411’s Mr. McMahon Episode Five Report: ‘Family Business’

-We left off with The Owen Hart tragedy and Vince in the middle of the Attitude Era. Here are the links to the first four episodes: one, two, three, and four. Let’s get to it!

-Run Time: 1:04:37

-Paul Heyman says the tragedy of this tale is that the great success enjoyed by Vince McMahon is due to him rebelling against the miserable first twelves years of his life. Escaping that abuse has been his life pursuit and he became untouchable and invulnerable to outside sources. He made sure to control his own destiny.

-David Shoemaker says the only thing we know about Vince’s childhood is what he has told people. He brings up the Playboy interview where Vince said he was abused physically and sexually as a child. We see Vince meeting his wheelchair bound mother backstage at a show as the talking heads keeping going. It was insinuated that the sexual abuse was at the hands of his mother.

-Vince says he hates looking backwards and he isn’t sure if it’s because he is afraid to look back there. “My childhood was what it was.” He says there was fighting, in-fighting, and “incest.” He felt once he was done getting his ass beat and was still breathing, then he won. Vince’s attitude is that if anything bad happens to you, “get rid of it. Throw it the fuck back there and keep going forward.” Yeah, that perfectly sums up Vince.

-Show opening!

-We see Shane McMahon and Stephanie McMahon meeting backstage and watching things from Gorilla. We go to archived footage of Shane and Stephanie being interviewed. Present day Shane says being Vince’s son meant he grew up in a pretty strange world. We see video of Shane working out in the ring at WrestleMania IX before the fans arrived. Shane just wanted to be there and soak it all in. He had a time where he swept the ring, took jackets to the back, and had a brief run as a referee. He eventually became an on screen character as the heir to Vince and he would take ass kickings before the hero would get to Vince. He says he always wanted to be involved in the ring since he was very little.

-Stephanie says things were larger than life growing up and we see a very young Steph in pictures with Vince, Hulk Hogan, and others. 1999 Steph was a beautiful woman (I mean, she is still beautiful obviously) and had that girl next door look.

-We jump to the angle where HHH slips something in Steph’s drink and then marries her in a Vegas drive-thru wedding while she was unconscious. The crowd turned on Steph and started calling her a slut, and all Vince could think was “this is money.” That’s our Vince! Vince says he had a huge smile on his face as Steph became a great heel that was willing to do anything. Steph says she was on board to do anything Vince wanted and looking back there are things she can’t believe she did. The producer asks if she felt it was weird that her dad was asking her to do some of these things. “Yes, sometimes I thought it was weird, but it was a different time in our business.”

-HHH says the family part of everything is the craziest. Steph and HHH were paired on WWE TV and they were together every day. Steph was not allowed to date talent, but says Vince ironically pushed them together. Vince says Paul (HHH) is a great man and they were friends. He would tell Steph she needs to find a real man, someone like HHH. Shane was very much against them being together and says the main thing is “don’t date the boss’ daughter.” Vince felt it made sense for Steph to date and marry someone like Paul. HHH brings up the idea of having Steph and Paul have their wedding live on PPV. Steph shot that done quickly and good for her. Apparently Vince told her she was selfish, and then he books a street fight against his daughter six days before the wedding. Steph says Linda threatened Vince with divorce if anything happened to Steph. It’s still wild we have Vince beating up his daughter in a wrestling ring on PPV. HHH: “yeah, it was wild.” Also, not shocking there is no mention of Chyna and HHH’s relationship as this is Vince’s story.

-Dave Meltzer says the kids became super popular performers. He moves to Linda and puts over how important she is to the company. Bruce says Vince was the boss and Linda was the second boss. Vince handled the wrestling and Linda the business side. Vince says his mom introduced the two of them. Linda came from an upper middle class family and Vince liked that, while Linda liked that Vince was known as a bad boy. They married young and Vince promised her he would always love her and there would never be a dull moment. He notes he lived up to the promise.

-We see the fighting McMahons on WWE TV as Steph says Linda hated being on TV. Linda says she is the least comfortable in front of the camera. Vince: “She wasn’t a good actress, but she knew it.” He says she was a great character for what they needed.

-Trish Stratus was a fitness model and used that as a way to get into the WWF. She was a fan of Wendi Richter and her rise with Cyndi Lauper. She says when she arrived in WWF, the women were mainly there for sex appeal. Her first real storyline was being Vince’s mistress. Trish was an absolute smoke show and I mean that with all the respect in the world. We see Trish grabbing Vince’s ass and Vince laughs as he got to kiss Trish in front of his wheelchair bound wife. Trish says Linda was super cool about it, and had the idea for Trish to kiss her on the head during one segment. Linda says the entire story was all about emotion.

