Kap & J. Hood
Mr. McMahon Netflix Documentary Review - GKW Sept 27, 2024 | #WWF #WWE
What's up everybody and welcome to the special Good Karma Wrestling. There it is right there. If you're watching on YouTube or on Facebook or some of our other platforms for Good Karma Wrestling, I don't regret any of it from Mr. McMahon. This is a special review of the documentary for the first three episodes. If you have not seen that, please go to Netflix and check out the Mr. McMahon documentary on Netflix that's streaming right now. It started on Wednesday and we're here to review it right here on a special edition of Good Karma Wrestling. Along with Charles Taylor from the CTJ Report, I am Jonathan Hood. Here we are. Thanks so much for being with us. As always, CJ, appreciate the time. Appreciate you having me on as always, sir. Yes, sir. And so as we have a conversation just put in the comments, whether you watch on Facebook or on YouTube or on Twitch or, of course, on Twitter or on X. If you have any questions, we'll be glad to answer them. Just check in. If you've seen the documentary or you've seen parts of the documentary, we'd love to get your reaction to what we've seen. First of all, CJ, let's talk about the WWE in these terms. So watching Vince McMahon, first of all, trying to be on the record, talking about his life. At the beginning of the documentary, he talks about, "Oh, I'm not going to give it all to you. I'm not going to tell you. I got great stories. I'm not going to give it all to you. I'm just trying to make it interesting." You know, McMahon's never wanted to talk about himself. That is true because if he really did want to talk about himself, it'd probably be scarier than what we've already seen. Absolutely. That was probably my biggest takeaway from the first five minutes was just Vince. He was like, "I'm not going to give you everything." I think the horror core fan is like, "Well, that's what we want. We want everything." But I think that little statement right there just told me kind of all I need to know really about Vince, about who he is and who he doesn't want, kind of who people don't want to see. You really don't want to see the real Vince because, like you said, it's scary and it's completely scary and people will probably think of this man as a monster if you really got to see the Vince that I'm sure a lot of people behind the curtain get to see while he was there every Monday or Friday's doing SmackDowns and Raws. That was a telling statement and that kind of let you know how the rest of this documentary is going to go. The fact that he even was there on the record was enough for me because, like you said, he doesn't talk a lot himself. It's usually other people talking about him and it usually kind of a glorifying manner. Everyone talked about him as being this father figure, but to hear him speak about himself was really telling. It's very rare for him to be able to talk about a lot of these things because he would never talk about it. I'm glad that he did. Also just before we really kind of do a deep dive in it, for Bill Simmons and for those that produce this, I did not expect for them to be talking about what's happening currently in WWE as far as the Janelle Grant story that the allegations and what is going on with Vince McMahon and all that I didn't expect him, but they hit you right in the face with him at first at the beginning. I thought like a lot of these things that we've seen on Vice or in some of these other places that this would kind of be a puff piece and kind of just kind of make McMahon a baby face and kind of talk about it in certain terms, CJ, but not necessarily going all in just through the first three episodes. Clearly, Bill Simmons wanted to be able to cover everything as much as possible, a deep dive and telling you about the Janelle Grant stuff right at the beginning. And I guess they did that to let you know, man, this is not going to be just some puff piece just to glorify Vince McMahon's career. >> Yeah, kudos to Bill Simmons and the entire crew that worked on this documentary because in working with Netflix, they could have easily have pulled back, especially with this 10-year deal that they have with WWE to put raw on Netflix, they could have given us the puff piece. They could have given us kind of a glorified episode of Dark Side of the Ring, but they chose to cover as much as they possibly could, and that I think is what the fans were looking for. It's finally something that's kind of non-WWE produced that really kind of hits on the good, the bad, and in some cases, the ugly. >> There's a lot that we have to cover here, because again, if you're just joining us, we're going to talk about the first three episodes, and CJ will, and a few days, will cover the rest of it toward the weekend. So we want to be able to give you part one here and then part two another time. But again, if you've seen the documentary, we love to get your comments on what you've seen so far, your reactions, but we're going to give you our thoughts. We can't cover it all, but we'll cover a good portion of it like this. So when did Linda McMantern into Hillary Clinton? We have not seen her for a while on camera, and when she sat down and just like, my God, it's Hillary. She's completely just, she's not the thin woman that we saw in the ring was part of story lines. I'm like, wow, she's certainly changed. And to get her to be able to talk about her husband was interesting as well. Yeah, absolutely. I honestly didn't recognize it when she first sat down, I was like, right? How is that? Oh, it's Linda. Right. So getting hurt to actually, like you said, to sit down and talk about the business her husband, when, you know, if you're reading articles, you know, about their relationship maybe being estranged from one another to get her to sit down and talk, you know, about Vince was certainly eye opening as well, just to get her side of it, what her, what she saw or what she was able to talk about. The thing that I did notice and again, it knows first like five to minutes as everyone's sitting down, whether it's undertaker, Linda McMan or Jane or everybody. Jimmy Hart. And he's like, so how much do you really want us to talk about? And that, you know, was also telling for me because you know there, what this documentary, which I think is really good, I still think is just scratching the surface of just how kind of deep this really goes with Vince. Well, you know, but this is like anything else. If Netflix want to do something on Diddy, once this is all set, settle with Diddy, if they want to do this with other people, there's going to be people on the other side that's going to say, I don't know if how deep I could talk about Diddy's parties because, I mean, look how much money I made with them. And I think that that is the wrestlers. I'm talking about, I'm talking about people that you hear on radio, those that do podcasts, those in this documentary. There is a feeling of I'll give you some, but I can't give you it to you all. I saw a lot of stuff, but Vince made me a millionaire. So and Vince did these great things for me and Vince has the side of us that is very kind. And so that's how they know the other side, but they also know the reason why they're a millionaire is because of Vince. And so I think that there's a lot of that that's going on, except there's a few others that don't mind telling the story, which we'll get into. So Vince McMahon and his dad, the upbringing with his dad, I thought was interesting, CJ, in which Vince talks about taking over for his dad, gave us a little bit more of