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So yeah, I watched it all, like I said I would. It's kind of weird because even though I watched them all at 2x speed, which should have been three hours or so, instead of six, it still took far longer than six hours to get this post made, thanks to outside distractions.
(Just to note: I wrote this "blurb" or whatever you want to call it for this first episode only after watching the whole thing. For the other five, I basically wrote their blurbs as I was watching/listening to it.)
Episode title: "Junior." Which Vince McMahon Jr. apparently hates being called, along with "Vinny."
For this one, Jim Cornette and Brian Last mostly lament the fact that the documentary (or, at least, this episode of it) doesn't go into anything resembling enough detail about Vince Jr.'s early life and that they only have Vince Jr.'s own words because pretty much nobody else was there to witness any of it, including his future wife Linda. All of this is stuff I didn't know, i.e. that Vince Jr. lived in North Carolina for the first 12 years of his life, that Vince Jr. didn't even meet his father, Vince Sr., until he was 12 years old, or that he met Linda when he was 16 and she was 13.
They also mention how a lot of the other shit that Vince Jr. said about the earlier periods of his life, after meeting and starting to work with his father, is verifiably hogwash.
They also go into greater detail about stuff that the documentary itself barely mentioned, if it mentioned it at all. They speculate about things that were only glossed over in the documentary, like what if Dusty had agreed (which he didn't do in reality) to be the big star of WWF instead of Hogan... or what if Jimmy Snuka had killed his girlfriend only a year or two earlier, under Vince Sr., rather than Vince Jr... Shit like that.
(Hell, they even complimented Dave Meltzer's role in this documentary as a fact-checker, which is really saying something.)
Episode title: "Heat."
More fact-checking. (As they mentioned during the first episode review, both Jim and Brian really have a dim view of that David Shoemaker guy, claiming he basically has no idea what he's talking about.)
Vince kills Jesse Ventura's attempt at forming a union and fired Ventura, thanks in large part to Hulk Hogan's snitching to Vince (thus why Hogan is depicted as a rat in the video thumbnail there).
More fact-checking of the Hogan/André match at Wrestlemania 3 (and they again compliment Dave Meltzer's own fact-checking in the documentary itself).
More discussion of missed opportunities to talk about the Ultimate Warrior and Sgt. Slaughter that (apparently) were glossed over or didn't happen at all in the documentary.
Discussion of the World Bodybuilding Federation... meh. Pass.
And then... Jim defends Pat Patterson grabbing peoples' dicks in the locker room, with the defense being that "nobody meant it seriously" and "it was just a rib" and "everyone was doing it back then" and "it's totally different from the 'ring boys' thing." Woof. Fucking woof. (I really don't want to know the meaning of the phrase "checking your oil." Given the context, I can only assume it means sticking one's finger up someone else's anus, to their surprise. As a joke. Because "everyone was doing it," apparently.) At least Brian calls him out on that, albeit in a jokey "aw c'mon, Jim, you know that wasn't appropriate right?" kind of way, which Jim never really acknowledged or agreed with, because "things were different back then" or whatever. Goddamn woof, Jim. And then they just move on like it was nothing.
With the thing they move on to being Vince apparently raping one of the female referees? Goddamn wow. Brian: "And that's the first known example of Vince 'sleeping with' any talent."
Talking about the steroid trial. Jim: "Vince sounds like Trump... There are a lot of similarities between Vince McMahon and Donald Trump in terms of if their fathers had only hugged them every once in a while, a lot of people would have been happier." Some more back and forth about the steroid thing and how the government made an abysmal case against McMahon. Jim: "Vince didn't do what the government was trying to get him for doing. He did a lot of other shit, but he didn't do that specific thing."
Jim ends by claiming that a lot of the wrestlers were just as big marks about wrestling as the fans were.
Episode title: "Screwjob."
Apparently, the Montreal Screwjob was not the first time Vince screwed someone out of a title belt. Discussion of the thing with Wendi Richter getting screwed (figuratively, not literally) out of the women's title. Jim and Brian are pretty crass about the whole thing.
Then back to the follow up from the end of the previous episode, talking about how Hulk Hogan played the government by promising to tell them "everything" about Vince's steroid thing if they gave him immunity, then backing up Vince all the way afterward. More talk about the steroids stuff in general.
