Across six episodes, Vince McMahon and the history of the WWE is explored in Netflix’s Mr. McMahon, highlighting many shocking moments – from allegations of exploitation and sexual assault to death and lies.
The new true crime documentary series landed on the streaming service today (September 25) after several years of development. Creators Chris Smith and Bill Simmons first announced the project in 2020, but the focus changed when allegations of sexual misconduct against McMahon surfaced in 2022.
Following this, former WWE employee Janel Grant filed a lawsuit, accusing the WWE co-founder of sexual assault and trafficking. As well as touching upon these claims, Mr. McMahon delves into many problematic moments in the history of the pro-wrestling powerhouse ever since McMahon’s takeover.
Here’s a breakdown of the most shocking moments. Before we get into it, if you’re not familiar with the history, there are spoilers ahead, and some may find the following content distressing.
Death in the ring
As well as the shocking deaths that unfolded in and out of the ring, Mr. McMahon examines the damning mistakes that were made, implying the business was put first.
Episode 4 explores the death of Owen Hart, known for wrestling under that name and the monikers The Blue Angel and The Blue Blazer. In May 1999, he was due to “fly” down from the rafters at the Over the Edge pay-per-view event.
He fell down from his position too early, dropping 78 feet chest first onto the rope. McMahon – who appears in the documentary for interviews that were conducted before the allegations surfaced – says, “Thank god, for the audience, we were in a blackout. So they didn’t really see it.”
This is just one of many examples of McMahon justifying his questionable decisions for the “business” – he decided the show would go on.
Dave Meltzer, editor and founder of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, says, “They never should’ve continued the show. You know, one of your buddies just died. Like, literally just died in this ring, and his blood is right there, and we’re going out there wrestling.”
A news clip from the time is shown in which Owen’s brother, Bret Hart, describes how he was told his brother’s dead body was wheeled past wrestlers as they were pushed out the door and into the ring.
McMahon continues justifying the decision, claiming that if it had been him who “splattered on the mat,” he would “want the show to go on.”
The finale turns attention to pro wrestler Chris Benoit, who, in 2007, murdered his wife Nancy and their seven-year-old son Daniel before taking his own life. Following this, WWE Raw did a tribute special to Benoit, not knowing the details of what had happened.
As the show was airing, the full details emerged in the news. At the time, there was much speculation as to whether Benoit had been taking steroids, as the WWE had a long history of steroid abuse scandals.
McMahon spun the story that Benoit was a “monster,” and even in the Netflix interviews, he simply says he “went nuts.”
But Chris Nowinski, neuroscientist and former WWE superstar, explains that at the time, no one took brain injury from wrestling seriously.
Having experienced a concussion that led to his retirement from pro wrestling, when Nowinski saw the news of Benoit, he was convinced he had been suffering from CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy).
CTE is a neurodegenerative disease linked to repeated trauma to the head, with symptoms including behavioral problems, mood problems, and issues with thinking.
Since McMahon was claiming in the news that “the monster was Chris,” Nowinski ended up calling Benoit’s father and requesting a sample of his brain for testing.
What they uncovered was that the late wrestler had suffered extensive brain damage from his years in the ring.
McMahon and Hulk Hogan double down that this wasn’t the case, saying everything he did was for show – but it’s yet another moment that puts the safety of wrestlers into question.
The Ring Boys Scandal
In Episode 2 of Mr. McMahon, the Ring Boys Scandal is highlighted by Phil Mushnick, a New York Post reporter who was one of the few mainstream reporters to call out Vince McMahon and the then-WWF at the height of their success.
One of those arrived in 1992 when former ring boy Tom Cole accused WWE employees Mel Phillips, Terry Garvin, and Pat Patterson of either sexually harassing or abusing underage teens who were hired to put up and take down the rings.
Cole reached an out-of-court settlement with the organization, and Patterson was later allowed to return to work. There are conflicting accounts about whether he’s innocent or not.