a glimpse into Vince Senior, by the way, because it's like Vince Senior. So you were off, you know, taking care of the WWF at the time and your son was in a trailer park in North Carolina. And so you guys were strange for whatever reason, that's one part we don't know about the relationship between Vince's actual birth mom and Vince Senior. And so somehow, some way, Vince got out of that terrible situation, which we heard for years, he was beaten severely by his stepdad or the person that was the man in the house living in a trailer park, and somehow he was able to reconnect with his dad. And so I thought that that was very interesting. Again, there's one side of it we don't know why did Vince Senior not connect with this woman, but yet Vince was able to get back with his dad and ultimately work with him. Yeah, that was a really interesting part too, that, you know, for the first 12 years of Vince Jr's life that he had no interaction with Vince Senior, like at all. He just kind of grazed over, in which I could understand the abuse, you know, that he suffered at the hands of a stepfather, but I also thought that that was telling too, because from just from that little statement, you just really get the sense that Vince really just tried to bury that deep instead of really just sitting down with someone or people and really fleshing that out. And I think part of that is what made Vince the person that he ended up becoming was just, you know, bury it deep, push for it, do what I need to do to survive and thrive. And I think that's how he kind of took that and just kind of forged not only his, whatever that relationship was with his father, but then how he handled his business with the WWF. So CJ, I think that this, the reason why that this documentary works is because for those that don't know the business and those that do know the business, this works on both ends. I think it's a refresher, some of it for us, diehard wrestling fans, but the ones that are not can be able to see, okay, so what was the territory system like? The territory system was in place, I like these imaginary fault lines where you had wrestling in the Northeast that was run by Vince McMahon Sr. You had Jerry Jared and Jerry Lawler in Memphis. You had the Von Erickson, Texas. You had Eddie Graham in Florida. You had NWA Hollywood wrestling with the LaBelle family, Bern Gagne in the Midwest, Chicago, Minneapolis. I mean, the Chic in Detroit, they laid out the territory map to show you this is how wrestling used to be where there was so many places for wrestlers to work, you know, going back to the 1940s and 50s. There was these territories. You know, the Funk's had there. If you notice in the Texas, they had their Amarillo spot, Joan Lanchard had San Antonio. So it just goes on and on where Vince McMahon had his piece of the pie, Vince McMahon Sr. And so here's Vince Jr. that just wants to be able to get his father's attention was in those meetings. It's an interesting dynamic, CJ, when you think about it. Here's Vince Jr. That's just around his dad just learning the business because that was their relationship, almost like Vince Sr. looked at Vince Jr. as a business partner, you know, like in the circle with Arnold Stolen and in there with Gorilla Monsoon and just like, that's how they were able to get along because they always talked about the business. Yeah. And while that was great for Vince Jr. to, you know, be around all of those other owners of the territories, be around as his father, Vince Sr. to learn the business and then to be able to manipulate that for his own gain to eventually, you know, basically wipe out the territories. Again, that also says a lot about whatever that relationship was between him and his father that it was just strictly talking about the industry, talking about the business. I think Vince tried to use, Vince Jr. tried to use that to really gain acceptance and love from his father. And I just think from Vince Sr.'s end, it was just more about, like you said, here's a business partner that I can, you know, teach the business to that maybe someday can carry on the name. Even though in a documentary, people talked about how the singer actually wanted to give the business over to Gorilla Monsoon and that created the friction between Vince Jr. and Gorilla. So that was also another interesting piece of information there. That's some information I was not aware of. Neither was I. Yeah. I was not aware that there was friction or that Vince Sr. I know that Gorilla Monsoon was in the mix as far as being in the circle because, I mean, Gorilla, he worked for Vince Sr. So he worked for Vince Sr. and he was an office guy and so I did not know that Gorilla was going to be next. I mean, even someone as old as me did not know and I think I've been watching this for a long time, I didn't know how close Gorilla could have been to be able to run the company. So I thought something also is very interesting during this time. So the WWF has always been a babyface champion on tongue territory. It's a babyface territory. It always has been a good guy territory because if you look through the lineage of time, look how long CJ that Bruno San Martino was on top for years and years and years. The champion of WWF, but also really the guy from the Northeast. And so, after Bruno's run and Bruno becomes a broadcaster, Vince Sr. still thought about a babyface, usually an ethnic babyface because that's what worked in the Northeast. I have, the way you booked, I need my Italian, I need my black wrestler, I need my Irish wrestler, I need my German wrestler, I need my Russian wrestler because all of that even though that sounds crazy in 2024, that resonated with people in Northeast. And so they liked the Italian stallion of Bruno San Martino being on top. But then you move forward, and it's funny, they did glazed over the whole Dusty roads and superstar grand thing, they glazed over that for whatever reason, which is fine. But they got to the backland story. Yeah, backland was the guy at one point in time. And he carried the company for quite some time. As we move though into the 80s, and backlands time is kind of coming to an end as the face. It's also, Vince Jr., as I know we have to keep separating, Vince Jr., Vince Jr. understands the changing dynamic of the 80s and wanting to kind of blend reality a bit with the industry. He hated pro wrestling, I don't know, this is my right, this is sports entertainment. So that was him looking for who can I get next to be that guy. Once backlands time comes to an end. And that's when he starts to look into different territories. Hey, who's this babyface, or who's this guy, or who's that guy that might be the one that can carry me into the 80s. At the same time, looking at the political climate of the 80s, and how can I weave that into these wrestling stories. It's genius on this part, also a little ruthless on this part in the fashion in which he went about getting these other stars from other territories. We'd have to do a deep dive, you and I, of the rosters right before Vince Sr. died. And if you know this, Vince is like, well, it can be Dusty Rhodes, but that wouldn't work because Dusty was the body guy. It was very brief, though. It was almost a shot at Dusty saying, I like the charisma, I like the charisma, but I don't like that because he's not a body guy. So it doesn't work. If Dusty was built with that charisma, he probably would have pushed him as champion. But even though I'm sure some of the fans at the Garden in New York were like, yeah, you know, we're behind backland, but he's kind of how he duty a