-Vince doesn’t think his family had an objection to the story. Shane says his first instinct is to say now when it involves his mom because she is sacred to him. The producer tells Vince that Shane had a problem, and Vince chuckles. He says Shane is more conservative and was worried it too close to real, but Vince told him he was a character and it was a story, so just go with it.

-Trish says fifteen years later and it never fails that people will bring up her having to get on all fours and bark like a dog. Yeah, this happened! The crazy part is some in the crowd where cheering Vince. “I used to have a female dog and that bitch did everything I told her to do.” Dave Meltzer says it was bad and he wishes they never would have done it. Trish says fans wanted her to be angry, but that’s the emotion they wanted the people to feel. He made Trish strip down to her bra and panties and the crowd roars. Sharon Mazer says it was the ultimate have your cake and eat it heel move because at the same time he was getting the crowd to hate him, he was giving the crowd a “titty show.” I actually have never watched the entire segment in full as I was watching Nitro at the time. He demands Trish take her bra off and again the crowd loses it. Dave says the segment sucked when he saw it, but wrestling was for guys then and they were into seeing hot women being demeaned. The whole idea that they loved hot women, but those same women would never be with them, so good for them getting degraded. That’s sad that there are people out that have those feelings. Trish knew it was going to be interpreted and misinterpreted but she did it because she knew where the story was going.

-WrestleMania X-Seven: It’s Vince vs. Shane! Steph and Trish are behind Vince and Linda is still sedate in a wheelchair. Shane says they used to wrestle when he was a kid and Vince would get rough with him and told Shane, “I cheat and I win. Sometimes you have to cheat.” Shane didn’t want to do it as she had reservations about slapping his dad. Vince: “I can slap you,” and that got Shane comfortable with punching Vince. They had a total car crash spectacle brawl and it was awesome and tore the house down. Trish turns on Vince and slaps him in the face to get revenge. Linda rises from her chair to a massive pop and Shane HITS A VAN TERMINATOR to get the win. Just amazing and totally over delivered in every way possible.

-Dave says for Vince nothing was off limits as he was good with anything that could draw money. Bonnie Hammer says Vince was a master at blurring storylines and would push the envelope.

-We jump to Sable and Dave says she was one of the most underrated characters they had. She would draw massive ratings for her segments and the only one Dave can remember that did better was Austin. Sable left at the peak of her popularity and sued the company for $110 million dollars. Sable even appeared on The Tonight Show to discuss whys he sued the WWE. Archived footage of Vince saying he didn’t ask Sable to do anything he considered degrading. The producer asks Vince what he remembers about the lawsuit and Vince doesn’t remember anything about it. It is a blur and all he knows is Sable came back to work. Dave says Vince will do anything if he thinks it is right for business and that’s even bringing back someone who sues him.

-Vince seems caught off guard when the producer brings up Sable coming back and having a storyline affair with him. We learn for the first time Heyman is off camera behind the producer as he laughs back, “storyline.” That’s interesting! We see Vince making out with Sable over a fallen Stephanie.

-We get to the Playboy interview where Vince talked about having different affairs. Vince says he wasn’t playing a character in the interview and he answered the questions honestly. We see text from the interview splashed on the screen. Vince says he as a human being is not who the Mr. McMahon character is.

-Paul Heyman says Vince has one truly monogamous relationship in his life and that’s with the wrestling business. That business is his master and the business owns him. He serves it with his heart, passion, and life even if it hurts the feelings of his wife, kids, father, or even his own.

-We jump to Vince taking the WWF public. Vince says it made them legitimate and brought in a lot more money for the company. It let them go into the casino and restaurant business. They could reinvest in the company and look at other avenues that could help.

-Over in WCW they were having viagra on a pole matches! Brian Gewirtz, WWF writer, says they would laugh at what WCW was doing. Prichard says it felt like WCW wasn’t even trying. Booker says the guys were fighting hard, but they didn’t have the right people in charge. Booker says Eric did a lot right, but also did a lot wrong. Bischoff understands why someone would say that, but they also don’t know what was happening behind the scenes.