Longtime WWE employee Bruce Prichard says he doesn’t believe the allegations made against Patterson, whereas Anthony White, aka Tony Atlas, says, “We all knew Pat was doing this stuff. I didn’t like Pat because he kept grabbing my pecker in the locker room.”
When asked if he complained about Patterson’s alleged behavior, Atlas replies, “To who? He’s the booker. He’s the number two guy in the office.”
The interviewer then suggests he could have told Vince, causing Tony to burst out laughing. “You know nothing about the wrestling business, don’t ya?… You either take it, or you’re going home.”
In 2021, Cole died by suicide, but his brother, Lee Cole, has continued to seek the truth. Earlier this year, another former ring boy came forward with allegations against Mel Phillips.
McMahon once again absolves himself of any wrongdoing, accusing Mushnick of having some sort of personal vendetta.
Mushnick, on the other hand, says in the new docu-series, “I think Vince is guilty of aiding and abetting the Ring Boy Scandal. At best, he’s guilty of rank neglect.”
Women in WWE treated like “toys”
There are countless instances in Mr. McMahon that shine a light on the problematic treatment of its female stars and McMahon’s behavior with women overall – even his own family members.
Atlas himself admits, “We abused the hell out of women. All of us did. You know, they was like a toy for us.” It’s then pointed out that it doesn’t take an expert to see that “being a woman in or around the pro wrestling world at this point in history was not necessarily a safe place to be.”
Numerous archive clips show how women were portrayed in the ring, whether they were made to strip down to their underwear while fighting or described as “hoes” by their male counterparts.
As McMahon sought to boost ratings, the storylines became progressively more extreme. Paul Levesque, aka Triple H, describes one in which he acted out drugging Vince’s own daughter, Stephanie McMahon, forcing her to marry him, and then raping her on their wedding night.
When he pitched the story to McMahon, he reportedly replied, “I love it.” The first time Stephanie returned to the stage after the angle played out, the crowd turned on her, chanting “slut” over and over again.
Triple H claims that as this was happening, McMahon turned to him and rubbed his fingers together, indicating, “This is money.”
But arguably the most reprehensible storyline involved Vince’s real-life wife Linda McMahon being drugged by his “mistress”, Attitude Era star Trish Stratus. Shocking scenes show Linda being transported in a wheelchair and Vince kissing Trish in front of his wife.
The most contentious moment arrived when Trish was made to get on all fours and “bark like a dog” in the ring to apologize to Vince before he demanded she strip naked in front of the screaming crowds.
All three involved defend the storyline in Mr. McMahon, saying it was all part of the entertainment.
However, when placed alongside real-life allegations regarding the mistreatment of women, it raises questions about the toxic culture within the WWE – and the blurred lines between fiction and reality.
As stated by Meltzer, Sable – real name Rena Marlette Lesnar – left at the peak of her popularity as a WWE star and sued the company for $110 million, alleging sexual harassment and unsafe working conditions.
In a surprising twist, Sable dropped the case and went back to the organization. McMahon used this for a storyline, with his daughter Stephanie angrily telling her father, “It’s all about money to her.”
When asked in the doc about the allegations Sable made at the time, McMahon replies, “I don’t remember much about Sable in terms of the lawsuit… It’s kind of a blur.”
Earlier in the Netflix docuseries, the case of Rita Chatterton, aka Rita Marie, is highlighted. Rita was known as the first female referee in the then-WWF, who Meltzer says McMahon was trying to push as the “hot blond ref” in his “soap opera.”
In the early ‘90s, Rita came out to claim McMahon raped her while she was working for his organization. However, it was argued that the case wasn’t given enough exposure due to the steroid allegations and Ring Boy Scandal.
McMahon and his wife ended up suing Chatterton for the allegations, although this lawsuit was later dropped. When questioned about this in Mr. McMahon, he says, “It was consensual, and actually, had it been a rape, the statute of limitations had run out.”
At the end of the episode, it reveals that in 2023, during a temporary lift of the statute of limitations for alleged victims of sexual offenses in New York state, McMahon paid a multimillion dollar settlement to Chatterton.