little bit to to polish that kind of thing. You're right. Once Vince's father passed away, it was an opportunity for Vince to say, all right, we need a transitional champion. I mean, it's just wide open on the documentary. We just give it to the chic. So eventually give it to Hulk Hogan. And so I, so now with Hulk Hogan, and along with the rock and wrestling connection, now rock and wrestling is born because it's Hogan as champion. And that's cool because Hogan's different, Hogan's cool. And Hogan, by the way, I'm glad they gave the perspective of Hogan was already in the company in the 70s and in late 70s for his dad because they thought, Oh, Irish babyface. That's the reason. I mean, Terry Balleta was right there for you as an Italian last name, but they go, no, we want the Irish name. So we're going to call you, you're going to be Hulk Hogan. Okay, great. So Hogan in the company and then Vince senior who didn't get the, he didn't understand the entertainment aspect of wrestling, your wrestler being in a movie would be cool. Nope. You're not going to do a Rocky three. I'm not. Okay. Then you know what? I'll go back to Vern in a WA because Vern already had a movie called the wrestler that was terrible. But yet he understood, he even burnt Kanye as old school as Vern was understood the whole thing of entertainment and wrestling. And so if Vince, he's not going to let me do this movie, you know, from Hogan's standpoint, that I'll go back to Vern and I'll do, you know, Rocky three, I'll do the movie and I'll be even a bigger star and he was. Yeah, I burned guy near and just a little backstory of how I just really got into wrestling. It was due to AWA. Yeah. That's how I really got into it was the AWA and watching, you know, Hogan in those days around 82, 83, Nick Bachwinkle, which, you know, was one of my favorites in the AWA days. But Vern did understand that he needed to have, you know, wrestlers with a look with the body, but also able to entertain and he had some great characters in AWA. And Hogan, you know, understood that I can really kind of really flesh out this whole Hogan thing and when the time came for Vince to post him, he was able to do that. And then, you know, after WrestleMania one, just, you know, Hogan's, you know, star power just shoots to the moon because Vince Jr. again understands the dynamic of society in the 80s and how to push characters. You know, the eight in the mid 80s was all about, you know, America and it was America against Russia and it was America against, you know, Iran and America against, you know, the evil Japanese, you know, so Vince got all those characters, you know, to be the foils, if you will, for Hogan to, you know, kind of go on this, this run that Hogan went on as the babyface as the base of WWF and the champion. You know, you had Nikita Koloff. You had Roddy Piper, you had a number of wrestlers from different and when you take a couple of steps back, CJ, you think from Vince's standpoint. This is Broadway, because it is New York, right? It's like, so I get it like, you're going to bring in Billy Martin and Liberace and like the dancers and all that other stuff because he put all his money in. Even Stephanie said, yeah, you know, this was, I heard rumbling that this was going to be it. If WrestleMania one was a flop, then they would have been back in the trailer park. But but it worked out well. So so along with that, we learned about kayfabe and the John Stossel story, getting, you know, John Stossel and I remember as a kid, my parents watching 2020 and John Stossel was always there to just be the stick in the beehive. The God is asking the tough questions, all the man on the street, you know, representing the people and John Stossel was like a lot number of these guys. It wasn't just John. It was a number of people that love to put wrestling on their newscast like here's phony wrestling and is it real, that, that kind of thing, right? And John Stossel had to be one of those guys, they, and this isn't the problem with wrestling back then, they let those guys in. They did not vet these guys because at this time is kayfabe where it is performance, yes, and the, the endings are, you know, are predetermined, but you didn't, they didn't explain that. They just came across as wrestling's real and this is real sport, all that. And it takes a weasel like John Stossel get in there and just to say, you know, wrestling's fake and then there's Dr. David Schultz slapping a shit out of him, letting them know like, y'all, you think that's, that you think that's phony, you think that's, so he slaps them a couple of times and he leaves the garden. And so, you know, I love the back story of Tony Atlas and others saying that, yeah, Vince didn't say the God and slap John Stossel to protect our business, but he said, I wish someone would do some with this guy, I wish someone would do something. And David Schultz was like, I'll do that, I'll do it for you and slap the shit out of John Stossel. Richard Belzer, the same thing, that thing's on YouTube, by the way, if people want to see it. Richard Belzer had his own show, talk about how phony wrestling is. And at that time, CJ, you had to protect the business, even Hogan, put him in the front face lock and, and, and, and Schultz Belzer out. So at that time, it just gave it an idea that, hey, you may think wrestling's fake, but I'm not fake because I'm going to hurt you. Yeah, that was, that was the mentality that was, you know, the, how the industry worked. You had to keep K-Fabe alive at all times. There was a something in the, I think it was the Ric Flair documentary where he talked about how there was one night where he, and I think it was, it might have been either, either Ricky Steemboat or Dusty Rose, ended up in the same liquor store. And they just had to keep the K-Fabe alive because people were there. So they almost getting to a brawl, you know, in the liquor store, just for the sake of keeping K-Fabe alive when, like five minutes later, they were both going back to the hotel and just, you know, chugging down drinks with each other. But that was, that was the industry. So holding, choking out, Richard Belzer and, you know, John Stossel, you know, getting pips slapped, you know, on TV, you did whatever you had to do to keep it going because that's just how the time worked. If you watched wrestling back in the 80s, you just were just under the belief that, hey, these guys actually hate each other and, you know, they're going out there and they're, you know, beating the crap out of each other for 25, 30 minutes. Because that's how we're sold and that's how we grew up being, you know, wrestling fans. So I'll leave your comments, by the way, if you're just joining us, we're talking about the McMahon documentary that's out there right now. Mr. McMahon is on Netflix and CJ and I are reviewing it right now. Leave your comments here. This will be part one of our review of the documentary on Netflix, Mr. McMahon. So we'll get to some of your comments. So WrestleMania One is a success and it's so funny. I don't know if you notice this or not. Man, they went past WrestleMania Two so quick because it was such a, I mean, look, from my standpoint, it wasn't a failure. I don't know if they broke even or if they made money on it. I think that that's murky too. But just the idea that I mean, WrestleMania Two was such a blip on this documentary. It's like, God damn, I won't be doing that again. Three did Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. It was weird because in LA, it was like Lord Alfred and just and Bradley, Lord Alfred's doing play-by-play. It