Mr. McMahon, the new and (sort of) controversial six-part documentary on Netflix released on Sept. 25th. And, well, is anyone surprised? We’ve known who Vince McMahon was for sometime now.

From Sex, Lies, and Headlocks: The Real Story of Vince McMahon to The Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America — there are a plethora of books regarding McMahon’s life and deviances. Behind the Bastards has a six-part series on all of McMahon’s misdeeds, and we’re not talking about the ones on scripted television.

From scandalous lawsuits to bullying TV interviewers, to playing his scumbag self on daytime talk shows, it’s no secret who Vince McMahon is. Any individual who defends this monster, even before the Janel Grant lawsuit, needs to have their morals severely checked. They might even be a complete psychopath.

However, the Netflix documentary served as a reminder of how awful this person is, but also of the toxic (and well protected) WWF/E culture that existed for over four decades. This was the owner of pro wrestling’s biggest company, and given his track record, you wonder why many fans like myself found enjoyment in alternatives.

If the documentary served any purpose for me, it’s to remind myself just why I stopped watching WWE so long ago. And yes, I know, “it’s not like that anymore”, you might say.

Great! But after decades of being somewhat embarrassed as a WWE fan, both in the moment and in hindsight, I’d rather not go back under any circumstance that I can help — improved product or not.

Call me biased for being a one-sided ethical trainwreck, but this is an opinion piece, after all. However, for me, it just comes down to morals…

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The Moral Dilemma

There is a moral superiority in supporting a promotion like AEW, NJPW, or even TNA given McMahon’s depraved history. It’s kind of like NOT shopping at Walmart. They’ve had some pretty terrible business practices in their past, and while they’ve improved in many ways and tried to erase that past image, part of me still feels gross if I have to walk into a Walmart to shop. I really try to avoid it, even if I know it’s nothing personal against the many Walmart employees just trying to make a living.

However, I also know that one person who tries NOT to shop at Walmart means literally nothing in the grand scheme of retail shopping. 

I hope WWE has truly changed for the better, but the ghosts of McMahon’s past still haunt WWE for many lapsed fans, including myself. Personally, I cannot enjoy a WWE product; not simply because it’s not my flavor of pro wrestling, but because I’m not convinced the that the culture has truly changed — OR — that those whom flourished in the past toxic WWE culture still remain there in positions of power.

Call me petty, but it’s hard for me to stomach WWE programming knowing that Paul Levesque is good friends with Vince — Father-in-Law or not. It’s hard for me to stomach WWE knowing that some within the company during McMahon’s heyday still help run the show.

This is absolutely nothing against the current talent and non-management staff, either. I wish them no ill-will whatsoever.

But again, this is just me being honest. I do try to be as ethical as possible when it comes to my choices in consumption. It makes me an easy target, but I wear my heart on my sleeve, and the McMahon documentary was that brutal reminder of WWE’s darker past.

Anyway, I promised you a list. Let’s break it down into a few sections now that I’m off my moral soapbox…

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Legal Troubles

1983: Allegedly persuaded Allentown officials to prevent Jimmy Snuka from going to trial for the murder of then girlfriend Nancy Argentino. Snuka was charged months earlier for assault.  Snuka was later arrested for third-degree murder 30 years after.
1986: Accused of rape by WWF referee Rita Chatterton. The two parties settled in 1992.
1992: The infamous Ring Boy Scandal, which implicated multiple staff, including Pat Patterson, in sexually assaulting and grooming younger wrestlers. A lawsuit was settled with one of the more well-known victims, Tom Cole, in 1992. McMahon seemed to turn a blind eye to these activities. Just reference Roddy Piper’s shoot interview regarding Pat Patterson for additional context.
1994: Federally indicted for providing talent with steroids. He was later acquitted due to legal technicalities.
1999: Sued by Martha Hart for the wrongful and accidental death of Owen Hart at an In Your House PPV. The two parties settled.
2006: Accused of sexual assault by a worker at a tanning bar in Boca Raton, Florida.
2006: Disregarded (and allegedly covered up) the rape of Ashley Massaro at a U.S. Military Base during a WWE tour. Massaro would commit suicide in 2019.
2011: Accused of sexual assault by a worker at a tanning bar in California.
2022: The WWE board of directors found that McMahon had made $12 million in payments to four women, two of whom alleged sexual misconduct against McMahon.
2023: Sued by ex-writer Britney Abrahams for “racist” scenes in scripts.
2024: Sued for sex trafficking, rape, and assault by former employee Janel Grant. This lawsuit is still ongoing, including a federal investigation. WWE is also named as a party in the lawsuit.