Discussion of how Linda McMahon bailed out the company (WWF/E) by becoming the corporate face of the company, instead of Vince.
Then they start getting into the feud between WWF/E and WCW and them poaching WWF/E guys the same way Vince had poached guys from other companies back in the 80s. Jim gets (yet) a(nother) dig in against Vince Russo, aka "Shitstain."
Big discussion of the "Curtain Call" and a digression about "kayfabe" and who "got it" and who didn't.
Then back the WWF/E vs WCW thing, leading into the Montreal Screwjob itself. Which, apparently, the documentary barely touched, and then it ended on a cliffhanger teasing the emergence of the "Mr. McMahon" TV character.
Jim and Brian once again lament the fact that this documentary ostensibly about Vince McMahon is less about Vince McMahon and more just about the WWE in general, mostly stuff already seen in other, more in-depth documentaries, with Jim dropping some third-hand hearsay knowledge on Brian that even Brian hadn't heard of before. Brian: "There's a lot here, but there's not a lot here. There's like nothing here."
Episode title: "Attitude."
This miniseries, according to Jim, is not meant for wrestling fans or wrestling historians, it is mean for the average Netflix viewer.
Back to the past with Vince's relationship with Dr. Jerry Graham (who I will admit is a guy I've never even heard of prior to this) and how Vince's heel persona was greatly influenced by this guy, apparently. Brian claims this is the closest we get to looking into Vince's life outside of wrestling, which still isn't much at all.
They talk (again) about how Vince thought he was going to be the babyface after the Montreal Screwjob for a week or two, before that backfired, and thus the asshole Mr. McMahon character was created.
Jim and Brian start lamenting the death of kayfabe and all the "more realistic" "funny" shit that started happening in the WWE. I'm reminded of Max Landis's "Wrestling Isn't Wrestling" thing, specifically the bit with Seth Green and Macaulay Culkin talking about "Suck It!" or whatever.
Basically, they're fully into the Attitude Era now, and how that led into Stone Cold Steve Austin vs Mr. McMahon.
Vince says in the documentary that he's nothing like the Mr. McMahon character. Everyone else begs to differ.
Jim: "That's where he came up with another of his favorite statements: 'Perception is reality.' ... To him, in his world, in his way of thinking, it doesn't matter what the facts are, what people predominately believe becomes the truth. And, therefore, if you can change their perception, you can change reality. If you make them think that something is different from what it actually is, then that thing becomes that to those people, in Vince's mind. And he's got a fucking point." Oh my god, that is such a Donald Trump-like description of Vince McMahon. Again, not even remotely surprising.
Back to the Attitude Era. Jim: "Peak of popularity, but also the valley of bad taste." I'll just let all that slide on by without recapping it here. You can watch the video yourself if you want; it's right there.
After all that shit, they go into Owen Hart... let's just say, Jim and Brian criticize Vince's explanations for why he kept the show going after Owen's death.
Last ten minutes of the video are wrap-up and recap of all the previous episodes so far. Still more about the WWF/E in general, and very little about Vince McMahon himself, outside of that. Jim tells more anecdotes about Vince's private life than the documentary does, apparently.
Episode title: "Family Business." Jim: "Sort of like the Mafia."
Back to Vince's early life. Physical abuse from Vince's stepfather, sexual abuse from his mother. Vince apparently mentions it very briefly in the documentary but doesn't elaborate at all.
Moving on to the kids. Shane was "the nice one," but Stephanie apparently had more aptitude for the wrestling business, though that could have simply been due to her association with Triple H. Mentioned in one of the previous episodes, Vince apparently booked himself in a "street fight" match against Stephanie, six days before Stephanie's real life marriage to Triple H, apparently as a fuck you to them not letting him televise their wedding. That's what Jim and Brian speculated it was, anyway, when it came up before.
Vince apparently wanted Shane and his new wife to live in a house that he, Vince, had renovated on Vince's property. (I'm honestly not sure how much of this is from the actual documentary, which I still have little interest in watching myself, or is just Jim and Brian shooting the shit.)
Linda hated being a TV performer because she knew she wasn't good at it. Jim agrees that she wasn't good at it. She was good as the behind the scenes, real world representative of WWF/E.
