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HE’S the richest man in professional wrestling, having turned the industry into a global entertainment empire under the WWE banner.
But Vince McMahon has been dogged by scandal and controversy throughout his career.
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Alamy
The former WWE boss is the focus of the new Netflix documentary Mr McMahonMcMahon‘s time as the CEO and chairman of the world’s most profitable wrestling brand came to an end in January 2024 amid allegations of sex trafficking and sexual assault.
In February, it was reported that the 79-year-old is under federal investigation and authorities obtained a search warrant for his phone.
He was ordered to hand over documents regarding allegations of “rape, sex trafficking, sexual assault, commercial sex transaction, harassment or discrimination” against past or present WWE employee.
Under his watch, there have been multiple drug scandals among his wrestlers.
He has also been the mastermind of several crazy storylines, including an incest plot involving his own daughter, and even created an on-screen persona known as the evil boss, Mr McMahon.
But was this a case of art imitating life?
Ahead of the new Netflix documentary Mr McMahon, which airs on Wednesday, we look into the complicated life of the WWE boss and the controversies that contributed to his stunning fall from grace.
Rise to power
Born in North Carolina, McMahon didn’t meet his father until he was 12 due to divorce but after graduating from university, he became a prominent member of his father’s wrestling company and even pushed for its name to be changed to World Wrestling Federation (WWF).
He married Linda McMahon and had two children, Shane, 54, and Stephanie, 47, who would all later play a big role in the company.
McMahon bought the company in 1982 and began poaching wrestlers from rivals, signing Hulk Hogan as the face of the brand.
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PAAlong the way, he ushered the company into its glory days – known as the Attitude Era – and even saw off competition from the likes of World Championship Wrestling.
Wrestlers such as The Rock, The Undertaker, and Stone Cold Steve Austin became huge crossover stars. Women such as Lita, Trish Stratus, and Chyna were pushed as serious wrestlers to bring in more male viewers.
At the height of its success, the company’s weekly flagship show, Raw, drew upwards of 10 million viewers. It’s biggest pay per view, Wrestlemania became a global spectacle.
After losing a lawsuit with the World Wildlife Fund over the WWF trademark in 2002, the company became World Wrestling Entertainment.
But legal issues centred on McMahon’s behaviour flared up as early as 1992.
Sexual abuse allegations
WWERita Chatterton, who had worked as the first female referee in the company in the mid-80s, claimed that she was raped by McMahonin a limousine in 1986. She left the company that same year.
She first came forward with her claims in 1992 but the statute of limitations – which only allows criminal charges within a certain time limit – had run out.
She then recounted her story on a TV show, saying: “I was forced into oral sex with McMahonMcMahon. When I couldn’t complete his desires, he got really angry, started ripping off my jeans, pulled me on top of him and told me again that, if I wanted a half-a-million-dollar-a-year contract, that I had to satisfy him.
“He could make me or break me and if I didn’t satisfy him, I was black-balled, that was it, I was done.”
McMahon countered her claim by saying that they had a consensual relationship. In 1993, McMahon, alongside his wife Linda, sued Rita claiming that her allegations of rape were false.
But, facing another trial over steroids, he dropped the case.
After new allegations were levelled against McMahon, in 2022, Rita repeated the story of her alleged experiences and filed a $11.5million lawsuit against him.
He settled later that month but his attorney insisted it was not an admission of guilt and was just to “avoid the cost of litigation”.
Sources close to the lawsuit claimed McMahon agreed to a multi-million dollar settlement.
When I couldn’t complete his desires, he got really angry, started ripping off my jeans, pulled me on top of him and told me if I wanted a half-a-million-dollar-a-year contract, I had to satisfy him.
Rita ChattertonRita also spoke about what she claimed was a toxic working environment at WWE. She recounted an incident where executive Pat Patterson wanted female wrestlers to harm her.
She said: “I ended up doing my very first match, a women’s tag team match, and I found out a few months later that Pat Patterson told the women to break my legs and make sure I never wanted to get in the ring again.
“Luckily, being women, instead of doing anything to hurt me, they helped me, and that’s how I got started.”
“It was a crazy world and things were so much different back then, but luckily the women knew that you had to work 10 times as hard for a quarter of the recognition that the men got at the time.”
Shocking allegations
SuppliedIn January 2024, Janel Grant filed a lawsuit which claimed that McMahon had coerced her into a sexual relationship.
It also claimed that McMahon, alongside WWE star John Laurinaitis and an unnamed UFC fighter, had sexually trafficked her.