was just, it was bizarre, right? Because Vince needs to have that control and he's only in New York and then like the other shows are happening. So they went past it quickly, like it didn't happen. Like, oh, WrestleMania Two. That was too much to handle. Yeah. I think that was Vince thinking big as he normally does and thinking that he could pull something like this off in the mid-80s, which is even wilder than he thought he could pull it that off in the mid-80s. And it just turned out to, it wasn't a disaster, but they certainly had a lot of problems with that show. One interesting thing though, before they got to the point of the quickly just grazing over WrestleMania Two, like it didn't exist, was the whole union thing. Yes, with Jesse Ventura, yes. So here's what we learned. If people did not know this, Hogan was the biggest stooge for McMahon. Now, I know that they've had their ups and downs over the years. I don't know what their relationship is now, but they've had some ups and downs. Hogan comes across as just like the number one guy, the number one guy that backs Vince. The whole union thing, and I've heard Ventura talk about this in other platforms, talked about CJ like, hey, we should unionize. And the truth of it is, is that you can't get everybody to agree on lunch in wrestling. >> So it would have been hard to get everybody under the same blend. I'm glad it was on the record though, because Ventura's been saying it for a long time. And Hogan wants you to know, on this documentary, yeah, I told Vince that Ventura was trying to unionize. And so now without any doubt, you were the biggest stooge in the company. I understand that you're the champion, but my God, man, you just ran to Vince as soon as you heard anything, you heard this, this is a threat all throughout the documentary to me, is Hogan running to Vince to tell him stuff, or hey, Vince, what about a movie? They were like lock and step these two together. >> Yeah, which you've read stories, I've read stories about Hogan's backstage politics and how he did things backstage. And like you said, to have him actually on the record, I went to Vince and said that Jesse's trying to start some shit, with this union thing, it was like, wow, that everything that Brett Hart and other people have said about Hogan over the years, Hogan just let you know, yeah, that's who I was, that's what I was about. Finally, he's kind of letting that out after decades and decades of trying to portray himself as the ultimate baby face in front of the camera and behind it, but that was also another interesting point of that whole union thing, and like I said, just holding just really being the biggest stooge in just always running to Vince, it's kind of like he said, he knew where the checks were coming, he knew who was signing the checks, and he was getting the biggest check by far of all the races. >> He's on top, but I mean, he just ran to him for everything, and that's what stood out to me about the documentary in that regard. So now we get to WrestleMania 3 and Hogan and Andre, and we're gonna get into these scandals in a moment, by the way, because this is all throughout, this documentary told a great story of Vince and the good things he did as far as booking and making a lot of money in these big houses, we're gonna get to that in just a second, because the scandals are coming, and it's coming a lot after WrestleMania 3, so we'll get to that. >> Yes. >> We just wanna check off this Hogan and Andre thing. So Hogan was concerned about Andre, and it was just a great idea to be able to have Hogan and Andre together. If you're in the Northeast, by the way, and you're watching this and listening this and you're an old-school wrestling fan, you saw this at Chase Stadium, where the Mets used to play. You saw this in Philadelphia, you saw this in New York, that they've wrestled before Hogan and Andre, but again, it's McMahon's imagination. If we don't mention it, they've ever wrestled before, it's a brand new match. How can we get 78,000, 80,000, 93,173, I'll never forget that number as a kid, but this is when you inflate the numbers, this is no different than any other sport, by the way, you inflate the numbers from an attendance standpoint, whatever, it's a big house. The point is, is that Hogan and Andre, which I thought was a very good card overall, but Hogan and Andre built the house. And man, the whole thing of Hogan being afraid of Andre, Andre not saying anything, he's not selling it all, and Hogan not even sure if he's gonna win. I don't know if that's really true, but I know that's legend, and we saw this in documentary. >> Yeah. >> Hogan had to know that Andre's gonna do business. I don't know, Andre was not gonna mess it up for himself saying, no boss, I'm gonna kick out the two on your leg drop. >> Yeah. >> Andre wasn't gonna do that. So I don't know if that's bullshit or not, but I know it's legend that Hogan was concerned about Andre. >> Yeah, that was, I found that to be a little head scratching because, I mean, Hogan had to know that he was going to win this match. Andre obviously was at the tail end of his career in terms of wrestling, and by the time we got to WrestleMania 3, I mean, Hogan was like the biggest thing in wrestling period. So he just had to know that he was gonna go over and that Andre was going to do the honors and pass the torch to him. But for him to sit up there and be like, well, brother, I didn't know going into the match whether or not I was gonna win, really. >> [LAUGH] >> You did right, right. So I mean, you know they're gonna do business, so I just think that that's all interesting. A couple of things were left out, I know you can't get everything in a documentary. So let's get to the Ultimate Warrior. So he wins the championship because, I mean, even Bruce Prichard, shocking. Bruce Prichard saying that Hulk Hogan got a little stale after a while after being champion for a while and the whole act with Hogan got old and so they go to the Ultimate Warrior and he was the championship. Did you notice CJ that Hogan kicked out at three and a half? Did you notice that, did you notice that kick out after when the Ultimate Warrior won? What a dick, I mean, if you're gonna lose, just lose flat, just you lost, yeah. >> Lose clean, I mean, kicking out as the ref has got the hand to three. That's just the ultimate dick move, like give that man his flowers right there. This was supposed to be your passing of the torch to him. But again, it just kind of goes back to who we have come to find out that Hogan was or is, you know, unrelenting of giving up the spotlight. Even, I've watched that match several times. Even after Ultimate Warrior won, you know, there's Hogan taking the belt from the ref and then giving it to Ultimate Warrior and, you know, pressing around like this was like, just roll your ass out the brain like everybody else does and let the Ultimate Warrior have his moment. >> No, can do that. So, you know, the Ultimate Warrior wins the championship. Please leave your comments. We're gonna read your comments moving forward here on our review of this McMahon documentary here. And so Hogan and Slaughter, we get this match in '91, right? So they turn Slaughter heel and, you know, we don't get this as much anymore, but McMahon understood the pulse of what was going on in society. This has been going on for years and years and years leading into this, where professional wrestling would be a microcosm of what's in the news and how can we mirror what's going on in pop culture, good or bad? And so the Gulf War is happening, you know, it's Hogan