Shane, according to Brian, comes out of the documentary looking like a good guy. Jim says I told you so.
Jim: "Speaking of being a dick for no reason. God damn. The clip with Vince and Trish Stratus stripping and barking like a dog. ...watching it now with everything that's been said: What the fuck?" Um... I've never even heard of this until now. What the fuck, indeed? Vince, they claim, probably wasn't acting. Brian: "He's so fucked up on a cosmic level." Here is a Youtube video with some British dude talking about the whole thing.
Vince is apparently a very shitty, terrible father.
A bit of discussion of Sable, who Jim has made clear many times in the past that he never liked.
Apparently Paul Heyman was there in the room during the Vince interview (or, at least, this particular one), ostensibly to keep Vince reined in? I don't even know anymore.
Vince is dogshit at any business that isn't wrestling. This is pretty much well-known by this point. He's almost as bad at business as Donald Trump is. Another thing they have in common.
No mention in the documentary at all of the so-called "unmentionables," like Randy Savage, apparently.
Now going into the Ruthless Aggression Era.
Brief mention of the Vince/Stephanie incest angle that Vince wanted to do but which everyone else thought stank to high heaven and which they thankfully never actually did anything with on air. Jim and Brian speculate that this probably ties back into Vince's mysterious first twelve years of life, about which we know next to nothing, because this documentary ostensibly about Vince says little to nothing about any of it.
Shane wanted to be the next big thing in the WWE after his dad, but the writing was on the wall, so he left the company entirely, to go off and do his own thing for a few years.
Apparently, the documentary tells us more about Shane than it does about Vince. But, in the end, none of the McMahons, not Shane nor Stephanie and definitely not Vince, are involved with WWE at all now. And now to the final part.
Episode title: "The Finish."
Apparently, according to Jim, if Vince was "buried" here, it was through his own doing, rather than through the documentary creators making any special effort to do it.
"What is your other brain thinking about right now?" "Something sexual."
Quite a bit of speculation by Jim and Brian about potential behind the scenes stuff for this documentary, before getting back to reviewing the documentary itself.
Wrestlemania 2007, Vince McMahon vs "Donald P. Trump, the P stands for Pigshit." Lots of shitting on Trump here, which is pretty great. Jim: "Bob Costas said 'Trump's persona is closer to wrestler than statesman.' ... [Sharon Mazer] said, 'Trump is an example of the pro wrestling-ification of American politics.' ... Uncle Dave [Meltzer] mentioned similarities between Trump and Vince, as I have. Except that Vince, until he went mad, was more polished and groomed and articulate." Brian: "You know, though, hearing some of the stories in this documentary, it lends to more comparisons. Just the idea that Vince could never lose, he'll cheat no matter what, even with his son wrestling. You know, 'tell 'em, I'll cheat, I'm gonna win.'" Jim brings up the thing that "Pigshit's niece" Mary Trump apparently said, "A lot of this strife that the country and the world has gone through with my uncle could have been averted if his father had ever been able to bring himself to tell him he loved him." Brian: "And again, Trump won't accept losing. Vince, in his own words: 'Unless I'm dead, I win.'"
Then on to the whole "Vince blown up in a limousine" thing, which immediately got shelved because of the Chris Benoit double murder-suicide a week later, and Vince's reaction to all of that and the aftermath of that. I'm not going to recap all of that here.
Discussion of Vince's obsession with bodybuilding even into his 70s. Wondering again why Vince was 11 hours late for his interviews. Wondering why Vince dressed exactly the same for each interview, making it look like one continuous thing. Jim: "It was like he was being interrogated, rather than interviewed for a documentary. But what did Triple H say? 'You see what he wants you to see.'" Brian: "His whole life is a lie."
I simply have no comment on the fact that Vince apparently spent his first 12 years of life in North Carolina (which was mentioned back in the first episode as well).
Discussion of wrestlers dying young. How the "Wellness Program" was mostly a PR stunt and more about protecting the business than actually caring about the talent. Some brief talk about the Undertaker and ending the Streak and the fact that Undertaker got concussed and didn't even remember the match in question.
On to the PG Era and "silly Vince." I know nothing of this era, as I'd already entirely stopped watching wrestling by this point.