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Although the following isn’t explored in significant detail in Mr. McMahon, another sinister incident unfolded in 1983 with James Reiher Snuka, better known as Jimmy Snuka, when his girlfriend died in a hotel room they were sharing at the time.
“His girlfriend hit her head and died,” says Meltzer. “The forensic pathologist who investigated thought it was homicide, but, at the time, no charges were ever filed.
“Was the power of Vince involved in that? I think that Vince had a hand in making it go away. I mean, exactly what, I don’t know.”
Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan caught in lies
While most of the interviews in Mr. McMahon were conducted before the latest batch of sexual misconduct allegations against Vince came to light, there are numerous instances where both Vince and Hulk Hogan – real name Terry Gene Bollea – are shown to lie or at the very least bend the truth.
Early on, they repeat their claims about 1987’s WrestleMania III. After the second event didn’t work as well, they pitched the third as the Woodstock of the pro-wrestling world, culminating in Hulk defending his title against Andre the Giant.
According to their accounts, there were more than 93,000 people in the audience, nobody had beaten or body slammed Andre before, and Hulk didn’t know whether Andre was going to let him win or not.
“That’s probably the greatest attraction we’ve ever had,” says McMahon. “That’s something I’m very, very proud of today.”
But swiftly after this segment, Meltzer dispels many of the claims surrounding what is a key part of WWE mythology, intercepted with clips proving they are false.
“‘Andre had never lost.’ Nah, Andre lost,” he says. “‘Andre had never been slammed.’ He’d been slammed probably 25 times before that. Maybe more.”
“They’ve said 93,000 for so many years, they probably believe it,” he continues. “Yeah, it was actually 73,000 in that building.”
Although this isn’t, ultimately, a significant lie, it reflects a broader pattern of truth-bending. While speaking about the WWE in this episode, Hulk argues, “Wrestling is not fake, it’s predetermined, it’s exhibition.
“But I can tell you, in the last 10 years, I’ve had 23 surgeries. So if that’s fake, please explain it to me. I didn’t get the memo.”
However, cut to Episode 6 and the discussion of whether Benoit’s injuries impacted his mental state, Hulk and McMahon can be seen giving very different opinions.
Discussing the news reports that showed Benoit diving into the ring head first, McMahon says, “That’s complete work.” Hulk then explains, “When somebody grabs your wrist real lightly, and they twist it, and I go, ‘Aah! It hurts!’ That’s a work.”
“It looks like there’s damage, and there’s not,” adds McMahon. “We know what we’re doing. We don’t hurt each other.”
All of the sexual assault allegations against McMahon
Although the allegations against McMahon are mentioned in Episode 1, it’s not until the finale that we hear more about what happened.
Wall Street Journal reporters Ted Mann and Joe Palazzolo – who broke the news – discuss them in the context of Vince and his Mr. McMahon character.
“Vince’s public persona – the Mr. McMahon character – was intentionally outrageous, and tied up in all of that was this notion that he was just rapacious and sexually deviant and couldn’t control himself. That was a huge part of the public character,” says Mann.
“What complicates that is that this was this intentional blurring of fictional and non-fictional. What we have shown is that some of what was played for laughs as part of the character was not that funny and was, in fact, very, very serious.”
Palazzolo points out that as part of their investigative process, there were other allegations that had surfaced against McMahon: in 2006, a tanning salon employee said McMahon had shown her naked photos of himself and groped her.
McMahon denied the allegations, and the case was ultimately dropped due to insufficient evidence. Weeks later, he created a WWE storyline in which a woman makes up similar allegations to those made by the accuser.
As the more recent story developed, it was revealed that McMahon had agreed to pay $12 million to four different women to suppress allegations of sexual misconduct.
One of those involved a former female wrestler who said she was coerced into oral sex, and when she refused his sexual advances, her contract was not renewed. McMahon went on to pay her $7.5 million.
