Mr McMahon Netflix doc Thread

[theringmaster]

6 hours ago, DEF said:

Whilst I absolutely agree I can also whole heartedly believe that insane story about Vince screaming at Shane. Sounds exactly the kind of mental Vince is and also that I'm sure Heyman was told to say it.

 

It's funny because after that story my first thought was "No way did that happen". I think it has some truth to it, Vince probably told him he would have to kill him before he would agree to it but Heyman turned it into this big dramatic scene like it was the Sopranos or something.

I went off Heyman around the Brock era, I started to see through his BS back then.

[DavidB6937]

There were a few backstage bits I'd never seen before, so I quite enjoyed those, but they were very few and far between.

The rest was your standard stuff:

• McMahon fucking the territories
• Wrestlemania
• Monday Night Wars
• Bret/Vince/Screwjob/Owen etc etc
• Austin/McMahon
• Austin/Rock
• McMahon buying WCW
• No competition and business slumps
• JOHN CENA DOES RAPS

It's so by-the-numbers that you could've easily written all that shit down beforehand and done a drinking game or something.

There are the teeniest tiniest glimpses of something interesting when it comes to Vince - his bad upbringing and how that could've impacted him going forward and his own relationship with his kids etc, but he was never going to go into that in any great detail.

Same with when he starts talking about having multiple brains and one of them thinking about sex or whatever. It's the closest you get to pulling back that curtain and seeing what's actually going on but he never lets it happen. Nor do they seem to push for it much.

All we're left with is the same stories. The same "it's business" line from an incredibly hypocritical man who thinks anyone who fucks with him is doing it personally but he's allowed to do anything he wants in the name of "business".

It had potential, if only because he was there and sat in front of them, but the opportunity wasn't taken.

I don't think we'll get anywhere near an open discussion until he's dead.

 

[SuperBacon]

Bill Simmons content that he produces is absolutely shit, so I don't know why anyone is remotely surprised that this is utter bobbins.

[DEF]

4 hours ago, theringmaster said:

It's funny because after that story my first thought was "No way did that happen". I think it has some truth to it, Vince probably told him he would have to kill him before he would agree to it but Heyman turned it into this big dramatic scene like it was the Sopranos or something.

I went off Heyman around the Brock era, I started to see through his BS back then.

Oh it's definitely Heyman spinning it in his own way but the heart of it I expect to be true. Just imagine Vince going from zero to a hundred in the rage scale grabbing the knife and screaming it in Shanes face. It won't have been as articulate and Shakespearean it'll have been a psychotic rage filled abusive rant.

[Supremo]

I’ve watched the first three episodes.

It’s mostly worthless. The only thing that’s stood out is the hilarious moment when they cover Nitro competing, where all his bum-lickers try and put over that Vince, “doesn’t sell,” when things don’t go his way.

Triple H: “He doesn’t sell.”

Undertaker: “He never sold a thing.”

Pritchard: “Yeah, Vince’ll never let you see him sweat.”

Could have fooled me, lads. Fucker sold this documentary like The Rock taking a Stone Cold Stunner!

[wandshogun09]

Yeah I don’t get why ‘Vince never sells anything’ has been a thing over the years. Responding with the Billionaire Ted skits for one was proof he was gotten to when Nitro launched and then he sued them over Hall and Nash being portrayed too similarly to Razor and Diesel on WCW TV. Not to mention publicly crying about WCW/Ted Turner trying to “raid his talent” even though it was OK when he was doing it in the 80s when he gutted the territories of most of their top stars. He loves playing the victim, which is surely him overselling if anything.

I will say I did enjoy some of the old footage they used. The Gorilla Monsoon clips in particular were a highlight for me and I actually didn’t know he was lined up to take over the WWF before Vince Jr swooped in. 

[IANdrewDiceClay]

6 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

I will say I did enjoy some of the old footage they used. The Gorilla Monsoon clips in particular were a highlight for me and I actually didn’t know he was lined up to take over the WWF before Vince Jr swooped in. 

It was going to be called Pro Wrestling Gorilla.

[wandshogun09]

2 minutes ago, IANdrewDiceClay said:

It was going to be called Pro Wrestling Gorilla.

“Will you stop!”

[d-d-d-dAz]

So because I hate myself, I've carried on with this.

It's not bad. It's just pointless. My wife caught a bit and she didn't enjoy it as a non-fan because it was too wrestling heavy, whereas I don't love it because I know it all already. So they've somehow took 50 years of fascinating story and not found a single audience for it. That's weirdly impressive. They've managed to make something that's surface level froth for wrestling fans, and too heavily 'wrestling' for non fans.