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When there’s smoke there’s fire, right?

Sure, you can be so naive to think that McMahon just stumbled into these lawsuits with no cause. It’s easy to play the victim when you’re a billionaire looking down at all of the peasants. However, it’s Mr. McMahon’s character on-screen that lends a lot of credence to his past and present legal troubles, as many can’t seem to tell when Vince McMahon begins and “Mr. McMahon” ends.

Afterall, you can’t say no to the boss, right? And what did the boss do with his power? He corrupted (absolutely) an entire generation of pro wrestling fans and talent.

 

“The difference between Mr. McMahon and Vince McMahon? Probably not that much.”- Shawn Michaels; Mr. McMahon Netflix Documentary

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On-Screen Atrocities

Atrocities, you say? Let me count the ways! (no, really…)

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Xenophobia!

From calling Sabu a member of the Taliban to duplicating a real-life live terrorist attack on Smackdown (Mohammed Hassan’s attack on The Undertaker), McMahon, (and apparently some other writers) are incorrigible when it comes to Muslim stereotypes. This even includes an alleged pitch to have former WWE talent Mansoor revealing that he was behind the 9/11 attacks. On a more ludicrous note, D’Lo Brown and Chaz were forced to wear turbans to the ring in a team called ‘Lo Down’, managed by Tiger Ali Singh. D’Lo and Chaz are not practicing Sikhs.

Former talent Kenzo Suzuki almost played Hirohito, a character that was going to take revenge on the United States for the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Let’s not forget Kae En Tai and the infamous and cringeworthy “I choppy choppy your pee pee” line directed at current psychotic Trump cultist Sean Morley, AKA: Val Venis. 

In fact, the entire Kae En Tai gimmick was racist (translated as ‘Naval Auxiliary Force’ in Japanese), straight down to the “dubbing” of their promos in English. At least talents like Funaki and Taka Michinoku were actually Japanese, unlike Yokozuna, who was a Samoan playing a Japanese sumo wrestler…

And don’t get me started on the Mexi-Cools…

 

Racism!

Remember when Apollo Crews came out with an exaggerated Nigerian accent and carried a spear to the ring? Good times. Speaking of accents, Kofi Kingston used to be “Jamaican”, if you recall. Even Bianca Belair once complained that writers were making her speak like an exaggerated stereotypical black woman and not actually herself. Good shit, right?

McMahon once used the N-word on live TV, condoned multiple uses of blackface by other talents in storylines, buried Booker T at Wrestlemania 19 in a racially charged feud with Triple H, and has been responsible for such classy gimmicks as Sama Simba, Akeem the “African” Dream, and Virgil, the black butler to Ted DiBiase (both gimmicks allegedly shots at Dusty Rhodes).

Other insensitive and racially-charged gimmicks include: The Godfather, Papa Shango, Kamala, and even Flash Funk. There is a rabbit hole of mistreatment for black WWE wrestlers, and F.D. Signifier has a wonderful video going into more detail than I ever could below. Give it a watch.

 

 

Misogyny!

Amy Dumas’s coercion into her infamous “Live Sex Show” with Edge with worth putting in bold. During a recent Twitch stream she revealed that herself, Edge, and others, did NOT want this to happen. This led to her eventual leave from the company, including being buried on her way out.

Coercion is a legitimate crime, Live TV or not.

The history of misogyny in WWE doesn’t take much to recall, unfortunately. We all know the endless amount of bra-and-pannies and mud wrestling matches during the Attitude Era. This was in-between senseless bikini contests for the talent. Believe it or not, porn was available to teenagers, even in the 90s. It didn’t need to be on a wrestling show.

