When it starts, Mr. McMahon is a perverse love story to WWE founder Vince McMahon, one of the most controversial figures in entertainment. Quickly, the story changes, as allegations of sexual misconduct, offering a stark realization of the mini series’ apparent agenda to show the real Vince McMahon. That was always going to be a difficult prospect, and McMahon’s early refusal to tell “the real stories” to guard himself doesn’t exactly set that agenda up well.
To understand Vince McMahon, and to understand the difficulties of Mr. McMahon as an extension, you have to understand that wrestling requires “marks”, the industry equivalent to “rubes” in the language of carnival workers. McMahon’s empire was built on the art of the con, selling the deception and the magic of professional wrestling to “marks” who would fall for the heavily monetized ruse. Mr. McMahon‘s promise was always to peel back the layers, but the documentary started from a losing position. It wasn’t a story Vince wanted to be told.
The allegations and McMahon’s removal from WWE actually worked well in Mr. McMahon’s favor. Tiger King director Chris Smith was effectively given access to talent and footage that would never be signed off for a guerilla documentary telling the same story. Because of the shift in the narrative, and the presumed agenda, Mr. McMahon becomes a Capturing the Friedmans-style film about making the documentary as its intent is flipped upside down. I still wish it could have gone further.
Mr. McMahon Is A Glossy, Impressively Made Documentary Series
The Director Of Tiger King Knows How To Make Good-Looking Documentaries
It’s absolutely a well-made documentary, from Ringer Films and Bill Simmons, made with glossy production values, and with a huge pool of available talent, but at times it feels too much like it was made by WWE Films. That said, while some of the insight will be familiar to most wrestling fans, there are more obscure lore drops from early in WWE’s past – clips from McMahon’s time on Letterman or his talkshow Tuesday Night Titans.
Is that enough to fight against the reality that most people will already have made their minds up about Mr. McMahon before they watch it, either way? In episode 1, it doesn’t feel like that, because it seems like it’s going to be a glossy but well-choreographed history of WWE that occasionally pulls focus into McMahon.
But then the tone shifts dramatically in episode 2, which focuses more on a catalog of controversies and legal issues for the company. Set against the way McMahon presents himself – as well as some of the talking heads celebrating him, you get a real insight into the art of the con.
How Mr. McMahon Delivers On Its Own Agenda Of Truth
Facts Are Fluid And The Boundaries Between Reality And Fiction Aren’t Entirely Clear
Mr. McMahon‘s cut from the disclaimer about breaking the investigation into Vince McMahon to him saying “I wish I could tell you the real stories, holy sh*t!” and then “I don’t want anyone to know the real me!” is one of the most incredible bits of documentary film-making I have ever seen. The documentary does a good job of showing the sinister side of wrestling – though not to the level of Vice’s excellent Dark Side Of The Ring series – and it’s very obvious why McMahon objected to it.
Inevitably, McMahon claims the documentary is misleading. In a statement published just before release, he claimed the conflation of his real life and his WWE character “Mr. McMahon” is a misrepresentation, and urged viewers to watch with an open mind. The problem with that, of course, is that there are a lot more controversies associated with McMahon than the one that broke during production that the documentary shows in great detail. It makes for the unique situation of both an unreliable narrator, and potentially biased viewers (on either “side”):
“A lot has been misrepresented or left out entirely in an effort to leave viewers intentionally confused. The producers use typical editing tricks with out-of-context footage and dated soundbites etc to distort the viewers’ perception and support a deceptive narrative. In an attempt to further their misleading account, the producers use a lawsuit based on an affair I ended as evidence that I am, in fact, ‘Mr McMahon.’ I hope the viewer will keep an open mind and remember that there are two sides to every story.”
What’s fascinating about Mr. McMahon shows McMahon’s version of the story of his rise to become the most powerful man in WWE, while he avoids acknowledging or apologizing for some of the dark things done in name of that rise. He celebrates the ticket sales, the cultural impact, and his own star-making power, as the film-makers wrestle the narrative back whenever possible.
That occasionally means that stunning reveals – the exploitation of Andre the Giant, wrestlers injuring themselves, the embrace of racism to inspire story-telling – are stated with a grim matter-of-fact simplicity, and then we move on. And at times, McMahon’s statements and defences of certain events are jaw-dropping (as well as enraging when he claims not to remember key things to protect himself).
