mention decorated personalities, was not included in the interviews. If the goal was to portray how despicable of a boss and human being the man behind the character was, and just how blended the character and the real person was, how does the production not bring in good ‘ole Jim Ross to be a lead perspective in the narrative?

This man was the voice of the WWF and the voice of professional wrestling to an entire generation. He was also for years one of the closest advisors to McMahon, as well as one of the most abused employees in the history of the company. A staunchly loyal company man, JR suffered from Bell’s Palsy, and was publicly humiliated and fired multiple times because it was “good for business” for McMahon. The documentary does highlight the legendary catch phrase over and over throughout the series to make it known that the boss would do anything as long as it helped the business.

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As JR mentioned on his podcast after the release of the series, he had everything they were looking for yet he was never approached for a role on the show by Netflix. I’m putting on my smark glasses and throwing a conspiracy theory in here, but the reason we got talent like Booker T, and current WWE champion Cody Rhodes in a documentary about Vince McMahon (who really had no direct place in the story of Vince McMahon), and not Jim Ross is purely network politics. Netflix is team WWE. In the beginning of the year, Netflix paid a whopping $5 billion to acquire the rights to stream WWE’s flagship show Raw for ten years. 

You might be asking what that has to do with Jim Ross? Well, although the longtime wrestling executive will forever be remembered for his 20+ year run with the WWE, he’s currently employed by their main competitor, All Elite Wrestling which airs on the Turner broadcast networks. At the end of the day, this documentary ironically is still business and Netflix has a lot of business invested in the parent company TKO and the WWE brand.

Ironic Turn

Archived footage of Chris Benoit and Vince McMahon

Another point of irony that I, as a wrestling fan, couldn’t help but find poetic is the discussion of disgraced wrestler Chris Benoit. For those who don’t know the tragic and horrific story of the former world champion, Benoit was a well respected ring veteran who murdered his wife and son before taking his own life. It was later discovered that his brain was so damaged due to his profession that it may have lead to his repulsive actions.

It was a haunting event that forever changed the industry as CTE and brain damage became important wellness policies for the workplace after the tragedy. However, almost immediately after the horrific details trickled out to the media, Vince McMahon and the WWE actively demonized the grappler and erased him from their history. It’s become an internet meme now how Benoit is “he who shall not be named” and never existed in the wrestling universe.

By the end of Mr. McMahon, it was clear Executive Producer Bill Simmons (best known for his Celtic hot takes on the Ringer), and the rest of the production were implying that Vince McMahon’s legacy was tarnished and that wrestling has moved on from him and become better and more successful than the larger than life promoter.

While it’s true that the company, the stories, and the well-being of the wrestlers have drastically improved by all accounts from active talent, the company was placed at this pedestal to succeed because of the business that Vince McMahon drove.

During a track meet, the runner who crosses the finish line with the baton gets to taste the glory, but that doesn’t mean the runner who thrust off the starting line at the blaring sound of the blank gun is forgotten. The runner who builds the lead and passes on to the anchor who finishes is remembered just as much as the one who surpasses the goal. That’s who Vince McMahon is now and who he will be remembered as by future generations in the wrestling industry. It may not be what the rest of the world sees the fallen McMahon to be, but it has to be what the wrestling world sees.

An Alternative Product?

Dark Side of the Ring from VIce is a riveting documentary series that provides insight from wrestlers who lived through the industry's most infamous events both in and out of the ring. 

Just as he once tried to discredit the remarkable in-ring career of Chris Benoit by forging together the monstrous act of violence and horror of the murder into one single identity, Netflix’s Mr. McMahon has now done the same to him. His history as a genius wrestling promoter and maverick will now be forever tainted to that of an abuser.

As it often plays out in the soap opera driven world of wrestling, the sweet payoff of a heel losing everything is pre-determined by the writers of the show. Unfortunately for Vince, the Netflix writers of Mr. McMahon were the ones who held the creative direction of his life’s story.

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