-They discuss The AOL Time Warner merger and how they were telling Eric how to produce wrestling. They saw wrestling as low brow entertainment even though it still brought ratings. Dave shoots back that it was a crutch as WCW was putting out a terrible product. He continues that the ratings were dropping and they were losing money, so they wanted to sell. They made a call to Vince and he wanted to buy WCW. Vince thinks about Ted Turner and how he wanted to squish WWF like a bug: “That didn’t happen.” Dave says Vince paid $2.5 million for WCW and he has made that back a million times over. “It was buying Manhattan for $24.” They discuss the plane ride the night Vince bought WCW and it was insane, but the next day was business as usual.

-Shane says they kept things quiet about the sale, and let the world know with Vince McMahon kicking off Nitro and breaking the news. Vince wanted both shows live so he could do a simulcast on both shows/networks. Eric says he was tempted to watch it, but he couldn’t do it as it would be finally admitting that he was beat and he couldn’t do it. Vince notes he didn’t get great joy by winning as he expects to win and he was just on to the next thing. Brian says it was bittersweet as Vince thrives under pressure and competition.

-The XFL: Vince says he didn’t know much about forming a league, but wanted to play football in the spring when the NFL wasn’t. His wanted football people could relate to and make characters out of everyone. Archived interview: “In my view this can’t fail.” I loved the original XFL and watched every week. Even bad football is still football. I cheered for the San Francisco Demons! The ratings for the first week were higher than everyone expected, but the quality of play was not good at all. Costas says the level of play didn’t bother him, but the injection of what WWF did was stupid. We see cage dancers, and women in hot tubs. OH MAN, BOB COSTAS JUST DROPPED A F BOMB! “I don’t give a fuck.” Uncle Bob! I can’t ever unhear that now.

-Speaking of Bob he had tense interview with Vince. Bob told Vince before the show there would be some tough questions. Vince thought they were going to talk about the XFL and be friendly. Yeah, that didn’t happen! Vince says Costas started baiting him, and that he did his job well. Vince yells at Bob and comes off unhinged and looks like he is ready to choke Costas. Vince says he was set up and was angry at himself for not seeing it coming.

-The first season is the only season of the original incarnation, but they did get one season and The LA Xtreme won the Championship with future Steeler starting QB, Tommy Maddox. The XFL folding after one season stung Vince and Bruce says that time was not good.

-The Panda comes calling and the World Wrestling Federation has to change to WWF. Vince admits the WWF (Panda) used the initials long before they did, so they made the change. The Casino closed and so did the NY restaurant. Vince just pushed it to the side and knew he had to keep moving forward. He didn’t want to sell the failures because one of his rules as we know is “don’t sell.”

-The Rock mentions Vince pulled him to the side and asked how he felt if Hogan came back and worked with him. The Rock: “I fucking loved it.” No kidding! Hulk Hogan says when he came back they didn’t talk about the past. Vince admits at times he wished he could choke Hogan, but he did what was best for business and the fans.

-WrestleMania X-8: This match is one of the greatest of all time and gets 5 Stars all day from me and I don’t care what anyone else says. Vince says it was two eras colliding and he didn’t know how the audience would react. Hogan says he was supposed to be the bad guy, but not that night and they flipped things. The Rock: “we love you Rock, but tonight Hogan is the reason why you are here.” The Rock gets the win, but notes the real winner was Hulk Hogan. Hogan says Vince trusts him more now because he knows Hogan can no longer rip the shirt off and bring 100,000 people to a stadium.

-We see Vince bringing Eric Bischoff into the company. Dave says people who burn bridges with Vince likely get a better deal when they are brought back. Bret Hart comes back to the company as well. Vince repeats again that he is in business and does what’s best for business.

-Dave says the WWF was white hit from 98-2002 and then without WCW to push them, creative started to fall. Steve Austin says he started to get frustrated with creative and the direction of the company. He bashes the company on Byte This and decides to ride off into the sunset. The Rock hits it big in Hollywood and he is out the door as well.

-We go the infamous promo where Vince tells the RAW roster he wants to see Ruthless Aggression. They were searching for someone to step up and take the spot of Austin and Rock. Vince: “I am looking for some who is like, I am the fucking guy.” John Cena says he was not there for the RAW speech, but was backstage at SmackDown and Undertaker couldn’t make the show. Someone suggested Cena get the shot and that was his first televised match on the main roster.