and Slaughter. They had to turn Slaughter heel and that was not foreign to Slaughter because he had been heel and mid Atlantic before, but primarily a babyface for a long time, especially that WWE run. And then so Hogan and Slaughter had this match. They did not mention that the match was going to be at the LA Coliseum, which would have been, God, 80,000, 90,000, I don't know, I mean, they would have drawn a big number. But it was moved because of the threats to the country. So they moved it into the LA sport arena where the Clippers played. I don't know if they've mentioned that, but I will give McMahon credit for this from a booking standpoint. This is what's going on in the country. We need to have Americana because Hogan is the American guy, you know. And so we need him to have a foil or an opponent and so it's Slaughter. And I think even though it wasn't on the biggest stage, as far as attendance, they had the match. Yeah. Like I said, kudos to McMahon for always just kind of having his finger on the pulse of what was going on in society. That was also a bit of a controversial move that Vince made. Not necessarily turning slaughter heel, but turning him heel and being an Iraqi sympathizer during the height of the Gulf War and then Iraq going and invading Kuwait. So that makes the story even hotter, is more heat that's brought to the story. Vince sees it through up until the match to see this all the way through. So once again, Hogan can have his moment. The United States of America, you know, can be the shining light on the hill or whatever the hell that saying is. And it was just one of those things that Vince took gambles. He took gambles because he understood that if you can, and it was what they talked about it, you can draw on to the emotion. You can bring the emotion out of the fan that's watching. They're going to be invested in the story and they were. And unfortunately for slaughter, he did receive some death threats because of what he went through, but you got people invested into that particular storyline. CJ along with the great booking comes a lot of issues with Vince McMahon. The creative genius is one side of it, but the other side of Vince McMahon is the scandals that took place and we need to delve into them. Let's go to talking about the Jimmy Snooka scandal. Now Jimmy Snooka had a girlfriend that he was with for a long time and their speculation that Jimmy Snooka killed his girlfriend. And the story is is that, you know, the lore is is that Vince McMahon went into the police station, had a briefcase full of money and that got snook out of the police station and put him back into the ring. Now I don't know again, that story, as you well know, had reopened on Snooka after, what was it, 30 years or it was a cold case. And so, you know, I think, you know, that, I mean, that's one thing. We should also talk about the ring boy scandal because that stands out big time. Okay, so, okay, so a lot of people think that Terry Garvin is Jimmy or Ronnie Garvin and that's not the case. It's a different. No. It's a different Garvin. This is Terry Garvin. Terry Garvin worked in the, it was a former wrestler and also worked in the front office of WWF at the time. Mel Phillips, the reason why that I knew Mel Phillips was because that's the only black ring announcer that I could ever recall until I'm like watching wrestling, there was no black ring, so I remember him. And of course, there's Pat Patterson, who's a great wrestler in the Bay Area and I worked for Vince Sr. and was a front office person and a great booker for a long time. But the point is though, is that there was sexual assault that was happening in this company under Vince's watch. And there was a feeling to me as I watched, I know how you felt, but there was a lot of boys will be boys kind of situation where Vince turned a blind eye to it. You've seen this in sports a lot where coaches, all they care about is the next game and there could be shit that's happening down the hall and coaches like, you know, you handle it. The assistants, they should handle it, they'll let them handle it. And I think there was a lot of that from Vince. Vince knew that Pat Patterson was gay and he was openly gay, but I know that Vince had to know that a Tony Atlas says, well, you know, Pat Patterson just kept grabbing my dick. And so from Tony's standpoint, he's like, well, I can't tell Vince because I get fired and I can't tell on Pat. Same thing with Terry Garvin and these ring boys, we should delve into this. The ring boys were local young men that would help set up the ring. And Mel Phillips has been accused of messing with these kids, taking their shoes off and sucking their toes. And I don't know if there was sex involved, but the point is that it was inappropriate behavior by Mel Phillips. But those are the things that we've heard for a long time. Pat Patterson, for all the stories that we've heard, proposition wrestlers in the past. You heard Tony Atlas, who is the MVP of this documentary, talk about how he had his pecker grabbed. We've heard if you go to YouTube, Gorilla Monsoon and Lord Alfred Hayes have joked about Terry Garvin and him attempting to sexually assault wrestlers. They've joked about it on broadcast. And why is that funny? Boys will be boys. And that's kind of what my takeaway from all of that. That is exactly the takeaway that everybody should have about these scandals. And that was the start, and there have probably been some incidents before the ring boys scandal. But that was really the start of just kind of decades-long things that were happening in other stories that we have heard throughout the years of the boys being boys and, you know, a locker room behavior type attitudes that were happening. You and I both know the sort of tale of the plane ride from hell. That was a couple of decades later, and where Vince is literally on the plane and just like oblivious for whatever reason to all the assault that that was happening on the plane. This is just standard in mode. And Canada comes to define that other side of Vince McMahon, like, you know, the boys are going to be boys. Just as long as you guys go out there in the ring, give me a good product. I really don't give a shit what goes on behind the curtains. You can't. But CJ, that can't, listen, I know it's a different time, but still the assault is the assault. And you know things are, and obviously thank God that things are better now. The Chicago Blackhawks hockey team is still trying to recover from the sexual assault that was taking place with Kyle Beach as a player. And so what's so disheartening about it is that Mel Phillips and Terry Garvin deserve to be fired, and so should have Pat Patterson based on all the allegations. But because Pat was one of the best bookers in the business, that's why he was fired and then brought back. And I know he was in and out of the company a lot, but the point is though is that you'll still have people today, they'll talk about Pat the worker in wrestling, Pat the Booker. But what about the sexual assault though? What about all that? His propositioning of wrestlers and Vince, because he liked Pat, kept him around. Bruce Richard will tell you right now how great Pat was, but he will not talk about, you know, his sexual proclivities trying to proposition wrestlers allegedly from the stories that we've heard over the years. And that has been the theme really, of how the WWF/WWE operated under Vince. Yeah, this is what's going on. This is Vince assaulting people, Pat Patterson assaulting people. But you know, it's like Tony Allen said, who the hell am I