15 Things We Learned From Vince McMahon's Docuseries On Netflix
An exhaustive look at WWE history with some heavy personal stories thrown in.
Vince McMahon didn’t want you to see this six part Netflix documentary.
His reasons had nothing to do with some ‘Beyond The Mat’ style hesitancy to peel back the WWE curtain and more to do with the ongoing allegations levied against McMahon by former employee Janel Grant. It’s important to remember that Netflix sat down with Vince before details of that lawsuit became public knowledge - all of his interview footage in the doc is from 2021 or before. By the final episode, producers noted that McMahon cancelled his last round of interviews.
You'll hear/read a lot of different opinions on the exhaustive Netflix doc online, and they're all valid. Hardcore wrestling fans who live and breathe everything WWE has spat out since the 1980s will find many parts too slow or obvious, but it's important to remember the platform's broader audience - not everyone watching this knows the story behind WrestleMania, for example.
Anyone coming in hoping Netflix would put a bow on Vince's life and more recent legal woes will leave disappointed too. In fairness, that's an ongoing suit. The documentary hardly glosses over anything shocking from 2022 onwards, but they can't give a sense of finality or closure either.
Here's everything learned when binging the entire docuseries from start to finish. In truth, it's best done in one sitting if you have the time or inclination. The most shocking parts are also less concerned with general wrestling history and more with the man behind it all.
15. Vince Pretty Much Laid It Out For Netflix
There's a sense that Vince was working Netflix and putting on an impenetrable exterior from the off. Many of his earlier comments are drenched in OTT carny double speak, but let's be fair about one thing straight away: McMahon pretty much told the directors how things would play out mere seconds after sitting down for an interview.
Thus, the doc opens with Vince saying he wished he could tell everyone true stories. When an off-camera staffer said to give them even one, McMahon said he couldn’t, but would try to make things “semi-interesting”. That set the table for an almost WWE-style first episode. It's still an entertaining watch, but not something that hardcore fans will glean much from they didn’t already know.
However, as the intro states, it's easy to forget that Netflix plays to a bigger audience than fans who religiously watch Raw and SmackDown. Kinda quirky that they chose to open the documentary with Vince shutting down any hopes of a relentless deep dive into the real human being though.
Thankfully, he opened up a bit more as time went on; whether by accident or design.