By Miguel Mike Medina
Photo Credit: wwe.com
The fifth episode of McMahon’s documentary, “Family Business,” is about Shane and Stephanie’s early presence in the business.
Shane and Stephanie did anything and everything to gain experience in the business, especially Shane, who slowly had to earn his stripes in the company. He started doing it as a young man in the 1980s, way before the attitude era.
Shane eventually left the company in 2009 to start his business ventures. He always wanted to prove to Vince that he could be the next man up in the business and tried to please him. They didn’t always see eye to eye when it came to business.
In this episode, you saw the failed experiment of the XFL, in which Vince started the company with NbC President Duck EBERSOL. Vince used the XFL to compete with the NFL, but the product wasn’t good enough to surpass the NFL. The process failed after one year.
His tense argument with sports broadcaster Bob Costas is legendary and somewhat laughable because Vince was offended by Costas’ questions about the XFL and WWE. Vince is very defensive when it comes to something he is truly passionate about and deeply attached to. The wrestling business is the love of his life.
Another aspect of this episode is the decline of WWE after the departure of The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin.
The Rock got into acting and started to have success in Hollywood. As for Austin, injuries were creeping up on him, and he wasn’t content with the company’s direction.
Vince needed to look for another wrestler or wrestlers to be the “next man up,” and this led to the birth of the “Ruthless Aggression Era,” during which many wrestlers emerged, such as John Cena, Brock Lesnar, Randy Orton, and more.
Review: 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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