How will Vince McMahon be remembered? That question drives the new Netflix documentary on wrestling's most famous promoter. Mr. McMahon is named for the character that the real-life McMahon portrayed on TV starting in the late '90s, and the documentary tries to untangle the fiction of that character from the reality of the man—a reality that is oftentimes more repugnant than any wrestling angle could dare to be. It succeeds, to an extent, thanks to the shocking behavior of its subject, but there is a lack of understanding that what made Vince McMahon successful at all costs is also what made him reprehensible.
For the most part, the documentary is a victim of its production cycle. By my estimation, roughly 75 percent of the interviews shown throughout the six episodes were recorded in 2021 and 2022, prior to McMahon resigning from his role as CEO and chairman of WWE due to a Wall Street Journal report that he paid multiple women millions of dollars to hide what were initially deemed as consensual affairs, and about 90 percent of the interviews were conducted before McMahon was sued for sexual abuse and trafficking earlier this year. Though the documentary repeatedly tells the viewer that these interviews were recorded before the allegations came out, that warning does not do enough to distill the hagiography on display, particularly in the earlier episodes.
Mr. McMahon does touch on the allegations, but I use the word "touches" intentionally. The Janel Grant lawsuit, which contained enough horrifying information to finally drive McMahon out of the wrestling business, seemingly for good, is covered briefly in the final episode of the series, but it's a minor part of the six-plus hours of runtime. It's clear that the Netflix production crew, helmed by director Chris Smith and produced in part by Bill Simmons, did not want to throw out hundreds of hours of interviews recorded prior to the gut-wrenching twists and turns of McMahon's last two years.
In tracing the history of wrestling through the history of its most important executive, Mr. McMahon opens the floor up for McMahon to portray himself in whatever way he sees fit, and the result gives his words too much weight without offering objective resistance. Vince McMahon is a legendary liar, someone who has warped history itself in order to showcase himself as the one true survivor and winner of wrestling's long march into the 21st century. Mr. McMahon attempts to use those lies against McMahon, flying through 40 years of wrestling history to show that dishonesty is an integral part of this business: WrestleMania, Hulk Hogan, the 1994 steroid trial, the Montreal Screwjob that helped birth the Mr. McMahon character. But all of these moments have been ever-present as parts of the McMahon mythology, and the documentary doesn't work hard enough to separate fact from WWE-approved fiction.
The documentary is mostly interested in explaining why Vince McMahon was so successful. The rise of Stone Cold Steve Austin, the Attitude Era, the business victory over WCW, the arrival of John Cena, the shift to a PG rating and a family-friendly product: All of these things show up as one might expect, with McMahon giving his largely unchallenged perspective on history. The 2007 Chris Benoit tragedy, in which the wrestler murdered his family before dying by suicide, follows a similar formula to the rest of the documentary: Vince McMahon gives his side of the story, a side in which Benoit was a monster of singular evil, and then former wrestler-turned-neuroscientist Chris Nowinski says that, actually, it was in part because Benoit's brain had been permanently damaged by years of concussions and head injuries suffered in the ring. There is no direct challenge to McMahon's assertion, only a both sides-ism and that allows him to float by with his belief in his own innocence.
This isn't to say that the documentary is a complete failure. Where it succeeds the most in its critique of Vince McMahon is when it lets him damn himself with his own words. Though McMahon tries to brush off some of the worst things he did or allowed to happen, he often does so in deplorable fashion. When asked about why he kept the 1999 Over the Limit pay-per-view going after Owen Hart fell from the rafters and died, his response is eye-opening: "The live audience didn't really see what happened. Had they seen, no question, you have to shut the show down. Those people came to see a show. They didn't come to see somebody die. And, me as a businessman, it's like 'OK, let's continue on. Let's continue the show.'"
Elsewhere, McMahon is asked about former WWE referee Rita Chatterton's allegation that he had threatened her for sexual favors, and that he had subsequently raped her. His reply is bone-chilling: "Once you're accused of rape, you're a rapist, but it was consensual, and actually, had it been a rape, the statute of limitations had run out."
So much of wrestling is storytelling, and Mr. McMahon does understand that no one is a less reliable narrator than McMahon himself. In an interview with journalist Kevin Iole, Mr. McMahon producer Matt Maxson says that it was "fulfilling" to see McMahon lie himself into a hole. "There's a moment where he says 'there are times where [...] what I say isn't necessarily what I mean.' That was just such a fulfilling thing," said Maxson. "He's like, 'I'm the chairman of the board. I'm not going to tell you the truth.' We even set that up at the very beginning. He's not a reliable narrator."
But that recognition doesn't make the documentary itself a trustworthy source. I finished it believing that, before this recent batch of allegations, it was set to be a puff piece. It makes sense why it would be: Netflix recently won the rights to Monday Night Raw, and WWE's flagship weekly program is moving over to the streaming service in the new year. Though word of Vince McMahon's misdeeds had floated around wrestling for decades, the documentary feels less like an intentional confrontation and more like a delicately timed piece of marketing ahead of Raw's move to Netflix that had to change course once the allegations came to light. It's still too credulous, and it still spends too much time on historical lionization. A Netflix viewer with just a casual interest in wrestling could easily come away thinking of Vince McMahon the genius he always saw himself to be, brought down by his misdeeds only after his story had been written nearly in full.
The last episode reaches something closer to a useful truth. But it's not enough. The man and the allegations have been tied together throughout his career—not just at the end. McMahon didn't rise to the top of wrestling despite his repulsive behavior, but because of it. The toxicity is built into everything he did. The man who is accused of trafficking an employee to various executives and wrestlers is the same as the character who had wrestlers under his employ kissing his ass on national television, or making female talent bark like a dog for him. Vince McMahon is Mr. McMahon.