Shane's big return after he'd previously left the company. Jim: "He was trying to prove himself to his dad. Another generation was repeating, different context, different time, different people, but repeating the same general fucking motif. And then they actually get a camera shot of Vince actually hugging him and patting him on the back. He looked as awkward doing that in some ways as when Trump held the Bible up in the photo op. Shane was fifty fucking years old there at that point, and that was a big deal for him to get a hug and a pat on the back from Vince." Brian again says that he thinks, based on this and other stuff, that Shane is a good guy, better than his dad, and has his shit together. Jim says he never recalls seeing Vince McMahon ever interacting with a child, be it his own grandchildren or just random kids.
Jim criticizes all the wrestlers who claim Vince as a "father figure." Brian suggests maybe Vince cultivated this mindset.
Stephanie was more like Vince, more cutthroat, while Shane was too nice, so Vince was apparently going to give the company to his daughter instead of his son (before it was sold and none of them got it).
Documentary "ends" with everyone saying that Vince will never retire... before he retired. Then Vince cancelled any further interviews with Netflix.
Lots of clips of "Mr. McMahon being a dirty pervert on RAW."
Bruce Prichard apparently claimed the whole interview was a "gotcha piece" against Vince, which Jim and Brian think is iffy at best. Jim tells of how Vince helped Bruce with his wife's cancer medical bills, and also how Vince advanced Jim himself $25,000 to pay his rent when he first moved to Connecticut to work for WWE. Jim says that this documentary series was not made to make Vince look shitty, but that Vince made himself look shitty, via Vince's own words and actions. Vince apparently went crazy/crazier when he become a billionaire. Brian claims Bruce is Vince's mouthpiece and that Bruce's claims about the documentary being a "gotcha piece" might have been Vince's words, not his own. Jim isn't so sure about that.
And nobody asked in the documentary apparently had an answer for "What is Vince's legacy?" not even Vince himself.
Brian: "A difference between Vince and Trump: Vince seems to listen to his attorneys."
More lamenting about unanswered questions that the documentary never answered or touched on. Jim and Brian want more about Vince's actual life, not just the WWE stuff. Again, "you see what he wants you to see." Jim thinks maybe Vince wouldn't have said some of the things he did say in the documentary if things had been different.
A little more banter and... that's pretty much it.
(Just to note: I wrote this "blurb" or whatever you want to call it for this first episode only after watching the whole thing. For the other five, I basically wrote their blurbs as I was watching/listening to it.)
Episode title: "Junior." Which Vince McMahon Jr. apparently hates being called, along with "Vinny."
For this one, Jim Cornette and Brian Last mostly lament the fact that the documentary (or, at least, this episode of it) doesn't go into anything resembling enough detail about Vince Jr.'s early life and that they only have Vince Jr.'s own words because pretty much nobody else was there to witness any of it, including his future wife Linda. All of this is stuff I didn't know, i.e. that Vince Jr. lived in North Carolina for the first 12 years of his life, that Vince Jr. didn't even meet his father, Vince Sr., until he was 12 years old, or that he met Linda when he was 16 and she was 13.
They also mention how a lot of the other shit that Vince Jr. said about the earlier periods of his life, after meeting and starting to work with his father, is verifiably hogwash.
They also go into greater detail about stuff that the documentary itself barely mentioned, if it mentioned it at all. They speculate about things that were only glossed over in the documentary, like what if Dusty had agreed (which he didn't do in reality) to be the big star of WWF instead of Hogan... or what if Jimmy Snuka had killed his girlfriend only a year or two earlier, under Vince Sr., rather than Vince Jr... Shit like that.
(Hell, they even complimented Dave Meltzer's role in this documentary as a fact-checker, which is really saying something.)
Episode title: "Heat."
More fact-checking. (As they mentioned during the first episode review, both Jim and Brian really have a dim view of that David Shoemaker guy, claiming he basically has no idea what he's talking about.)
Vince kills Jesse Ventura's attempt at forming a union and fired Ventura, thanks in large part to Hulk Hogan's snitching to Vince (thus why Hogan is depicted as a rat in the video thumbnail there).
More fact-checking of the Hogan/André match at Wrestlemania 3 (and they again compliment Dave Meltzer's own fact-checking in the documentary itself).
