On Thursday, Netflix's YouTube page posted the trailer for the docuseries based on Vince McMahon, titled "Mr. McMahon." The just over two minute video begins with McMahon sitting down for an interview claiming that people want to say that he's a bad guy but no one really know him. And then you immediately see pro wrestling stars such as The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Hulk Hogan, and John Cena. The series looks to tell a rise and fall story of Vince McMahon featuring old footage from the early days of the WWF. It also looks to tackle the many scandals such as McMahon's steroids trial, all of the early wrestler deaths that he said he was not responsible for, and the latest lawsuit from Janel Grant. Bruce Pritchard, Eric Bischoff, Jimmy Hart, and Bret Hart are also seen in the trailer as are The Ringer's own David Shoemaker.
The most intriguing line of the trailer is by Paul Levesque who says about McMahon, "He's going to show you what he wants you to see." McMahon is then quoted as saying that the lines of reality are very blurred in pro wrestling. And then he goes onto say that the individual loses all sense of who they are.
Andrew Zarian and I had a conversation on our weekly video show and podcast We're Live, Pal about how the docuseries could affect WWE and TKO. Netflix is about as mainstream as it comes for consumption media. Grandmothers who don't know anything about Vince McMahon may know everything the docuseries wants you to know about him. TKO's and WWE's crisis management teams should be much better prepared than WWE has been so far at answering all the Janel Grant questions.
WWE may also be lucky that all the episodes drop all at once on September 25. If it was a six-week time frame, they'd have to answer all of the questions for a much longer time. By the time everyone is finished watching, the "water cooler" conversations may not have much shelf life. However, with WWE moving WWE RAW to Netflix in January, just by there being WWE product on the service may give the docuseries a lot of life. You have to imagine the Netflix algorithm for engagement will prop up the Vince series to anyone who gives RAW a shot on Netflix.