‘Hot Lesbian Action’ comes to mind post-AE, and well, generally treating women’s wrestling as a joke for most of WWE’s entire history. Kurt Angle even once called sex with Booker T’s wife Sharmell “beastiality” sex — hey, that’s two in one!

Sidenote: How we got a Medusa Miceli/Bull Nakano match on WWF TV during the early 90s still amazes me.

Forcing Trish Stratus to bark like a dog is degrading enough, but maybe not as degrading to Stephanie McMahon, who was once pitched a storyline where she would be impregnated by her Father. No worries, Vince was able to choke her out during a one-on-one match instead. This came after and sometimes during being constantly slut-shamed on-screen, along with other on-air talents. Luckily, Stephanie McMahon can afford a really good therapist…

There are almost too many examples of misogyny to count here. Women were constantly objectified and put on the line as “awards” for match stipulations, or fighting over men in outdated tropes that we unfortunately still see in WWE to this day. If it wasn’t objectification, then it was straight violence.

In short, WWE has normalized the sexualized and objectified view of its women’s talent for decades. While the scene has greatly improved for women in WWE, it’s still far from where it should and could be.

 

Exploitation!

McMahon would perpetually bully talent, including Howard Finkel and Jim Ross specifically, whom he once used his cerebral palsy as a punchline. McMahon inducted many into the ‘Kiss My Ass’ club, which was an excuse to degrade other men on live television in literally kissing his ass.

What’s worse is pushing the widow of Brian Pillman (Melanie Pillman) to give an on-air interview one day after his death. Or possibly even worse than that, using the death of Eddie Guerrero in a storyline with Randy Orton and Rey Mysterio in a build to Wrestlemania 22.

How about denying that CTE even exists? Yep. McMahon did that as well, and he’s actually not alone in that one. Exploit your wrestlers bodies for profit and dump them after you’re finished with no care. Chris Benoit and Chris Nowinski have taught many absolutely nothing it seems, as even Steve Austin is skeptical of the science-driven existence of CTE.

(I’m aware that unprotected headshots have been a hot topic in the IWC lately, but I stress that gimmicked chairs and props for a match is fine between two consenting adults with safety measures in place)

Hell, McMahon even feuded with God once. Let’s exploit the fact that you can’t see God to have a match with him. That’s good shit! Mind you, I’m an Atheist, so this one amused me more than anything. 

McMahon exploited his “Mr. McMahon” character to play out his real-life fantasies on live television. Some of which are too disgusting, even for TV, as we have seen in the recent Janel Grant lawsuit. But from women to talent to the general public, McMahon also used a lot of business exploits for his gain.

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An Opportunist, Not a Genius

 

McMahon Has Stolen Everything That Has Made Him Successful

Don’t take my word for it. Just look at wrestling history.

He raided the territories during the 80s and profited off of the hard work of other promoters and wrestlers who built their own characters. Savage, Piper, Hogan, Ventura, Andre, Iron Sheik, the list goes on. McMahon didn’t make these wrestlers, he simply bought them out and as a result, shut down dozens of wrestling promotions across the country in the process.

Was it smart? Yeah. It was. It was the Walmart method of undercutting local and regional stores to price match and offer more to wholesalers in the process. It’s abusing access to other resources for the sake of what would eventually become the monopolization of the industry.

It’s extremely smart business, albeit cutthroat and revolting. If anything, McMahon is just the world’s best opportunist.

