Mr. McMahon (miniseries)

Mr. McMahon is a documentary television miniseries that explores the influential yet controversial career of Vince McMahon. It is directed by Chris Smith, renowned for his work on Tiger King, with executive producer Bill Simmons and Zara Duffy, recognized for her contributions to Mission Blue. The documentary series featured numerous prominent figures from the world of professional wrestling, including Hulk Hogan, Triple H, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Paul Heyman, Bret Hart, Eric Bischoff, Shane McMahon, and Stephanie McMahon. It also included media personalities such as Kay Koplovitz, alongside other key individuals, providing a wide range of perspectives on McMahon's career and legacy. This is the first six-part documentary series on Vince McMahon.^[1][2]

Mr. McMahon
Promotional poster
Genre	Documentary
Directed by	Chris Smith
Starring	Vince McMahon Hulk Hogan The Rock Steve Austin John Cena Bret Hart Triple H The Undertaker Eric Bischoff Cody Rhodes Paul Heyman Shawn Michaels Kay Koplovitz (Founder, USA Network)
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
Production
Producers	Zara Duffy Eric C. Loy Matt Maxson Bill Simmons Abhay Sofsky Zoe Trischka
Editors	Steven Ross Abhay Sofsky
Running time	60 minutes
Production companies	Library Films Ringer Films
Original release
Network	Netflix
Release	September 25, 2024

All six episodes of the series were released on September 25, 2024 on Netflix.^[1]

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) saw unprecedented success and significant challenges during Vince McMahon's time at the helm.^[3] It features insights drawn from over 200 hours of interviews, including conversations with McMahon (before his resignation), his family, business partners, wrestling legends, and journalists who exposed the sexual misconduct allegations against McMahon. The series was directed by Chris Smith, with Bill Simmons and Zara Duffy serving as executive producers.^[4]

• Vince McMahon (Founder, former chairman of the board, WWE, WWE Hall of Famer)

with

One of the central themes of the series is a discussion about how close Vince McMahon the person is to "Mr. McMahon", the character he portrayed on-screen in the WWE. While Vince McMahon is adamant the two are distinctly different, the vast majority of those interviewed for the series commented they felt they were one-in-the-same, or closely overlapped.^[5] Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Newsletter has suggested this was a major source of frustration for McMahon upon his viewing of an advanced screening of the series, and is what led McMahon to denounce the series one day before its release.^[5]

The series was released on September 25, 2024 at 3:01 A.M (ET)^[6], on streaming platform Netflix.^[7] The trailer was released on September 5, 2024.^[8]

On September 24, Vince McMahon issued a statement on X, describing the documentary as "deceptive" and claiming it was intentionally misleading viewers by creating confusion around key events.^[10] Reportedly, McMahon has also expressed interest in purchasing the rights to Mr. McMahon to prevent its distribution, aiming to ensure the documentary is not widely seen.^[11]

Writing for The Wall Street Journal, John Anderson noted that Phil Mushnick of the New York Post described McMahon as a "dirt bag," and encourages viewers to evaluate the portrayal of his scandals. Anderson suggests that Smith offers a relatively honest portrayal of McMahon, with insights from figures like Hulk Hogan and John Cena on his enigmatic personality and the parallels between wrestling and contemporary politics.^[12]

Wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer, who participated in the series, generally praised it upon release, feeling that it contained no major inaccuracies or embellishments aside from the recounting of Hulk Hogan vs. André the Giant at WrestleMania III.^[5] Meltzer did, however, feel that in episode 3, more emphasis should have been given to the fact that Bret Hart had creative control of his character in WWF, and that this was an important aspect in understanding why the Montreal Screwjob was so controversial.^[5] One exclusion Meltzer observed was that in episode 2, it is not shown that Linda McMahon received a tip-off that the person supplying the WWF locker room with steroids was under investigation, and subsequently that person was not hired to be a staff doctor. This helped Vince McMahon avoid conviction in the steroid trial.^[5]

Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 71 out of 100 based on 4 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.^[13]

• Mr. McMahon at IMDb
• Mr. McMahon at Metacritic  
• Mr. McMahon at Rotten Tomatoes