More discussion of missed opportunities to talk about the Ultimate Warrior and Sgt. Slaughter that (apparently) were glossed over or didn't happen at all in the documentary.
Discussion of the World Bodybuilding Federation... meh. Pass.
And then... Jim defends Pat Patterson grabbing peoples' dicks in the locker room, with the defense being that "nobody meant it seriously" and "it was just a rib" and "everyone was doing it back then" and "it's totally different from the 'ring boys' thing." Woof. Fucking woof. (I really don't want to know the meaning of the phrase "checking your oil." Given the context, I can only assume it means sticking one's finger up someone else's anus, to their surprise. As a joke. Because "everyone was doing it," apparently.) At least Brian calls him out on that, albeit in a jokey "aw c'mon, Jim, you know that wasn't appropriate right?" kind of way, which Jim never really acknowledged or agreed with, because "things were different back then" or whatever. Goddamn woof, Jim. And then they just move on like it was nothing.
With the thing they move on to being Vince apparently raping one of the female referees? Goddamn wow. Brian: "And that's the first known example of Vince 'sleeping with' any talent."
Talking about the steroid trial. Jim: "Vince sounds like Trump... There are a lot of similarities between Vince McMahon and Donald Trump in terms of if their fathers had only hugged them every once in a while, a lot of people would have been happier." Some more back and forth about the steroid thing and how the government made an abysmal case against McMahon. Jim: "Vince didn't do what the government was trying to get him for doing. He did a lot of other shit, but he didn't do that specific thing."
Jim ends by claiming that a lot of the wrestlers were just as big marks about wrestling as the fans were.
Episode title: "Screwjob."
Apparently, the Montreal Screwjob was not the first time Vince screwed someone out of a title belt. Discussion of the thing with Wendi Richter getting screwed (figuratively, not literally) out of the women's title. Jim and Brian are pretty crass about the whole thing.
Then back to the follow up from the end of the previous episode, talking about how Hulk Hogan played the government by promising to tell them "everything" about Vince's steroid thing if they gave him immunity, then backing up Vince all the way afterward. More talk about the steroids stuff in general.
Discussion of how Linda McMahon bailed out the company (WWF/E) by becoming the corporate face of the company, instead of Vince.
Then they start getting into the feud between WWF/E and WCW and them poaching WWF/E guys the same way Vince had poached guys from other companies back in the 80s. Jim gets (yet) a(nother) dig in against Vince Russo, aka "Shitstain."
Big discussion of the "Curtain Call" and a digression about "kayfabe" and who "got it" and who didn't.
Then back the WWF/E vs WCW thing, leading into the Montreal Screwjob itself. Which, apparently, the documentary barely touched, and then it ended on a cliffhanger teasing the emergence of the "Mr. McMahon" TV character.
Jim and Brian once again lament the fact that this documentary ostensibly about Vince McMahon is less about Vince McMahon and more just about the WWE in general, mostly stuff already seen in other, more in-depth documentaries, with Jim dropping some third-hand hearsay knowledge on Brian that even Brian hadn't heard of before. Brian: "There's a lot here, but there's not a lot here. There's like nothing here."
Episode title: "Attitude."
This miniseries, according to Jim, is not meant for wrestling fans or wrestling historians, it is mean for the average Netflix viewer.
Back to the past with Vince's relationship with Dr. Jerry Graham (who I will admit is a guy I've never even heard of prior to this) and how Vince's heel persona was greatly influenced by this guy, apparently. Brian claims this is the closest we get to looking into Vince's life outside of wrestling, which still isn't much at all.
They talk (again) about how Vince thought he was going to be the babyface after the Montreal Screwjob for a week or two, before that backfired, and thus the asshole Mr. McMahon character was created.
Jim and Brian start lamenting the death of kayfabe and all the "more realistic" "funny" shit that started happening in the WWE. I'm reminded of Max Landis's "Wrestling Isn't Wrestling" thing, specifically the bit with Seth Green and Macaulay Culkin talking about "Suck It!" or whatever.
Basically, they're fully into the Attitude Era now, and how that led into Stone Cold Steve Austin vs Mr. McMahon.
Vince says in the documentary that he's nothing like the Mr. McMahon character. Everyone else begs to differ.