It's like something you'd show a wrestling fan if they'd had a head injury and couldn't quite remember wrestling. Just a little something to jog the memory.

I somehow come out of it thinking Stephanie and Shane are more sympathetic than I expected. They both seem like they were held prisoners to this lunatic for as long as they could handle and then they just fucked it off. Shane, in particular, I liked more than I expected. They're still aliens, obviously, but perhaps slightly less malign than I expected.

Shane's also way more interesting a personality than Vince. Vince is just a flat track bully and abuser. Shane is a little boy willing to do anything to get the hug of a man he clearly despises. Way more interesting. That bit with Shane in the final episode is the best part of the whole series in terms of actually being interesting and instructive.

*edit* oh and forgot to say, Chris Nowinski always comes across very well. Compassion, sensitive, intelligent. He'd never have made it in that world and is way better off out of it.

 

Edited September 28, 2024 by d-d-d-dAz

[The Gaffer]

Yeah Nowinski deserves some love. Absolutely on the Mt. Rushmore of people who sacked off the industry and is making something of their lives. 

Not sure who else is on that rock face, to be honest. The people on either side of Nowinski might be a bit of a drop off. I feel like Van Dam's up there just for being a pretty straight up guy who knows he's all about smoking a bonkers amount of weed, shagging about and going on about the universe. 

Agreed on the kids, too. I want to like Stephanie a lot of the time. I'd never defend what she's defended and/or sidestepped but I'll also never have the frame of reference for being born directly into the business you love and essentially feel co-dependent on being glued to and defending, with its evil ringleader as your actual dad. 

There might be nothing in it but virtually any time someone on the current roster mentions her, it's in tones of praise as well. Like that actual, going out of your way to mention that somebody's actually nice tone of praise. 

Edited September 28, 2024 by The Gaffer

[d-d-d-dAz]

Another mad moment that should never be forgotten (apologies if already mentioned and I missed it), is when after Austin had shat the bed on CTE, Vince suggested Undertaker was lying about having had concussion against Brock because he was a little bit embarrassed about the real reason he couldn't remember the match; he was so sad, so traumatised about losing the streak, that he's suppressed the entire match.

Good grief.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

6 minutes ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

Another mad moment that should never be forgotten (apologies if already mentioned and I missed it), is when after Austin had shat the bed on CTE, Vince suggested Undertaker was lying about having had concussion against Brock because he was a little bit embarrassed about the real reason he couldn't remember the match; he was so sad, so traumatised about losing the streak, that he's suppressed the entire match.

Good grief.

I just took it Vince McMahon revealing he thinks his longest serving soldier in the pretend army of WWF/WWE is a mark who was upset at losing so bad he'd take a head injury. He must think very little of Big Mark,

[wandshogun09]

2 hours ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

My wife caught a bit and she didn't enjoy it as a non-fan because it was too wrestling heavy, whereas I don't love it because I know it all already. So they've somehow took 50 years of fascinating story and not found a single audience for it. That's weirdly impressive. They've managed to make something that's surface level froth for wrestling fans, and too heavily 'wrestling' for non fans.

Exactly. My wife started watching it when I did and she quickly lost interest. I know they couldn’t completely separate the WWF story from Vince McMahon himself, they had to tell the story to some extent, but I’m not sure who the 5 and a bit episodes of a WWF history lesson were for. Like you say, wrestling fans have heard it all before. The target audience was obviously wider than that/us but the logic behind it I keep hearing is ‘well it’s for a more mainstream audience who don’t know these stories’. But I don’t think the wider audience want to know all this stuff. A non wrestling fan isn’t tuning into this because they’re interested in the storylines, who was champion in 1984, what the real WrestleMania III attendance was or whether Hogan thought Andre might just sit on him for 10 minutes in front of a record crowd because he didn’t fancy losing to him. They want the sleaze and scandal and mad behind the scenes chaos. And going through the 6 episodes you could probably fit all that stuff into 45 minutes-an hour max.

I think my Mrs had completely lost interest before the first episode was even over. Normal people don’t give a fuck about this stuff. They’re either tuning in purely out of curiosity (in which case boring them with loads of early chat about the territories and stuff is gonna lose them quick) or because they’ve somehow heard about the scandals and they went in expecting it to be predominantly that. As you say, it didn’t really cater to the wrestling fans or the wider general audience.

