By Miguel Mike Medina
Photo: NBC News
McMahon is the latest documentary series on Netflix about Vince life and career in the business.
The first episode is called “Junior.” It focuses on his family and his father, Vince Sr., who started the business. They didn’t have a close father-son relationship. Vince Junior didn’t meet his dad until he was 12.
Both men had different visions of the business. His father saw wrestling as a business, but Vince Jr. saw it as entertainment.
Vince knew and understood that cable was the future. He wanted to grow and expand.
Vince Sr. initially doubted that his son could run the company and make it successful. It took him a while to finally give his son credit for making the wrestling business successful.
According to Vince Jr, his father told him that he loved him for the first time before he passed away.
Linda McMahon, Vince Jr.’s ex-wife, didn’t look recognizable at first. She was instrumental in helping Vince keep WWE at the top.
There were many special guests in this documentary, but it was interesting to see the founder of the USA network getting interviews for the documentary. Kay Koplivitz founded the network and took a chance on WWE, and WWE Raw became the home of USA Network.
Vince wanted to make Dusty Rhodes the main guy in the business, but Dusty didn’t really care enough to be the No. 1 guy. So Vince Jr looked at Hulk Hogan and chose him to be the man for the company.
Hogan’s appearance on Rocky Three put him on the map. Vince Sr. was against Hogan’s going for the movie and threatened to fire him, but Hogan did the movie anyway. It all worked out for the best. Hogan called the Rocky franchise a combination of The Godfather and Scarface.
One of the interesting parts of WWE’s rise to success under Vince Jr is when the company and MTV formed a partnership, when MtV was just getting started.
Towards the end of the episode, Vince and WWE were hit with two lawsuits: one from journalist John Stossel and the other from talk show host Richard Belzer.
Stossel was smacked twice by one of the WWE wrestlers for saying that wrestling is fake. Hogan put Belzer in a headlock, and Belzer collapsed afterward. He was upset and embarrassed live on national television.
Grade: 4.3 out of 5 stars
Miguel Mike Medina is the publisher of The MMM Journal. He can be reached at medinamiguelmike@gmail.com and themmmjournal@gmail.com
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