Vince McMahon's most disturbing secrets revealed in Netflix documentary series

Vince McMahon is the most important figure in the history of professional wrestling, having transformed a regional company into a multibillion-dollar giant known as World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). He is also currently the subject of an ongoing federal investigation into allegations that he paid four women a total of $14.6 million since 2006 to cover up his sexual misconduct – one of whom, former employee Janel Grant, filed her own lawsuit accusing the mogul of heinous crimes, including rape, sharing nude photos of herself with WWE headliner Brock Lesner (to get him to re-sign, which he did), and pooping on her during a threesome.

Mr McMahonthe six-part Netflix docuseries from director Chris Smith (September 25), is a comprehensive portrait of a man and an industry defined by the ever-fluid line between fact and fiction. Featuring the participation of numerous wrestling luminaries (including Hulk Hogan, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, John Cena, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker, Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart), it is the story of an ambitious and ruthless individual who built an empire by creating violent and over-the-top sports theater out of contemporary reality, whether during the politically frenzied '80s or the life-imitating art of the '90s and 2000s. Even his 2007 “feud” with Donald Trump, which culminated in a hair-shaving contest at WrestleMania 23, was a reflection of its times—and, as it turned out, of the future, as it foreshadowed the uncompromising personality that would ultimately propel the real estate magnate to the presidency.

McMahon has always been at the center of WWE, both as a businessman and as a performer, first as an announcer and then as an on-camera villain (i.e., “heel”) known as “Mr. McMahon,” who the impresario claims was nothing like him. But this alternately celebratory and damning affair suggests otherwise. It portrays Mr. McMahon as the greatest wrestling character of all time, not just because of his talent, but because, like all the best wrestling characters, his core traits – narcissistic, egomaniacal, ruthless, sexually greedy, and overall perverse and immoral – were merely extensions of the person playing him.

Most Mr McMahonThe candid interviews were conducted before the sexual allegations against McMahon became public. Still, Smith's 2021-2022 conversations with his subject, as well as with stars, colleagues and reporters, have not dated, especially because they paint a picture of McMahon as someone who never shied away from a fight, always seasoned his fantasies with hints of truth and always saw himself as a patriarch whose word, deed and desire were final.

In a comprehensive summary of his career trajectory from abused and poor child to desperately seeking recognition working under the feet of his promoter father Vince Sr. to ruthless entrepreneur to prominent ring presence who made himself and his family the stuff of storylines, Smith finds numerous parallels between the real and the fake, revealing McMahon as a man of countless contradictions inherent in the modern wrestling world he pioneered.

Mr McMahon is, in many ways, the history of WWE, and those who enjoyed any of its eras will enjoy this loving look back, backed up by a number of amazing archival footage. Although Smith caters to nostalgic merchandise, he has a higher goal. His documentary series invariably weaves together McMahon's creative and strategic approach and the ongoing narratives of his product, whether it be mining conflicts between the United States (represented by Hogan) and its opponents (embodied by the likes of The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff), or his own intra-family tensions with his wife Linda, son Shane, and daughter Stephanie, all of whom were pushed into the spotlight alongside their father in storylines that closely matched their authentic dynamics.

McMahon admits in a later passage that his brain functions like several separate computers and that while his primary attention is focused on the current conversation, another machine in his brain is thinking about sex.

That's not particularly surprising considering the allegations made against him, nor the fact that the objectification of women exploded when the CEO became the linchpin of WWE sagas during the “Attitude” era of the 1990s – a period when anything was possible and which helped the company thwart its Ted Turner-backed rival World Championship Wrestling (WCW). Smith's series shows that the more McMahon became the literal (villainous) face of his own franchise, the more it became a reflection of himself, full of excessive crassness, brutality and titillation.

Courtesy of Netflix

Mr McMahon confirms McMahon's claim that WWE's success was based on adeptly following cultural trends. But it also underscores how much of the company's outrageousness was a manifestation of its chief architect, who eagerly sought to confuse audiences about what was legitimate and what was fake, until distinguishing between the two was only half the fun.

“I ask myself now, who is the character and who am I? I guess it's maybe a mix. And I would say one is a little over the top. But I'm not sure which,” says McMahon, who believes “people don't really know me at all.” However, Hogan, Michaels and Austin say the McMahon persona was very similar to their employer. And given the clips of Mr. McMahon acting like an uninhibited, lecherous creep, that perspective lends some credibility to the allegations against him.

Courtesy of Netflix

Mr McMahon traces the various evolutions of WWE and features a wealth of amusing anecdotes from its biggest names, including famous incidents such as the record-breaking WrestleMania III main event between Hogan and Andre the Giant (apparently Hogan didn't know if Andre would let him win) and the “Montreal Screwjob” in which McMahon, knowing that champion Hart was about to defect to WCW, secretly arranged for him to lose the title in his final match against his hated rival Michaels. In all of these stories, McMahon is the puppet master pulling the strings, unconcerned about whose feelings he hurts because, as he (and everyone who knows him) makes clear, he cares more than anything else about making money to protect and grow his business.

Mr McMahon claims that McMahon was many things to many people: a father figure, a genius, a bully, a fighter, a con artist and (according to Phil Mushnick, who wrote to him in his New York Post columns), “a scumbag.” In the wake of his recent scandals, McMahon left WWE, returned to oversee its sale to the TKO Group Holdings Company, and then retired when his new bosses decided they'd had enough. It may be a shameful end, but to promoter and WWE executive Paul Heyman, it's a fitting fate for a tycoon who believed that “we live by the law of the jungle. And the lion that still rules this kingdom wouldn't have it any other way.”

McMahon voiced his dissatisfaction with the series on Monday before its release. In a post on X, he wrote that while he did not regret his participation, “much was misrepresented or left out entirely to intentionally confuse viewers.”