-Cena says the Ruthless Aggression Era was a transition as they tried to bring in realism. Guys were using they real names and they were getting to cut loose more in the ring. Cena says he was uninteresting and was nearly fired because of how bad he was. He wanted to have fun as he figured he was on his way out. He heard the boys rapping on the back of the bus, so he joined in and shredded everyone. Stephanie happened to hear and asked John if he wanted to do it on TV. “Fuck yes I would.” That saved John’s job as Vince was a fan of the character. He says Cena went balls to the wall and became the next big star. Getting the crowd to react is when Vince starts to pay attention and Cena says that is when their relationship picked up. He says what he did with his character was the same thing Vince did with Mr. McMahon.

-Back to Mr. McMahon and we see him making people kiss his ass, mocking God in a church, and pushing a kid down the steps in a wheelchair. KATIE VICK! HHH says there were things that went too far, but Vince made him do it anyway. Trish says sometimes people would be punished if they didn’t want to do something. She brings up that Vince wanted her to make out with a woman and she didn’t think that was best for her character and then she lost her title next week (to Mickie James at Mania 22).

-Steph doesn’t want to tell the one story that she refused to do. Vince has no problem telling it though and he even chuckles as he says Steph was pregnant and the idea was that he would be revealed as the father. He thinks it was something like that. “No, that one didn’t make it.”

-HHH says that Steph has Mr. McMahon the character, Vince the boss, and Vince the dad. She says she calls him Vince at work and Dad at home. The boss can be tougher on her than Dad. He demands results and is harder on his family. He had them in the trenches working various jobs before he would put them on camera. He would shoot down their ideas just to teach them a lesson.

-Vince says he was harder on his kids in the business that anyone else. He wanted then to be better than anyone else. “You’re a McMahon, step the hell up.” Steph knows Vince was harder on Shane than her. HHH says business and family is never easy. All you have to do is look at Shane.

-Bonnie never understood where Shane fit in over the years and she always viewed him as the black sheep of the family. Dave says Shane always figured he was next in line and wanted his dad to buy him a company so he could prove he could run one before taking over the WWE down the line. Shane mentions The UFC had gotten in financial problems and came to Vince to see if he wanted to purchase the company. Shane was all over it, and pushed his dad to buy as he saw it was plug and play. Vince didn’t like the business model as they didn’t create characters. Once you were beat or hurt, your career was over. “We are in show business and that’s a sport.” Then why did he want a football league. UFC blew up and Shane knows they missed out. Vince doesn’t regret it and says Shane should have had more money and invested it himself.

-Heyman brings up a fight between the two over creative. He says the fights between them escalate quickly. Vince handed a knife to Shane and told him to stab him in the heart as that was the only way he would be in position to make that decision and if he didn’t stick the dagger, then he knew he wasn’t man enough to do it. The other option way to buy him out and if I don’t get out of your way, be prepared to get rid of me like I had to get rid of my father. DAMN!

-Shane decided to leave the company and Vince said Shane wanted to take over and wanted him to step aside. They grew apart and weren’t seeing eye to eye anymore. Vince was the boss and what he said went, so Shane didn’t want to see things implode with his father. Vince notes everyone has to know their place and Shane’s vision may have worked, but this is his business so it’s his vision. He advises anyone not to bring their family into their business.

-We close with more scandals on the horizon.

-“In 1999, Rena Lesnar (Sable) settled her lawsuit against Titans Sports (WWE).”

-Credits!

-I think was a necessary episode as we needed more of Vince’s childhood discussed and his relationship with his family. They did well in interjecting what was happening in the company at the time, but always tied it back to his family. Again we are only getting what Vince wants to tell us. With those episode mainly about the family, they took up most of the talking head spots. It was interesting to learn that Heyman is sitting off camera as Vince does his interview. HHH being the one to make sense of all the family issues and his line on TV of “what kind of family did I marry into,” has to be a shoot at his point. They touched on the affairs, but didn’t get into them too deeply as I would have wanted to hear Linda’s account, but we didn’t get that. Glossing over Austin walking out as him just riding into the sunset was kind of weird as well. It would have been a chance for them to show that Vince had no time for people no showing even if they were the biggest star in his company. That happened when Sasha walked out and Vince buried her and everyone yelled it was because she was a woman, but he did the same to Steve. That all goes back to Vince’s attitude of if something hurts you then get rid of it and move on. That’s one way to live and I guess cope with loss and pain, but man. I enjoyed this episode more than I thought going in and next time we wrap up the series and things are going to get dirty, and heavy with all the scandals. Thanks for reading!