Shortly after this scandal broke, McMahon announced his retirement. This news is played out after an interview segment in which McMahon says about people who retire, “I have no sympathy for people like that. So, go die.”
Similarly juxtaposed is a clip of Prichard telling the creators of Mr. McMahon that the early edits of their documentary series “sucked,” accusing them of making his longtime friend look “sh*tty” and missing his “human side.”
Then, two days later, came Janel Grant’s lawsuit. The lawsuit, first obtained by the Wall Street Journal, alleges that “McMahon pushed Ms. Grant for a physical relationship in return for long-promised employment at WWE.”
It goes on to say things escalated, with McMahon accused of recruiting “individuals to have sexual relations with Ms. Grant and/or with the two of them.”
The former WWE boss is also accused of “sharing sexually explicit photographs and videos” of Grant with other men both inside and outside of the company.
“McMahon also subjected Ms. Grant to acts of extreme cruelty and degradation that caused Ms. Grant to disassociate and/or become numb to reality in order to survive the horrific encounters,” the complaint adds.
“As one example of McMahon’s extreme depravity, on May 9, 2020, he defecated on Ms. Grant during a threesome, and then commanded her to continue pleasuring his ‘friend’ with feces in her hair and running down her back.”
Finally, it claims “WWE benefited financially from the commercial sex act venture orchestrated by McMahon” after he presented Grant “as a sexual commodity for their use.”
The documentary also highlights a claim that McMahon assaulted Grant with “sex toys named after wrestlers.”
Wall Street Journal reporter Khadeeja Safdar appears in the docuseries, where she notes how Grant provided graphic text messages sent to her by McMahon, saying it’s one of the most “brazen” examples of a top executive not doing anything to hide his behavior.
Although McMahon denied the allegations, he stepped down from his role, and even more allegations came to light.
One of those involved Ashley Massaro, who claimed in 2016 that she had been raped during a WWE tour by a man posing as a military doctor. She accused WWE of not responding seriously to her allegations and covering it up, which the organization denied.
In 2019, Massaro died by suicide. Following the Grant lawsuit, her attorney dropped a previously unreleased statement in which she accused McMahon of making sexual advances on her, and he was “well known for this sort of thing.”
According to her allegations, when she turned him down, he repeatedly made storylines to “try and embarrass her.”
The downside of Mr. McMahon is, as said, none of the major players who were interviewed for the docu-series – including McMahon himself – agreed to return to comment on the allegations after they surfaced.
For now, McMahon is under federal investigation, with Grant agreeing to pause her lawsuit until this is completed.
In the runup to the Netflix release date, he slammed the documentary, claiming it was “misleading.” Grant’s attorney Ann Callis responded to his statement, branding him “delusional” and saying they were working to ensure Grant gets her day in court.
Ann Callis, attorney for Janel Grant, the former WWE employee and sexual assault and human trafficking survivor responded to @VinceMcMahon tonight: https://t.co/lAUIGBt6yp pic.twitter.com/rZNn19U9Zl
— Kendra Barkoff Lamy (@kabarkoff) September 24, 2024
“Vince McMahon physically and emotionally abused, sexually assaulted, and human trafficked Janel Grant for more than two years. Calling his horrific and criminal behavior ‘an affair’ is delusional and nothing more than a sad attempt to save his shredded reputation,” she said.
“Although Ms. Grant has not seen the Mr. McMahon docuseries, we hope it shines a bright light on his abhorrent and criminal actions by accurately portraying the realities of his abusive and exploitative behavior.
“Ms. Grant will no longer be silenced by McMahon. Her story, though deeply troubling and exceptionally painful, is one that can help other abuse survivors find their voices. We seek to hold McMahon, John Laurinaitis, and WWE accountable and to give Ms. Grant her day in court.”
Mr. McMahon is streaming on Netflix now. For more true crime news, read about where Jailbreak’s Casey White is now, the true crime stories the Monster creators could cover next, and whether smartschoolboy9 was ever arrested.