Mr. McMahon documentary: Powell’s notes on Episode Two – “Heat”

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 McMahon performing “Stand Back” opened the episode. There was an unintentionally timely, yet brief mention of Saturday Night’s Main Event, but it was glossed over quickly.

-Hulk Hogan acknowledged that he went to Vince and stooged on Jesse Ventura’s attempt to start a union.

-WrestleMania 2 was touched on briefly before they moved into WrestleMania 3. Vince claims he approached Andre the Giant on the set of The Princess Bride to get him to have back surgery so that he could come back and face Hogan at WM3.

-Vince boasted they sold 93,000 tickets for WM3. Dave Meltzer was featured throughout the documentary and disputed the attendance number by saying there were 78,000 in the building. He also correctly stated that Hogan was a bigger star than Andre already so it was not a torch passing moment, Andre had already lost matches and had been bodyslammed before.

-Vince and Hogan both stuck to the story that Hogan didn’t know if Andre was going to put over Hogan during the WM3 main event. Good lord.

-Stephanie McMahon said she felt resentment that everyone talked about Hogan and her father wasn’t getting the credit as the creator. Hogan credited Vince by saying he would listen to him because everything he touched turn to gold.

-Vince and Hogan told the story of the No Holds Barred movie. Vince said he didn’t want to lose Hogan to Hollywood, so he told him they would make a movie together. Vince said it didn’t prevent Hogan from going to Hollywood, but it delayed it for a little while.

-Vince spoke about Hogan’s popularity dipping and said it was probably time for him to be on the bench for a little while. Hogan said he did what Andre did for him by passing the torch to Ultimate Warrior at WM6. They essentially jumped from WM3 to WM6.

-Vince claimed that the Hogan and Sgt. Slaughter story was working really well, but then reality hit in the form of Operation Desert Storm. Vince said Americans could die so they needed to pull back a bit. There was no mention of the show being moved from the Los Angeles Coliseum to the L.A. Sports Arena.

-The story of Dr. George Zahorian was mentioned briefly. Vince said he bought steroids from him. Vince said it wasn’t illegal to be prescribed steroids, but it was illegal to prescribe them just to sell them.

-Vince said he’s always enjoyed bodybuilding and physiques. He said he could add some entertainment value to bodybuilding and launched the WBF, but he had to fold it because all bodybuilders do is take steroids and the timing was bad. There was no mention of the WBF being a miserable failure.

-Vince McMahon and Bruce Prichard accused New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick of having a vendetta against the company. Mushnick said no one was critical of pro wrestling in the mainstream media at the time. Once he started criticizing McMahon and the WWF, he said his mailbox was stuffed with messages that said he didn’t know the half of it. He said he returned calls and it was mind blowing.

-Tony Atlas said that in today’s society, wrestlers would have been looked at as some of the worst human beings on the face of the earth. Atlas said he and all of the wrestlers abused women and said they were like pawns to them.

-The death of Jimmy Snuka’s girlfriend Nancy Argentino was discussed briefly along with Meltzer assuming that Vince had a part in making it go away.

-The ring boy scandal received more coverage. Mushnick said it was a pedophile ring and kids were being abused on Vince’s watch. Bret Hart said he thinks there was a lot of turning a blind eye to what was going on, but he questioned how it could be proved. Meltzer recalled Vince telling him that Pat Patterson was innocent. Vince said it was a gay witch hunt and Patterson had to be fired along with Terry Garvin and Mel Phillips. Patterson was brought back months later. Bruce Prichard said none of the allegations against Patterson rang true, but he declined to comment on the other two. Atlas accused Patterson of “grabbing my pecker” repeatedly in the locker room. Atlas said you took it or you would go home. He assumed he would have been fired had he gone to Vince about it. Atlas said Vince didn’t protect Patterson, he protected the business.

-Jimmy Hart was asked about scandals. He said he was trying to be cautious because he didn’t know what they wanted out in the open. Ugh.

-They replayed Rita Chatterton accusing Vince of rape. Vince said it never happened. “Once you’re accused of rape, you’re a rapist,” McMahon said. He said what happened was consensual. Vince said had it been rape, the statute of limitations had run out. Vince said people are digging up crap like that in an attempt to find something on him. *It was acknowledged at the end of the episode that Vince and Chatterton reached a multi-million dollar settlement, while adding that Vince continues to deny any wrongdoing.

-The federal steroids trial was covered. Vince said the federal government are bullies. Vince said he wouldn’t agree to a plea deal because he wasn’t guilty of anything. Vince claims he told the feds to “fuck themselves.”

-Vince said he did not wear the neck brace during the trial to gain sympathy from the jury.

-Former USA Network executive Kay Koplovitz said that had Vince been found guilty, the WWF would have been off the air.

-Hulk Hogan’s departure and jump to WCW was covered. Eric Bischoff spoke of giving Hogan a lucrative contract with fewer dates than the WWF would give him at the time. Vince recalled Hogan stating that he would never run against him, getting his release, and then showing up in WCW. Hogan confirmed that he told Vince he wouldn’t compete against him. Shane McMahon said Hogan showing up in WCW was a slap in the face.

-Hogan recalled the federal government wanting him to be the star witness against Vince in the steroids trial. Hogan said he was told that if he didn’t say what the government wanted him to say, the case me be redirected toward him and he was facing 17 years. Vince said he believes in the law of the jungle and when something is weakened, you want to pile on it and kill it. He said he felt like that was happening to him, but he understood it.

-The episode closed with Hogan saying he was granted immunity and knew what he was going to say.

-Episode two was stronger than the fluffy first episode. But they have sped through some important stories that I’m surprised were not covered in more detail.