Mr. McMahon (series): I binge watched almost the entire thing in one day

This is saying a lot when you consider that each episode is around an hour long and by the time I finally forced myself to stop watching it was nearly 4am. It isn't often that I run into a series or show that captivates me so entirely but since I have been a fan of "wrasslin" since I was a very young kid, this was always going to appeal to me.

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This has been called by many the "definitive WWE documentary" and while I think it would help, you don't really have the be a fan of wrestling or as it is legally forced to be called by these days "sports entertainment" in order to enjoy this very informative and gritty series.

Vince McMahon is an extremely successful man and his life wasn't always easy. He wasn't handed the keys to the billionaire kingdom and he faced a ton of trouble in his life as far as getting ahead is concerned but he always ended up coming out on top. He took professional wrestling from a small regional thing with many different territories, most of which weren't even televised, and turned it into a wildly profitable empire. I was a child when I witnessed this happening and wrestling went from being something you just kind of heard stories about, to being something that every single kid idolized. Now in my own life I was a fan of NWA (National Wrestling Alliance) and not a fan of WWF which is now called WWE. This was only because my family didn't have cable television and would never buy a pay per view so I wasn't even able to watch WWF even though all the magazines talked about it.

I was very aware of their superstars though and even if you didn't watch wrestling at all you probably knew who Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, and Macho Man Randy Savage were. I knew them and I suppose you could say that I was a bit of a rabid fan because I bought the magazines, bought the toys, and emulated the moves done by some of the stars and even injured a neighbor by putting him in the "Rude Awakening" that was popularized by "Ravishing Rick Rude".

I only ever attended 2 live events in my lifetime but was still a bit of a closet fan even into adulthood. I glance at it every now and then these days too and am just amazed that tens of thousands of people turn up for a sporting event that everyone that doesn't have mental problems is very aware is scripted and fake. Without Vince McMahon it is very logical to believe that this "sport" wouldn't be nearly as popular as it became without him. Even though a lot of it seems very silly to me, I can look back on the times and how wrestling evolved over the years and see that Vince and his team of people are very intelligent and extremely good at business.

Vince has gotten into a lot of trouble lately for allegations of sexual abuse and trafficking but I am one of those crazies that thinks that a lot of this might be politically motivated or blown up because some people out there want to get some easy money since Vince has a bit of a reputation for paying people with hush money to go away rather than have a long drawn out trial.

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The series is mostly interviews with stars past and present and while some people that are more wholesome like Jon Cena probably hold back a lot on how much insider information they are willing to give, there are a lot of people that seriously defend Vince and to keep things fair, there are a lot of people that they interview that absolutely hate the guy.

one thing I found particularly interesting was the fact that "The Undertaker" has a rather rednecky and almost girlish sounding voice, although I would never say that to the big man's face.

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This series clearly took a long time to film and they put a lot of care into it with selection of some pretty important videos of events in the past and how the WWE has changed over the years. They do point out towards the latter episodes that while they were filming, more serious charges were filed against Vince McMahon and that he no longer did interviews with the producers. While he was doing the interviews with them though, I thought that Vince was very convincing with his side of the story and while a lot of this could just be the charisma of a con man, I found his evidence to be quite compelling.

They do focus quite a lot on the years where McMahon wasn't just running the business but also became one of the biggest stars in both cutting promos and even wrestling himself. These were called the "Attitude Era" and in my mind, it was some of the best times for pro wrestling

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The feud between him and Stone Cold Steve Austin was just incredible and it spanned for years. I think most historians would agree that this was one of the most momentous times in all of wrestling history.

One thing the documentary does very well is to inform us about how some of the biggest stars of the sport came to be by accident, including how Stone Cold's line of "that's the bottom line, because Stone Cold said so!" was something that happened by accident and it just took off on its own. If there was ever a big star in the sport, there is a story about how they came to be and some of them like Stone Cold, HHH, John Cena, and The Rock, owe their stardom and immense wealth to the fact that they at one point in time met Vince McMahon.

Apparently, Vince was not thrilled about the overall theme of the miniseries and perhaps was hoping it would be a documentary that was only praising him. There are rumors that he attempted to purchase the series in order to prevent it from being released. Of course, this could all be fake controversy that was intentionally created in order to direct more people to watching it rather than avoiding it.

Should I watch it?

I'm a big fan of documentaries, especially ones that reveal things that some of the people involved would probably prefer not everyone see and this is exactly what Mr. McMahon is. You do not need to be a fan of WWE in order to find this series absolutely gripping. It isn't often that I will intentionally sit through 5 hours of something in a row but honestly, I would have watched the 6th hour as well had I not been afraid of the next day's sunlight peeking around the corners of my bedroom curtains. To take a line that is frequently chanted by crowds at actual WWE events... "This is awesome!"

_{the only way to legally stream this at the moment is via a subscription to Netflix}