10 Things You Didn't Know About Beyond The Mat
3. The Real Reason Vince McMahon Wanted It Blocked
The final thing of note that Blaustein told Two Man Power Trip was the real reason why Vince McMahon wanted to block 'Beyond The Mat'. A popular narrative has developed over the years that Vince fretted over how in-depth the doc was, and that it shone a negative light on aspects of his company and lifeblood.
Nonsense, says Barry. It was all about money and control.
Universal Pictures, the film's distribution company, wouldn't give McMahon a bigger slice of the pie, and that put his nose out of joint. Earlier, Vince had offered to triple the production budget if Barry and pals would give him more say in the project's direction, but Blaustein had knocked that back because he wanted to retain some gritty independence.
He figured that the documentary would be dead in the water if fans knew the WWF were behind it. The interesting thing here is that 'Beyond The Mat' kind of/almost/pretty much set the table for WWE's later doc style on the Network. WWE 24, 365, Chronicle etc all benefited from Barry's prior work.