All in all, it was OK. It was well produced, the use of archive footage was cool and there were some interesting bits. But like most Netflix docs, stretching it out over 6 episodes meant there was always gonna be loads and loads of waffle about stuff nobody was tuning in for. I’ve seen reactions on Twitter and stuff going ‘This could’ve been TEN episodes! They left so much on the cutting room foor.’ No. Making it longer so they could delve even further into tired shite like Hogan vs Andre, the Screwjob etc would’ve made it worse. And Vince barely told us anything as it was, can you imagine how many hours are on the cutting room floor of him either saying fuck all or growling “I don’t fight fair” for the 92nd time. No thanks. As little of substance as he actually said, they were likely the highlights with all the fat and dead air trimmed off. If they had something juicier, it would’ve made the cut. 

Edited September 28, 2024 by wandshogun09

[d-d-d-dAz]

32 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

Exactly. My wife started watching it when I did and she quickly lost interest. I know they couldn’t completely separate the WWF story from Vince McMahon himself, they had to tell the story to some extent, but I’m not sure who the 5 and a bit episodes of a WWF history lesson were for. Like you say, wrestling fans have heard it all before. The target audience was obviously wider than that/us but the logic behind it I keep hearing is ‘well it’s for a more mainstream audience who don’t know these stories’. But I don’t think the wider audience want to know all this stuff. A non wrestling fan isn’t tuning into this because they’re interested in the storylines, who was champion in 1984, what the real WrestleMania III attendance was or whether Hogan thought Andre might just sit on him for 10 minutes in front of a record crowd because he didn’t fancy losing to him. They want the sleaze and scandal and mad behind the scenes chaos. And going through the 6 episodes you could probably fit all that stuff into 45 minutes-an hour max.

I think my Mrs had completely lost interest before the first episode was even over. Normal people don’t give a fuck about this stuff. They’re either tuning in purely out of curiosity (in which case boring them with loads of early chat about the territories and stuff is gonna lose them quick) or because they’ve somehow heard about the scandals and they went in expecting it to be predominantly that. As you say, it didn’t really cater to the wrestling fans or the wider general audience.

All in all, it was OK. It was well produced, the use of archive footage was cool and there were some interesting bits. But like most Netflix docs, stretching it out over 6 episodes meant there was always gonna be loads and loads of waffle about stuff nobody was tuning in for. I’ve seen reactions on Twitter and stuff going ‘This could’ve been TEN episodes! They left so much on the cutting room foor.’ No. Making it longer so they could delve even further into tired shite like Hogan vs Andre, the Screwjob etc would’ve made it worse. And Vince barely told us anything as it was, can you imagine how many hours are on the cutting room floor of him either saying fuck all or growling “I don’t fight fair” for the 92nd time. No thanks. As little of substance as he actually said, they were likely the highlights with all the fat and dead air trimmed off. If they had something juicier, it would’ve made the cut. 

My wife, through very little choice of her own, watched more of it than is probably fair but made me laugh when they spent ages on Bash at the Beach and the heel turn and she just shouted WHY ARE THEY EVEN SHOWING ME THIS?

Because they skimmed over so much wrestling history, a lot of the wrestling stuff you actually needed some more context than theyd provided to understand why these things mattered.

I could watch the Hogan leg drop until the end of time, but for most people without that prior context it's just more fake fighting you don't care about it.

Rita Chatterton, Owen, CTE, the family dynamics... that's the stuff that could have stood the documentary up. The rest of it was unnecessary and, like I say, almost without a natural audience.

I wonder if, also, at the heart of it Vince actually just isn't that interesting. Individually, the mad stories about him suggest he could be interesting, but actually he's a basic power hungry bully and abuser who expects the world to take whatever he spews out, but has skin thinner than a blue rizla when the tables are turned. He's boring. I feel bad I spent my whole life thinking he was interesting. He's just another horrible cunt.

Maybe if the documentary spent more time on his family and closest lieutenants it'd have been more interesting. Steph refusing to speak about certain things and looking embarrassed? Shane clearly hating Vince but needing his approval on a visceral level? Pritchard vibrating with anger at the idea anyone might be criticising him? That's way more interesting, really. How and why did they enable this shite hole.

Because, I think when they got into how people managed Vince, that was when the doc heated up.

Vince himself? Boring old cunt. Fuck off mate.

Edited September 28, 2024 by d-d-d-dAz

[TibBo]

With WWE coming to Netflix over the next year, do you think they have just tried to use the documentary as a bit of an introduction piece more than anything?
I can’t really think of any other reason why they would focus it on the history of the WWE more than the actual subject matter?