By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
The following are the notes I am taking while watching each episode of the six-part “Mr. McMahon” documentary that is available for streaming on Netflix.
-Vince spoke about his favorite wrestler as a kid being Dr. Jerry Graham. Vince said he was a heel and maybe that’s one of the reasons he liked him because he never liked the babyfaces. Vince said he wanted to be like Graham so badly that he talked his stepmother into dying his hair blond and he learned to strut like Graham did. Vince said Graham took him under his wing. Vince recalled riding shotgun while Graham drove his car through stoplights. Vince said Graham was so flamboyant and aggressive, and Vince decided that’s who he wanted to be.
-By the way, they have run disclaimers at the start of the show acknowledging that Vince resigned from WWE in 2024 after allegations of sexual misconduct, assault, and trafficking, and that most of the interviews took place before then.
-There was more on the Montreal Screwjob. Trish Stratus said that as a Canadian, she “f—ing hated” Vince.
-Vince said he had heat with the fans coming out of the Montreal Screwjob and decided to turn it into business. Vince said he always wanted to be a performer, but his father wouldn’t let him into the business in that manner. Vince said it felt natural to him once he started playing the Mr. McMahon character.
-Former USA Network executive Bonnie Hammer spoke about how heated things were between the WWF and WCW when she started working with Vince. She said he wanted to be more bold. Bischoff said he didn’t know that Vince was creating the Attitude Era.
-Bruce Prichard was asked when the Attitude Era was born. He recalled a night when Vince McMahon wasn’t at Raw. Prichard said Shawn Michaels stuffed a sock in the front of his bicycle shorts. Michaels said it was gauze. Michaels said Vince fined him $10,000 for being unprofessional. Michaels told Vince to go back and watch the footage and say it wasn’t funny.
-Prichard said Vince was livid and then three or four weeks later, Vince said Shawn Michaels was “attitude” and they needed more attitude. “The Attitude Era was born,” Prichard said.
-Cody Rhodes spoke about the anti-authority approach clicking. He said you didn’t know what was real and what was not, and you couldn’t turn away.
-Undertaker said they changed the writing so that it wasn’t geared toward the 12 year-old demographic, and was instead targeting the 18-34 demo.
-Steve Austin made his first appearance. Paul Heyman spoke about Austin’s brief time in ECW. Austin recalled Triple H being punished for the Curtain Call incident by having the King of the Ring win taken away from him. Austin won the tournament and created the “Austin 3:16” catchphrase that night after he beat a religious Jake Roberts in the tournament finals. Vince’s reaction was fear that it wouldn’t play well in the Bible Belt. Austin also said he came up with “And that’s the bottom line, cause Stone Cold said so” out of the blue.
-Austin recalled feeling like Raw became a better show than WCW Nitro and yet they couldn’t catch them in the ratings. He said they understood why there were still losing initially, but eventually he started to wonder if someone was being paid off.
-Mike Tyson’s appearance on Raw, which turned the tide, was chronicled. Eric Bischoff said he was so arrogant that when someone called him and said you won’t believe who the WWF was bringing it, Bischoff blew it off. Bischoff said he got “uncocky real fast” when he was told it was Mike Tyson.
-Footage aired of Stephanie McMahon in 2013 being asked about bringing in Tyson despite his baggage. Stephanie assumed he had not been arrested for rape by that point. “He had?” Steph said while looking at someone off-camera. Stephanie just nodded her head. Ouch.
-Austin said he wasn’t happy with the match at WrestleMania when he beat Shawn Michaels to win the title and Mike Tyson was involved. Austin recalled Vince telling him not to worry about it because it really starts now.
-The Austin vs. McMahon war was chronicled. Vince said he grew up dirt poor and therefore did not like rich people. He said he knew people who thought they were better than him because they had money. Vince said he loved to fight and was good at it, which meant he could be somebody. Vince said people said he did not fight fair and cheated. Vince said yes, but he won.
-Vince laughed when he was told that Bruce Prichard said he had been given the Mr. McMahon treatment in real life. Vince said he’s very passionate about the business and sometimes that passion is a bit effusive, so he can get out of bounds a little bit. Hammer said Vince loved blurring the line between fact and fiction.
-Former WWE creative team member Brian Gewirtz made his first appearance while talking briefly about the ratings battle.
-Bischoff said so many things WWE did were derivative of what they were doing in WCW. Bischoff pointed to DX being like the NWO, and Mr. McMahon being derivative of evil Eric Bischoff. Bischoff said Vince had to admit that he ripped him off, albeit that he did it better. Vince said that if Bischoff played the character before him, he didn’t play it as well.
-The Rock’s rough start and eventual rise was spotlighted and Dwayne Johnson was interviewed. Rock spoke about his family’s history in pro wrestling. Tony Atlas said that Rock walks and dresses like his father, and if you didn’t know better you would think he was Rocky Johnson.
