A Look Back At The Documentary: ‘The Nine Lives of Vince McMahon’

The doc starts at the beginning with McMahon and his humble North Carolina upbringing with his mom — and brother Rod — following her split from his father, Vincent Sr. It is well known that not much is known about Vince’s early life, and the vast majority of information provided stems from a single PLAYBOY interview in 2001.

It is important to set the tone of McMahon’s story with the hard truths regarding the abuse he suffered as a child. Before Vince was an alleged perpetrator, he was a victim—that distinction is important from a narrative standpoint, not to mention it lays the groundwork for the principled foundation of this kind of trauma: hurt people hurt people. For McMahon, it was his stepfather who was alleged to physically abuse the boys, and Vince maintained a real hatred for him up until his death. Most wrestling fans are aware of the WWE lore that connects Vince Jr. and Vince Sr., but it would likely surprise most to learn that Vince did not meet his father until he was 12 years old.

Despite being his namesake, Vince Sr. did not openly welcome Vince into the wrestling business by placing him under his wings. In fact, McMahon’s initial attempt to work for his father’s company, Capital Wrestling Corporation, was rebuked—this after he sent Jr. to military school during a very difficult time in his adolescence. Providing a more detailed accounting of the time between McMahon getting into the wrestling business and ultimately buying the company from his father helps to establish the intensity of Vince’s one-track mind and laser-like focus when it comes to ‘sports entertainment.’ The contrast between Vince Sr’s business practices inside of wrestling and that of his son is fascinating, considering the difference in ambitions and Vince Jr’s ruthless regard for the competition.

Of course, from the David Schultz-John Stossel incident to “Super Fly” Jimmy Snuka, VICE does not hold back on the more than questionable moments in McMahon’s early tenure on his journey to TITAN. These incidents are controversies based on half-truths and innuendos, so it is unfair to hold McMahon accountable for any one thing, but looking at it all in a vacuum is not a genuine way to account for his actual behavior. So, for VICE to present the evidence chronologically speaks to a pattern of behavior for which McMahon has never been held accountable.

When you discover how many times McMahon was nearly booted out of the business only to crawl his way back bigger and stronger, you start to see him as a mythological figure—Vincent, The Unbreakable. Many accuse McMahon of killing the most traditional form of wrestling known as the “territory days,” and that might be fair, but if he alone deserves that blame, then the documentary also accomplishes the idea that he is solely guilty of seeing wrestling’s brighter potential as well as designing the blueprint for how it would be achieved. The intention of this documentary may have been to paint Vince negatively, and it does, but for a wrestling fan, it also creates an incredibly complicated narrative. This world that fans love today is only possible with McMahon, so how is it possible to totally and utterly demonize him? Yet this circus, like the real ones, is built on the pain and suffering of the very entertainers and crew that help produce the show.

Suggesting that anyone with Andre the Giant, Snuka, and Hulk Hogan could have been successful is misleading because without McMahon incorporating pop culture fixtures like Cyndi Lauper, Mr. T, and SNL,then the very nature of what success in wrestling can be is never redesigned. Yet, even if you can disassociate McMahon’s role in the steroid scandal of the 90s by framing the era for what it was from Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger films to MLB, you still must contend with the women. That is where this doc differs from what we can expect from the Netflix doc, and it carries the most emotion. It also paints the picture of an undeniable monster. Still, his guilt by association with Dr. George Zahorian and the famous picture of the two with Hogan in a bright yellow and red Hulkamania shirt helped seal McMahon’s fate. Yet, packing so much info into this piece took away a bit from the true drama of the court case, with McMahon donning a neck collar for sympathy points with the jury and Hogan’s ‘non-turn’ on Vince.

It is easy for a Bret Hart fan to appreciate the “Montreal Screw Job” POV coming from the “Excellence of Execution” himself, but it doesn’t paint the most neutral picture. Instead, what it achieves is providing a sense of just how complicated McMahon is as well as how difficult it is to discern man from character. The Montreal Screw Job is seen as the catalyst for the era of Mr. McMahon, and from that moment forward, the lines between the sex-crazed ruthless boss began to blur with that of the CEO of a major company. As the stories pile up, you start to see a genuine connection between the actions of the character he played with that of the man and the owner of the biggest wrestling company on earth at the heart of disgusting allegations.

It is a comprehensive accounting of Vince’s origin story, illustrating much of what’s taken place while introducing accounts that paint a less-than-favorable interpretation. Still, the story was completed before his ‘10^th life’ started, and that will be where the next doc will likely begin.

Credits

Media: VICE; Writer: Collin Friesen

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