Jim: "That's where he came up with another of his favorite statements: 'Perception is reality.' ... To him, in his world, in his way of thinking, it doesn't matter what the facts are, what people predominately believe becomes the truth. And, therefore, if you can change their perception, you can change reality. If you make them think that something is different from what it actually is, then that thing becomes that to those people, in Vince's mind. And he's got a fucking point." Oh my god, that is such a Donald Trump-like description of Vince McMahon. Again, not even remotely surprising.
Back to the Attitude Era. Jim: "Peak of popularity, but also the valley of bad taste." I'll just let all that slide on by without recapping it here. You can watch the video yourself if you want; it's right there.
After all that shit, they go into Owen Hart... let's just say, Jim and Brian criticize Vince's explanations for why he kept the show going after Owen's death.
Last ten minutes of the video are wrap-up and recap of all the previous episodes so far. Still more about the WWF/E in general, and very little about Vince McMahon himself, outside of that. Jim tells more anecdotes about Vince's private life than the documentary does, apparently.
Episode title: "Family Business." Jim: "Sort of like the Mafia."
Back to Vince's early life. Physical abuse from Vince's stepfather, sexual abuse from his mother. Vince apparently mentions it very briefly in the documentary but doesn't elaborate at all.
Moving on to the kids. Shane was "the nice one," but Stephanie apparently had more aptitude for the wrestling business, though that could have simply been due to her association with Triple H. Mentioned in one of the previous episodes, Vince apparently booked himself in a "street fight" match against Stephanie, six days before Stephanie's real life marriage to Triple H, apparently as a fuck you to them not letting him televise their wedding. That's what Jim and Brian speculated it was, anyway, when it came up before.
Vince apparently wanted Shane and his new wife to live in a house that he, Vince, had renovated on Vince's property. (I'm honestly not sure how much of this is from the actual documentary, which I still have little interest in watching myself, or is just Jim and Brian shooting the shit.)
Linda hated being a TV performer because she knew she wasn't good at it. Jim agrees that she wasn't good at it. She was good as the behind the scenes, real world representative of WWF/E.
Shane, according to Brian, comes out of the documentary looking like a good guy. Jim says I told you so.
Jim: "Speaking of being a dick for no reason. God damn. The clip with Vince and Trish Stratus stripping and barking like a dog. ...watching it now with everything that's been said: What the fuck?" Um... I've never even heard of this until now. What the fuck, indeed? Vince, they claim, probably wasn't acting. Brian: "He's so fucked up on a cosmic level." Here is a Youtube video with some British dude talking about the whole thing.
Vince is apparently a very shitty, terrible father.
A bit of discussion of Sable, who Jim has made clear many times in the past that he never liked.
Apparently Paul Heyman was there in the room during the Vince interview (or, at least, this particular one), ostensibly to keep Vince reined in? I don't even know anymore.
Vince is dogshit at any business that isn't wrestling. This is pretty much well-known by this point. He's almost as bad at business as Donald Trump is. Another thing they have in common.
No mention in the documentary at all of the so-called "unmentionables," like Randy Savage, apparently.
Now going into the Ruthless Aggression Era.
Brief mention of the Vince/Stephanie incest angle that Vince wanted to do but which everyone else thought stank to high heaven and which they thankfully never actually did anything with on air. Jim and Brian speculate that this probably ties back into Vince's mysterious first twelve years of life, about which we know next to nothing, because this documentary ostensibly about Vince says little to nothing about any of it.
Shane wanted to be the next big thing in the WWE after his dad, but the writing was on the wall, so he left the company entirely, to go off and do his own thing for a few years.
Apparently, the documentary tells us more about Shane than it does about Vince. But, in the end, none of the McMahons, not Shane nor Stephanie and definitely not Vince, are involved with WWE at all now. And now to the final part.
Episode title: "The Finish."
Apparently, according to Jim, if Vince was "buried" here, it was through his own doing, rather than through the documentary creators making any special effort to do it.
"What is your other brain thinking about right now?" "Something sexual."
Quite a bit of speculation by Jim and Brian about potential behind the scenes stuff for this documentary, before getting back to reviewing the documentary itself.