going to tell about this? Pat Patterson is the Booker. I can't go to Vince, you know, but which is sad. It is. It's very sad that even, obviously this would not fly in 2024, but even three, four decades ago, that should not have been standard operating practices for these wrestlers and this talent to have to fear about speaking up, about what it is, sexual assault, and in some cases rape, you know, for fear of losing your job. Because by this time, when the rain boys thing was going on, Vince had basically conquered the territories, so it wasn't like you, as a wrestler, really had a lot of options to go to, you know, at that point, you know, in WA, WCW was there, there may be a couple of other promotions that were still, you know, kind of around towards the late 80s, but Vince had conquered it all. So you were basically at his mercy, and if you wanted to work, if you wanted to, you know, get a good check, or, you know, just be on a prime stage like WWF, you had to take that, unfortunately. That's so unfortunate, and there's a reason why I say Tony Atlas, so far, what we see in the documentary is the, you know, to me, the MVP is because he just opened with it. Tony, Tony doesn't need it, and you're checking anymore, he's just telling you, Tony said in the documentary, he goes, "Yeah, we abuse women like a toy." I mean, just, just brazen with it, though, but just like telling you, like, yeah, during our time, we just use women like our toy, and like, yeah, you know, these things happen to me, but where else would I go? Like, if I told Vince that Pat did this to me, there was places that he could have gone, but he could have made the money at WWE, and that's, I think that sucks. The other thing too, and I know that we're 46 minutes in to this, CJ, and we're gonna get your comments in here in just a moment, as we start to wrap this. You know what also resonated, and I haven't gone to this yet, but I think we should talk about it. Yeah. Vince McMahon is letting everyone know that he cheated on his wife, and cheated on his wife a lot. Like, just, I had a consensual relationship that I ended, as he talks about with this newest case that we're talking about here, with the grant, but Rita Chatterton was the first female referee that I saw in wrestling, and Rita says, and she said this on Geraldo, and just shows you how far behind that we were back then, Rita says that I was forced into oral sex when I couldn't complete his desires, so Vince, according to her, pretty much said, okay, well then, if you won't complete my desires, then I'm gonna rape you. But Vince also openly is talking about, yeah, I've had these relationships and these affairs while I'm still married to Linda. I mean, just wide open with it, like, no denial, like, who does that? Vince does that. It is a regret any of it. Yeah, well, he said he regretted nothing. The Rita situation was just really kind of stomach churning for me to hear Vince's own words, where he talked about, well, this is a consensual relationship, and, well, I mean, even if it was rape, we've passed a statute of limitations, just flippantly just throwing that out there, and that kind of really gets you to thinking, like, where's his mindset, you know, when it comes to this openly cheating on your wife, like, I wish they kind of would have gotten Linda's real thoughts on that. And that's, you know, probably the stuff that they didn't really want to get into, how did Linda feel about that? Because the Rita thing was out there. Yes. No great thing was out there, and the countless women in between those two horrific cases were out there. I mean, the Mr. Command character was, you know, groping women on live TV, you know, it was, it's that part of it was, like I said, was just stomach churning that you could just flippantly talk about, you know, these extramarital affairs that you were having, and let's not even call them affairs, that they weren't affairs, you were sexually assaulting these women. That's how it's being read, and that's why the trial is going to take place, I'm sure at some point would, you know, grant or it's going to be a settlement, because a lot of these things, as we've seen in the documentary, a lot of these things are settlements. So it's just that and the steroid scandal, you know, I don't know how to read that. I mean, I've read every, I mean, I understand the story, CJ, but just the, was Vince aware that his wrestlers during that time took steroids, yes, because he was a body guy, and he started the WBF that he had to get rid of because of the steroid trial. So it was nip and tuck. I think that part of the story of him not sure if he's going to go to jail or not, I think that was true, only because we hear the story a lot of that during that time, Vince McMahon told Jerry Jarrett, because you ran Memphis so well, if I go to jail, I'm going to need you to run WWF for me because he trusted Jarrett. That's not probably the documentary, but that's the story I've heard for a long time. Bruce Prichard says that didn't happen, but we've heard too many stories of Vince confiding in Jerry Jarrett saying, "Hey, man, I don't know if I'm going to go to jail or not." So run the company for me, and of course, like anything else, Vince has been able to get away with this stuff. So the steroid thing, did he tell them to take steroids probably, but he was not found guilty of that particular allegation. Yeah, that was actually probably probably the only time where Vince truly felt afraid of the consequences of what he was involved in or knew about. And once that trial came to an end, and he was basically found innocent of that, just again, getting into his mind, getting into his mindset, that, "Yeah, I've escaped this thing." At this point, the federal government came after me, "I'm invincible at this point. I can do anything at this point." And I think that's just how he led his life pretty much up until the end. All right, a couple of other things, too. I think that's good for people to know, and that is, "Well, you're a frozen brother. I don't know if you know this, Adam." But yeah, you're completely frozen. But you know what? You have a good profile. So that worked for us. So we come to find out, and I've known this for a long time, but I'm glad I was in a documentary. The Bret Hart screw drop was not the first screw drop in the history of the WWE. It was Wendy Richter against the Fabius Moula. So Wendy Richter did not want to give up the championship, and that's strange in itself during that time. And so Wendy says that she did not know that Moula was on the mask, which I think is hilarious, because I'm sure that Wendy Richter and Moula wrestled all across the country. And I just thought that was very strange that Wendy said at one point she didn't know that was Moula, and then, of course, the roll up and then the one, two, three at the garden and Wendy loses the championship. That's the first screw job. Before Bret and Sean, that was the first screw job. Wendy Richter got screwed out of the championship, because she didn't want to give it up. Yeah, so that was actually one tidbit information that I didn't know about was that Wendy Richter job. And that was just kind of wild to hear Vince's tale of it, and I kind of wish they would have dug a little deeper to get Wendy's side of the story a little more about why she refused to drop the belt. But yeah, that being the first screw job basically told you, you know, Vince was able to pull the law. And he knew he always had something like that in his back pocket if he ever needed to do it again. And here we go. A decade later, and he has Bret Hart refusing to drop the title before he leaves for WCW, which everyone knew, and Vince is like, "No, okay, this is what we're going to do. We're going to screw you." Yeah, and as soon as Sean Michaels got him into the sharps, and ring the bell, ring the bell. And it was, that really set the stage though for, at that particular time, they were in the middle of the Monday Night Wars, Hogan had already left, Savage had already left, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash had already left. Now you're seeing Bret Hart defect in go to WCW. Vince again, and this kind of gets to the genius of how he is as a booker and as a showrunner, he used that Montreal screw job to his advantage, to create the Mr. McMahon character and to help usher in the attitude era. And that's what, again, flipped the tables for WWE at that time because they were just getting their ass handed to them on a weekly basis by WCW during that time. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, CJ, because, you know, there's so many different sides of McMahon, and one of them is, McMahon feeling like when he's, his back is against the ropes, feeling like he's being mistreated. As we go back to the earlier part of this, of this podcast, you talked about how Vince McMahon invaded the territories, took, I mean, just as an AWA fan, just took my heart out, taking Gene Oakland and Bobby Heaton and Vince, and Tito Santana and, you know, on and on Adrian Adonis and so many, many, you know, great AWA superstars and just dismantled the AWA. He did that going to Mid-South and got JYD out of Louisiana and, you know, got guys out of Florida. So he was able to kind of rebuild his company by taking. So when WCW gets Hogan and it gets Savage and it gets Luger and some of these former WWE guys, now Vince feels like, oh, we're just a small family business. I can't believe that WCW would do that. It's such bullshit. It's just like, and I'm glad that it was in the documentary and whoever's asking a question is like, Vince, did you not do that in the 80s? Did you not, you know, move, get talent and bought talent and put them in your company? You dismantled the territory step by step because it was good business. So isn't that good business when Tito Turner does it? And somehow, someway, he didn't get the connection. But then just like said, well, you know, in my mind, I have to say what I say is not what I really mean. Like, whatever you said, it was just so far-fetched and so just mental. I'm like, dude, you, you dismantled the territories because you had more money and you had a bigger platform and that's America. I get that part of it. I think it sucked. I understand why you did it. But when someone else does it, like Tony Khan today, or Eric Bischoff then, it's like, oh, our small little company now is just, I don't know if we could just keep the water in the, in the, in the offices. I don't know if we can keep the lights on because they, they did, they took all of our talent. Seriously? Seriously. Yeah. Yeah, I, I found that to be especially funny, considering just how he just tore through all, pretty much all of the territories with the exception of many graphic people from NWA as well. But he just tore through all the territories and ripped them to shreds. And the fact that Eric Bischoff was, was able to do the, the same thing, you know, just turn about his fair play, you know, in that regard. And you know, here's how you keep wrestlers from leaving your company and going to the competitor, make a bet, make better content. And that's what this wasn't doing, you know, during the, the early, the mid 90s. The content for, for WWE that time was terrible. And the WCW figure out, um, and kudos to Eric Bischoff and I know you and I both have our, our thoughts about Eric Bischoff over the years. But kudos to him for understanding the, the shifting climate change, which was something that Vince was known for in the 80s was somehow he, he lost that during the early part of the 90s and to the mid 90s of understanding the climate change. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Rapping hip hop was starting to, to dominate more. Grunge Rock was starting to take more, tick off more. There was more of a kind of an anti-authority sentiment happening in the 90s and Eric Bischoff just sped off of that and, and then put that into, you know, Monday Nitro and WCW. Meanwhile, Hogan's doing handshake deals with Lex Luger and Hulk Hogan. Hogan, he won't go to the competition, right? No, brother, I'll never go to the competition. Lex, she'll work it on that deal, man. Don't worry about ha ha. And all of a sudden he's at the Mall of America in Minneapolis. So to me, which you just elated out perfectly, Vince was behind the times then where he was such on the cusp and on the edge in the 80s and knew the rock and wrestling connection and, you know, get it in now, you get into the 90s and now you got wrestlers that was like, hey, the handshake deal doesn't work, man, you're going to pay me or you're not. Rick Rude was on Tush on Nitro and Raw at the same time. Another example of it, right? Yeah. And on the same show, he's on the same night, there's Rick Rude on Nitro, Rick Rude on Raw. Like, because handshake agreement, pal, ha ha, like that doesn't work. So also, you know, that's part of that was into episode number three, the whole thing with the curtain call, you know, just, I don't know why Triple H had to be the one to eat shit when Sean was the champion, you know, this whole thing where, no, there's a thing. Here's the other thing. A little nugget in the documentary, Vince Greenlit, he greenlit the idea that the curtain call could take place. A little nugget says it on the record, like whatever Sean wants to be, if you're happy with it, Sean, I'll do it, you know, and so he couldn't get pissed at it because he said it was okay. You recall this, right? Yeah. So, a couple of things happened that maybe Vince didn't expect to really happen. One, it was recorded, which, you know, even back then in the mid 90s was wild and was able to kind of leak itself around. The second thing, and I don't know how Vince was not able to see this, guys in the back were pissed that they did this curtain call, you know, because you have now totally destroyed kayfait, which is what, you know, the industry had been built on, you know, all of these decades. And now with that, just one move and even though Triple H was right, hey, that was the biggest pop of the night, you know, it was when we all hugged. But you know, the guys in the back was like, what the hell are they doing? They just destroyed the industry with, you know, you destroyed kayfait. Somebody's got to take the fall for this, and it wasn't going to be shot in my house. Yeah. And which, I mean, I don't understand why. Yeah. So, I don't either. Yeah. Why Triple H? Now, of course he came out whole on the other side. I like to see Triple H's documentaries like, yeah, so when I ate shit all those years, I was planning to marry the daughter, yeah, get three kids and then take over the company. Yeah. Hopefully we'll get that as a documentary one day. Hale X Rose says, when Vince Senior sold the business, I heard Monsoon got a piece of every New York house, how shall Tilly died? That's correct. Yeah. That's correct. Yes. Until he died. That is, that's absolutely correct. Because Guerrilla was a really good businessman, very good business, you understand, because he learned from Vince Senior, I mean, as that is for sure, let's see, CJ, what else do we have here? Tricky to 11 says, "Hulk Hogan became the Hulk Hogan we know today