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List of Stolen Goods

-Eric Bischoff and the “evil boss” was stolen to create Mr. McMahon
-The anti-authority nWo (inspired by the UWFi) was stolen to create anti-authority stable D-X.
-Extreme Championship Wrestling was stolen to create the Attitude Era.
-The 80s bright and shiny Rock & Roll Wrestling era and Saturday Night Main Event? That was NBC’s Dick Ebersol’s idea to heavily increase production to get WWF TV out of the dark — not McMahon’s.
-Hulkamania? That already existed before McMahon signed him to a WWF contract.
-Filling larger arenas and stadiums? Some of the larger territories were already doing this well before WWF’s popularity rose. WCCW hosted some major shows in their height of popularity.
-Cable television? The AWA and NWA were already on WGN and TBS long before WWE took over Monday nights.
-NWA Starrcade on closed circuit TV. Yeah, that happened years before Wrestlemania. Starrcade debuted in 1983. The idea of the Pay-Per-View wasn’t exactly McMahon’s.
-Live wrestling on cable TV? You can thank Eric Bischoff and Ted Turner for that one, Not McMahon.

Again, McMahon is an opportunist. He’s not a creative genius, nor is he remotely a good wrestling booker. He’s a wealthy man that profited off the ideas of others with less resources than him. It’s that simple.

Blood Money

Lest we forget the deal with Saudi Arabia. Lest we forget that the execution space, Deera Square, where many Saudis are beheaded, is a mere 30 minutes away from Mohammed Abdo Arena, home of WWE’s Crown Jewel. Saudi Arabia still, even in 2024, is poorly ranked when it comes to human rights, including women’s rights, and sits at #139 out of 175 of the Human Rights and Rule of Law Index. They rank as the second worst country for human rights violations for high income nations.

But $10 Billion Dollars, am I right?

 

Union Busting

It was well known that Jesse Ventura attempted to start a pro wrestling union in 1986. For talent to have access to worker’s rights, health care, and equal treatment in such a brutal industry only makes perfect sense.

That is until Hulk Hogan caught wind of it and tattled to McMahon what Ventura was up to. The result was McMahon low-key threatening most wrestlers on the roster with their jobs if they attended Ventura’s meeting.

As the Iron Sheik once put:

“In the ring Hulk Hogan is a dumb son of a bitch, but outside of the ring Hulk Hogan is a dumb son of a bitch”- Iron Sheik

No pro wrestling unions exist to this day, be it WWE or AEW. It’s something that is heavily needed, and McMahon would have none of it, as his bottom line is always more important than his talent. He all but self-admitted that the wellness program was created in the 2000s as a P.R. move.

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Are we at the end, yet?

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Pro Wrestling Didn’t Need Vince McMahon

Do you see why I, and people like myself, can be so adverse to anything and everything WWE? Now you could say McMahon built the corporate giant that is WWE, and that pro wrestling wouldn’t have reached the heights it would have without him.

I call bullshit.

JCP was already running CCTV shows, and PPVs would come later anyway. If Gorilla Monsoon had taken over WWF in 1982 instead of McMahon, I’d argue that instead of the ruthlessness we saw with McMahon, which took out his competitors, we’d possibly see the NWA and WWF as two strong promotions through the 80s and 90s.

Social trends ebb and flow. So do businesses. It’s feasible that some promotions would have closed, and for WWF/E to have ascended to the top anyway. Or with the influence of Ted Turner, perhaps it’s NWA/WCW that ascends to the top and stays there, with WWE as a strong #2. Even better, perhaps pro wrestling stays regional, and in a hypothetical 2024, we have WWE, WCW, and AEW, whom sometimes even work together much like many promotions in Japan do.

Whatever the alternate history you prefer, we wouldn’t have an absolute monster at the helm of a conglomerate whose business tactics become a destructive force by default of capitalism.

I don’t want WWE to continue the ruthlessness of McMahon’s past business practices. Can you imagine a world where AEW and WWE work together in talent exchanges for the sake of the industry and its fans?

Everybody likes to give McMahon his flowers, but I don’t see an incredible businessman. I see a traumatized scumbag who was smart enough to abuse every opportunity handed to him on his way to the top. He should not be defended for any reason.

Throwing money at charitable causes doesn’t erase a depraved and criminal history. And while the Netflix documentary didn’t bring anything terribly new to light, it served as a reminder that this monster’s influence still exists in the pro wrestling industry to this day. It’s an influence that we sorely need to forget.

-TKW
tokusenwrestling@yahoo.com