How has the wrestling world responded to Vince McMahon's Netflix doc?

When the new Netflix documentary 'Mr McMahon' was first commissioned, it probably seemed like a slam-dunk. Vince McMahon has been at the very heart of the professional wrestling business since he bought his father's company in the early 1980s and, as a famously secretive man outside of his wrestling character, he has never been definitively profiled on screen.

But, during the production of the documentary, everything changed. The majority of the interviews that form the six-part series — including with McMahon himself — took place in 2021 and 2022. Since then, McMahon has been hit by a series of problematic allegations — first of hush money paid to conceal affairs and then a lawsuit by former WWE employee Janel Grant claiming he coerced her into a relationship, trafficked her to other men, and committed grotesque sexual assaults upon her.

McMahon denies the claims in Grant's lawsuit. In January 2024, after the lawsuit became public, he resigned for good from TKO — the parent company that now owns both WWE and UFC. These allegations feature in the final episode of the documentary along with new interviews involving the journalists who have reported on the McMahon allegations.

Beyond that, Mr McMahon delves into the complex persona of Vince McMahon and the often divisive way he has run his wrestling company over the years. So how have those involved responded since the documentary landed on Netflix?

Vince McMahon

McMahon put out a statement on social media just a few days before the documentary landed, in which he criticised the narrative put forward in the series. He wrote that he didn't regret his participation, but said the series "falls short and takes the predictable path of conflating the ‘Mr. McMahon’ character with my true self".

Read more: Ex-WWE boss says ‘no-one really knows me’ in Netflix trailer for Mr McMahon (PA Media)

He claimed that the show's creators used editing tricks and out of context footage to "distort the viewers’ perception and support a deceptive narrative". In his final sentence, he wrote: "I hope the viewer will keep an open mind and remember that there are two sides to every story."

Backstage in WWE

Read more: Could Shane McMahon really ditch WWE and turn up in AEW? (Yahoo Entertainment)

Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio a week before the Netflix release, journalist Dave Meltzer — who features heavily in the documentary — explained what his sources had told him about the feeling within WWE about the documentary.

"I know that there are people who are in WWE who are not happy with it," Meltzer said. "I don't know how fair it is to Vince ... but there are people there — these are pro-Vince people [who aren't happy] but if it was a fair documentary, how could they be? We'll see, but I am certain that the people who are really, really anti-Vince will not be happy [either]."

Janel Grant

Janel Grant herself does not appear in the Mr McMahon series. Her legal team confirmed that she was approached to participate, but declined to do so. Grant's lawyer Ann Callis has now issued a statement to the press, saying the series "makes it clear there is no difference between Vince McMahon’s on-air persona and his true self, they are one and the same".

Read more: Vince McMahon & WWE Officially Under DOJ Investigation (Deadline)

Callis added: "While the docuseries put McMahon’s obsession with power and control on full display, it only scratches the surface of his criminal behaviour and it fails to tell the full story of his abuse, sexual assault, and human trafficking of Ms. Grant. She deserves the opportunity to tell her story, on her own time, and in her own way. We look forward to her day in court and to seeing McMahon at last held accountable for his actions."

Ric Flair

Ric Flair is one of the most prominent wrestling names not to feature at all in the Mr McMahon documentary, outside of archive footage. On Wednesday, he confirmed to his followers on X (formerly Twitter) that he was watching the series.

In typically eccentric style, he plugged his own documentary, but wrote of McMahon: "I’m not able to comment on anything other than the fact that he made a lot of people rich & changed the landscape of wrestling for the good."

Eric Bischoff

Eric Bischoff features prominently in the docuseries, reflecting on his antagonism with McMahon when they were the figureheads of rival companies during the "Monday Night Wars" of the late-90s. However, on his podcast 83 Weeks, the former WCW boss said he was "90 per cent sure or so that I didn't sit down and do an interview for this project".

Bischoff speculated that, while he was being interviewed more generally for WWE projects, they had recorded footage to be used in the Mr McMahon documentary. He said it was common in these interviews for the team to "ask some other questions totally off topic for use in another project".

He added: "A lot of that content about that particular subject just also happens to fit very nicely in this new project, even though that's not its original intent and it's not why I sat down to do the interview."

Ryback

The wrestler Ryback spent more than a decade with WWE between 2004 and 2016. He told fans on X that he won't be watching the documentary. He already knows how he feels about McMahon.

He said: "There’s nothing I need to see beyond what I already know. [McMahon's] actions behind the scenes — the lies, corruption, and toxic culture — speak louder than any creative decisions. The truth will eventually come to light, and karma will sort things out."

Jeff Jarrett

Jeff Jarrett spent a lot of time working with McMahon during his career in WWE. He now works for rival promotion All Elite Wrestling (AEW) as a wrestler and in a backstage role as director of business development. He reacted to McMahon's statement — before the documentary's release — on his podcast My World with Jeff Jarrett.

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He said: "Well, it’s like [McMahon] said: there’s two sides to every story; I’m going to say there’s three sides. There’s Vince’s version, Netflix’s version, and then somewhere out there, there’s going to be the truth, maybe even lost in it all. But like you said, I think it goes without saying, him posting today is a definite sign that he’s just not going to let this — he’s getting out in front of it. He’s punching back, and this is certainly not the first, and it won’t be the last."

All six episodes of Mr McMahon are streaming on Netflix now.

This article originally appeared on Yahoo TV UK at https://uk.news.yahoo.com/vince-mcmahon-netflix-wwe-reaction-130957983.html