because of Andre." Um, I mean, Hogan was kind of established, you know, at, you know, by the time they got to record WrestleMania 3, but I'll kind of agree that that match, that WrestleMania kind of like drove him into like Superstar, which is now where he's literally, he was literally a household name at that point. But to say that, Andre did kind of make him in that sense in terms of being like a global household name. But Hogan was kind of already established by the time they got to that match, because then Tony and I already had the belt for almost two years at that point. Yes. Now, the ultimate match, sure. I mean, after taking on the Bundies and the Orndorffs and, you know, the Bob Ortons and all the other people, the Morocco's, you know, he made money with a lot of guys. People love being on that Hogan tour. Heels love to be. Because they say it was a night off, like, it's like 15 minutes and like you could beat Hogan's ass for 11 or 12 minutes, and then he doesn't come back to fire, you know, one, two, three and then night is over. Yeah. And you get the top of the card and you get all, you get the money because you're on the A show. So yeah, people love that Jimmy Thompson says, why did they change Iron Sheik into a completely different character? He saw him at the 91 thing, right? Well, this is a during a time where Vince had changed a lot of names, not just Iron Sheik because he was general. How was he general? No, no, general Adnan was part of that too. Adnan L. Casey was an AWA. He was part of that group as well with the slaughter. Yeah. But whatever, yeah, it was part of what Vince wanted to do. He changed a lot of names. Like a lot of people come in that was in the territory, came back to the territory, and he would change their name when you knew that the widow maker was Barry Wyndham. Yeah. I like, you know, so, so yeah, it's a great question. He did that a lot. He just changed a lot of names in 90, 91 during that time in which we knew where the people were originally. Yeah. Let's see. What I heard Vince is when the company went public. No, I think so to an extent, yeah, because now people are looking at you closely and your business. I mean, look at the business now, I mean, TKO is like, we can't have this. You can't be part of this. So yeah. Yeah. That was a good point. I think you had a little stuff up. Thank you, Jimmy. That's almost perfect. Yeah. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I think that had Vince kept control of it all. I don't necessarily know or believe that he would have ever left, but once he took the public and once, you know, you got other shareholders involved, you know, it completely changed the game. You said people are going to start asking questions, you know, when these type of cases come up. Okay. Well, you know, now John Nelson, here's why I say John, watch the documentary and then come back to this podcast and it's a nice companion piece because we review a lot of the highlights from the first three episodes of it. So if you're tuning in, yeah, no spoilers, absolutely come back to it. Turn us off. And boy, I'm in the business telling someone turns off, turn us off and then come back to us because I think that part one and part two of this will be a great companion piece. So any final thoughts because I know we've still got a lot to go on this documentary, but I think that we had some of the high and low lights of the Mr. McMahon documentary so far. Yeah. Like Tony Atlas, like I said, MVP, I enjoyed pretty much everything he had to say on documentary so far. I'm really going to be interested in finishing the series to see how they ended because as we sat at the top of this podcast, they're letting you know we're going to talk about the current events that's going on with Vince right now, and it'll also be interesting to see when they talk about these current events, is anybody going to say anything because we go at the start of this, that's declined to do the final interview once the allegations came out. I'm looking forward to seeing if someone's going to talk about down the record as well. I don't think there's going to be anybody currently in WWE to tell you that like Triple H or Cody, because I know that they were interviewed. They had some spots in this as well. Probably not. But I guess my takeaway is that for those that I know to this McMahon, there were two different Vences and it was the creative genius and it's the guy that either turned a blind eye to stuff or involved himself in it because he thought he was bigger than the world. And I don't know, CJ, I go back to pop culture now and these stories and these allegations coming out whether it's Bill Cosby or Harvey Weinstein and all these people because it's all relatable in that man, you think you're so big that you could just rape and you could just drop pills into women's drinks and do what you want because you think that you're powerful. And I guess to their standpoint, they think they are powerful, but you think you're powerful and get away with it. You know, it's going to come back to you and like we're talking with Sean Combs, it's the same thing. It's going to come back. People will see what's happening and you will get your day in court. Yeah, this is, I mean, Vince McMahon is just another person in this long line of list of powerful people that have used their power for their own personal preferences. They've lied, they manipulated, they abused people both physically, mentally, emotionally and they felt that they've been able to get away with it because of the power and influence that they have had. Like I said, I think what's happening now in society really has been happening within the last decade plus two decades is, you know, people are now having the courage to, you know, speak up, you know, about the trauma that they have suffered at the hands of these powerful people. And like I said, they're, everyone's day is coming. No one is going to be immune to think that they could be able to get away with the things that they've done in life. We're seeing it with Sean Combs, we've seen it with the former president of the United States. We've seen it with Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, that's just all types of powerful people, you know, in this world. Their day is coming. We ask you to go to the CTJ report. The CTJ report.net is where you can find Charles Taylor, our co-host here on this podcast. Support him because he'll be writing about a blog about this and talking about the entire documentary. And of course, you could find me on Good Karma Wrestling again, every Thursday, 7 p.m. Eastern for Pacific on YouTube and also Sunday mornings on busted open. That's on Series XM channel 156 and on the Series XM app and on every Sunday with Justin LeBarr. So hopefully you get a chance to check out more of our wrestling content. For those of you watching, this is just part one because we got a lot more to go with this documentary. Look for part two and how you look for part two. Come back here. Like, share and subscribe to this podcast. If you're watching, wherever you're listening, make sure you like share and subscribe to this. That way you never miss an episode of the special edition of Good Karma Wrestling. Bret Hart is the man. If you didn't know that, watch the documentary. We'll talk to you next time as we talk about Vince McMahon, he doesn't regret any of the things that he's done. He said that on the documentary and we're talking about it right here on the special edition of Good Karma Wrestling. Okay. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. I'm going to go.