Wrestlemania 2007, Vince McMahon vs "Donald P. Trump, the P stands for Pigshit." Lots of shitting on Trump here, which is pretty great. Jim: "Bob Costas said 'Trump's persona is closer to wrestler than statesman.' ... [Sharon Mazer] said, 'Trump is an example of the pro wrestling-ification of American politics.' ... Uncle Dave [Meltzer] mentioned similarities between Trump and Vince, as I have. Except that Vince, until he went mad, was more polished and groomed and articulate." Brian: "You know, though, hearing some of the stories in this documentary, it lends to more comparisons. Just the idea that Vince could never lose, he'll cheat no matter what, even with his son wrestling. You know, 'tell 'em, I'll cheat, I'm gonna win.'" Jim brings up the thing that "Pigshit's niece" Mary Trump apparently said, "A lot of this strife that the country and the world has gone through with my uncle could have been averted if his father had ever been able to bring himself to tell him he loved him." Brian: "And again, Trump won't accept losing. Vince, in his own words: 'Unless I'm dead, I win.'"
Then on to the whole "Vince blown up in a limousine" thing, which immediately got shelved because of the Chris Benoit double murder-suicide a week later, and Vince's reaction to all of that and the aftermath of that. I'm not going to recap all of that here.
Discussion of Vince's obsession with bodybuilding even into his 70s. Wondering again why Vince was 11 hours late for his interviews. Wondering why Vince dressed exactly the same for each interview, making it look like one continuous thing. Jim: "It was like he was being interrogated, rather than interviewed for a documentary. But what did Triple H say? 'You see what he wants you to see.'" Brian: "His whole life is a lie."
I simply have no comment on the fact that Vince apparently spent his first 12 years of life in North Carolina (which was mentioned back in the first episode as well).
Discussion of wrestlers dying young. How the "Wellness Program" was mostly a PR stunt and more about protecting the business than actually caring about the talent. Some brief talk about the Undertaker and ending the Streak and the fact that Undertaker got concussed and didn't even remember the match in question.
On to the PG Era and "silly Vince." I know nothing of this era, as I'd already entirely stopped watching wrestling by this point.
Shane's big return after he'd previously left the company. Jim: "He was trying to prove himself to his dad. Another generation was repeating, different context, different time, different people, but repeating the same general fucking motif. And then they actually get a camera shot of Vince actually hugging him and patting him on the back. He looked as awkward doing that in some ways as when Trump held the Bible up in the photo op. Shane was fifty fucking years old there at that point, and that was a big deal for him to get a hug and a pat on the back from Vince." Brian again says that he thinks, based on this and other stuff, that Shane is a good guy, better than his dad, and has his shit together. Jim says he never recalls seeing Vince McMahon ever interacting with a child, be it his own grandchildren or just random kids.
Jim criticizes all the wrestlers who claim Vince as a "father figure." Brian suggests maybe Vince cultivated this mindset.
Stephanie was more like Vince, more cutthroat, while Shane was too nice, so Vince was apparently going to give the company to his daughter instead of his son (before it was sold and none of them got it).
Documentary "ends" with everyone saying that Vince will never retire... before he retired. Then Vince cancelled any further interviews with Netflix.
Lots of clips of "Mr. McMahon being a dirty pervert on RAW."
Bruce Prichard apparently claimed the whole interview was a "gotcha piece" against Vince, which Jim and Brian think is iffy at best. Jim tells of how Vince helped Bruce with his wife's cancer medical bills, and also how Vince advanced Jim himself $25,000 to pay his rent when he first moved to Connecticut to work for WWE. Jim says that this documentary series was not made to make Vince look shitty, but that Vince made himself look shitty, via Vince's own words and actions. Vince apparently went crazy/crazier when he become a billionaire. Brian claims Bruce is Vince's mouthpiece and that Bruce's claims about the documentary being a "gotcha piece" might have been Vince's words, not his own. Jim isn't so sure about that.
And nobody asked in the documentary apparently had an answer for "What is Vince's legacy?" not even Vince himself.
Brian: "A difference between Vince and Trump: Vince seems to listen to his attorneys."
More lamenting about unanswered questions that the documentary never answered or touched on. Jim and Brian want more about Vince's actual life, not just the WWE stuff. Again, "you see what he wants you to see." Jim thinks maybe Vince wouldn't have said some of the things he did say in the documentary if things had been different.
A little more banter and... that's pretty much it.