-Rock recalled Vince informing him that he was going to make him the WWF Champion. Rock mentioned he would be the first WWF champion of color. Vince said he knew, but he didn’t see that. Rock said Vince was always about not caring what color a person is or whether they were a unicorn, if you’re drawing money then you’ll be champion. Tony Atlas said Vince doesn’t see black or white, he sees green.
-Dave Meltzer said the company makes more money today, but from a popularity standpoint the Attitude Era was the peak.
-Paul Levesque said was fun, but there are a lot things people can watch on line and he looks back and wonders how they got away with what they did. New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick said they knew they could get away with everything and the pushed it.
-McMahon called the Attitude Era “a standard deviation beyond what we were doing before.” He claimed the product was still family friendly. Ha! He said no one was killed. A clip aired of the “Buried Alive” headstone of Steve Austin and Undertaker, and of Triple H battering a coffin with a sledgehammer. Vince said there was no rape. Footage aired of McMahon standing in the ring and calling out someone while labeling that person a rapist. Vince was shown saying there was no use of knives or guns. Footage aired of Brian Pillman pulling out a gun when the Austin character broke into his home during Raw. Vince said it was still family friendly, maybe for more of an adult family, not kids.
-Prichard questioned whether he would have let his kids watch WWE during the Attitude Era and said he probably would have.
-Shawn Michaels said he was leading the charge during that era. He said now that he has a daughter, he feels there are times they could have been less objectionable towards women.
-Trish Stratus said the Attitude Era women weren’t really considered wrestlers. Stratus mentioned that Sable was a WWE Diva who knew exactly what her role was. Stratus also pointed out that the Jerry Springer and Howard Stern were also very popular during the same time in the ’90s. Stratus said the Attitude Era was a reflection of what was going on in the real world.
-Prichard conceded that bra and panties matches wouldn’t fly today, but he said that’s what was on television at the time.
-Vince said they more or less followed what was going on in the entertainment business and pointed out that a lot of their highest rated segments involved the women.
-Stephanie McMahon said they felt like they needed to be edgy because that’s what television was at the time. Stephanie said they always wanted to serve their audience, but she conceded they “maybe took it a little too far in some cases.”
-Levesque said that when you look back at it now and say how crazy it was and that it shouldn’t have been done or was inappropriate. Levesque said it was, then asked whether the guy who did it or the people who loved it were worse.
-The death of Owen Hart was chronicled. Vince recalled asking Owen Hart what he wanted to do after Bret Hart left. Vince said Owens told him that he wanted to stay. Bret said Owen had nothing to do with what went on between him and Vince and yet he knew Owen would pay for it. Bret said they humiliated Owen’s character as often as they could for a while to get to him.
-Vince said Bret feeling that they did something to Owen because Bret left only speaks to Bret’s ego. Vince said they were trying to make Owen a star.
-Bret recalled being on a flight when Owens fell to his death at the Over The Edge pay-per-view in 1999. Bret said something came over him and he knew something terrible had happened.
-Vince recalled the medical personnel working on Owen Hart after he fell from the rafters and thinking that he could surely be alive. Bruce Prichard recalled Jerry Lawler telling him that he thought Owen was dead. Prichard said a policemen pulled him to the side to let him know that Owen had been pronounced dead.
-Vince said he had to make the decision of whether the show should go on. Vince claimed the live audience didn’t really see what happened. Prichard said they didn’t announce Owen’s death to the live crowd. Vince said the crowd didn’t come to see someone die, they came to see a show. He said the businessman in him felt the show should go on. Footage aired of the wrestlers working in the ring next to Owen’s blood.
-Vince said Bret would feel like a brother should and he had every right to say anything negative he felt about the company. Vince said had it been him in Owen’s position, he would have wanted the show to go on. Bret said he thought at the time that they may have murdered Owens to get back at him.
-Footage aired of Martha Hart announcing the wrongful death lawsuit she filed against the company.
-Vince said they settled the lawsuit with Martha, and then found out it wasn’t their fault. He said the apparatus used was defective and the manufacturer knew that was the case. Vince said the company sued the manufacturer.
-Bret recalled a police investigator calling him to tell him that it was a horrible accident and there was nothing criminal that took place. Bret said he accepted that it was an accident and forgave Vince in his heart of hearts. Bret said he had plenty of issues to have issues with Vince, but they were on a professional level and not a personal level.
-Undertaker spoke about how things had reached a point where enough was enough in terms of how far they were pushing things in the ring.
-Graphics noted that Martha Hart and WWE settled their lawsuit in 2000, and that WWE settled its lawsuit with the manufacturer in 2003.
-This episode was balanced in terms of covering the success of the Attitude Era while also spotlighting the hypocrisy of McMahon claiming the product was still family friendly during that time. I enjoyed the hell out of the Attitude Era and it was comparable to a lot of the trashy television that was big at the time. The big difference is that Howard Stern, Jerry Springer, and others producing edgy content were not targeting children like WWE was. The scenes with Vince stating that they didn’t have guns only to show the footage of Brian Pillman holding a gun on Raw was priceless. I felt the producers went light on Vince for continuing the show after Owen Hart died.
Be the first to comment