Mr. McMahon’s Big Failure Is Vince McMahon Himself
The Real Vince McMahon? Not Exactly
It’s jarring how much time is devoted to WWE’s general history, but the promise here – especially for wrestling fans – is Vince’s perspective, which hasn’t really been captured before. Unfortunately, it’s very much a con job. McMahon may claim his image is misrepresented, but it’s stunning how many times he is faced with allegations or controversies, and his perspective is just a rebuttal or a shrug of “that’s just how it was”.
Son Shane McMahon says it best: “I think my dad gets the rap that he wants.” It’s clear McMahon saw this as an opportunity to present the story he wanted to be told, crafted expertly from Gorilla Position. As such, he appears ridiculous, as Smith offers a more realistic perspective from other participants in the film. But there’s too little focus on exploring the half-truths and lies, or analyzing in the anatomical detail all wrestling fans will crave. A similar thing happened in Tiger King, which became too invested in giving Joe Exotic the platform to build and dismantle his own brand by himself.
For an outsider, it’s a good documentary, and a strong history of WWE’s rise and some of its darkest days in broad strokes. However, most wrestling fans know all the details, and actually having Vince’s true feelings would have been solid gold. In the end, we don’t get that, and his rebuttal statement is the icing on that particularly disappointing cake. There is perverse entertainment to be had in him saying things that someone else immediately debunks, though.
Do we really get a sense of where “Mr. McMahon” ends and Vince McMahon begins? Wasn’t that the point? If it was, the answer is a resounding no: but you can’t avoid the fact that McMahon comes off incredibly poorly. If you knew that, again, it’s nothing new, but for the uninitiated, you’ll get the curious sense of the portrait of a monster that seems to pull its punches a little too much.
Mr. McMahon Packs In A Carnival Of Talent
The talking head element will be great for wrestling fans, because of the big names brought in to talk about him, but there are precious few dissenting voices. Bret Hart feels like the one exception early on, as a troupe of people who profited from McMahon’s WWE tenure celebrate his achievements, while dismissing the more nefarious elements of his history as “part of the business”. As Donald Trump film The Apprentice readies for release, I’m struck by the parallels of the two powerful friends.
There are some scenes that WWE and its legends will probably look back on with regret – or so you’d hope (unless they claim misrepresentation, of course. Stone Cold Steve Austin’s comments on CTEs are awful; Hulk Hogan’s interviews are sycophantic; Stephanie McMahon also doesn’t emerge well. The entire industry comes off incredibly poorly, and there’s a real sense of closing ranks and offering only what’s necessary, without being too incriminating.
You want them to be grilled more aggressively, but the documentary chooses not to have an advocate for the audience or the truth actively asking those questions. When Vince McMahon dismisses Chris Benoit’s murder of his wife and child, with the looming specter of CTE over the whole awful event, he offers no more than “Chris went nuts, and that’s the only thing to take away from it” and it’s hard to resist screaming for some challenge.
Dave Meltzer, prominent wrestling journalist, and Phil Mushnick, a New York Post writer probably come off the best. They act as a sort of fact-checking line, edited fatally close to other talking heads telling obvious half-truths. They hand them the shovel to bury themselves, and some do so quite willingly alone. When Jimmy Hart says he’s being cautious, because he doesn’t know “what they want out there“, you get a sense of the problem.
Final Thoughts On Mr. McMahon & A Note On The Future
Mr. McMahon is a shocking documentary for Netflix to release ahead of their big money deal with WWE bringing “the product” to the platform in 2025, but it’s a smart affirmation at the same time. What better way to remind everyone of how different the dark past was to their era of wrestling than to expose the skeletons in the closet, after all?
I honestly don’t believe many people will come out of Mr. McMahon with a different opinion of Vince McMahon. His perspective offers nothing more than the sense that he’s working the audience again; that he’s building his character brand – or cleaning it up – under the pretense of a tell-all. That means anyone who knows the harsh truths of wrestling’s past won’t gain a lot.
On the other hand, the general audience that Netflix is courting here is a completely different matter. For them, the added perspective that McMahon doesn’t offer, and which comes from the contextualizing voices in particular, could be profoundly affecting. McMahon has controlled his story for so long that seeing it laid out – even in this form with some pulled punches – offers a lot of value. Just revealing how big this con job has always been makes Mr. McMahon a compelling watch.