She also claimed that she was repeatedly sexually assaulted between 2020 and 2021.
The lawsuit claimed: “McMahon also subjected Ms. Grant to acts of extreme cruelty and degradation that caused Ms. Grant to disassociate and/or become numb to reality in order to survive the horrific encounters.”
Grant graphically explained how McMahon allegedly coerced her into taking part in a number of heinous sexual acts, such as defecating on her head during a threesome and using sex toys on her that he named after wrestlers.
She also alleged he offered her a position at the company in return for sexual favours.
After McMahon created a position for her in the company’s legal department, he is alleged to have harassed her with sexually explicit text messages.
He allegedly locked Grant inside his private locker room and forced himself on her over a massage table, she claims in the lawsuit.
In a statement, McMahon said: “I stand by my prior statement that Ms. Grant’s lawsuit is replete with lies, obscene made-up instances that never occurred, and is a vindictive distortion of the truth”.
He continued: “I intend to vigorously defend myself against these baseless accusations, and look forward to clearing my name.”
In February this year, Laurinaitis released a statement claiming that he, too, was a victim of McMahon’s alleged sexual misconduct.
His lawyer told Vice: “Read the allegations. Read the Federal Statute. Power, control, employment supervisory capacity, dictatorial sexual demands with repercussions if not met.
“Count how many times in the complaint McMahon exerts control over both of them.”
Incest and humiliation storylines
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WWEDuring his time as WWE CEO, McMahon was known for having firm control over the company’s creative decisions. He had to approve on-screen storylines.
During this time, he devised some of the most bizarre plots in the history of professional wrestling.
One outlandish running theme saw him take of his trousers in the middle of the ring to order wrestlers and other on-screen characters to kiss his buttocks.
In another in-ring segment, he commanded Trish Stratus, a female wrestler, to bark like a dog. In the storyline, McMahon was having an affair with Trish.
In 2006, the wrestling world was stunned when he commissioned a segment promoted as two wrestlers having a live sex celebration in the ring.
Edge (Adam Copeland) had just won the WWE championship. To celebrate, he promised to have sex with his girlfriend at the time, Lita (Amy Dumas).
The awkward segment saw the two wrestlers stripped down to their underwear. At a certain point, Lita’s bare breast was exposed, with the wrestler scrambling to cover up.
Years later, Lita said that she vehemently opposed the segment but was threatened she would be fired if she did not go along with it.
In a documentary, McMahon’s daughter, Stephanie, who had an on-screen role for several years, described how he approached her with an incestuous storyline when she was pregnant with the baby of Wrestler Triple H.
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Getty ImagesShe said: “My dad did approach me about wanting to be the father of my baby in a storyline for TV, which again only the second time I’ve ever actually said no to him for something he wanted to do.
“That one was just a little too gross actually. It’s completely disgusting. I don’t find the entertainment value in it at all. And he is actually my father, so how could I even play that out?
“I can’t fake kiss my dad like we were in love or something. It’s just revolting all the way around.”
He then suggested that Stephanie’s brother, Shane, step in as the father of her child, which she also says she was uncomfortable with.
When Shane was asked about the storyline during an interview, he bizarrely joked: “Well, my sister’s hot. I don’t know if I would’ve really minded that.”
Drugs controversy
APIn 1991, Dr George Zahorian III was found guilty of illegally supplying anabolic steroids.
At his trial, it was revealed that he had supplied steroids to the WWF and its wrestlers while working as a ringside doctor.
As a result of the doctor’s evidence, Vince McMahon was charged with conspiring to distribute steroids and possession of illegal steroids with intent to distribute in 1993.
Prosecutors at the trials claimed McMahon coerced wrestlers into taking steroids to improve their physique.
Eleven wrestlers were called to testify but, while most denied he had personally persuaded them to take steroids, Kevin Wacholz, who wrestled under the name Nailz, claimed he had been put under pressure to do so.
However the defence team labelled him a hostile witness who bore a grudge after parting ways with the company a year earlier.
The judge dismissed the distribution charge and McMahon, who admitted he had used steroids before they were made illegal, was found not guilty.
Following the trial, he said: “I’m elated. Just like in wrestling, in the end, the good guys always win.”
Hush money settlement
GettyAfter an investigation into undisclosed payments McMahon had paid as a result of an affair with a former employee of the company, it was discovered that $19.6 million in unrecorded payments were made to settle sexual misconduct claims.
The payments were made between 2006 and 2022. The investigation also unearthed claims made not only against McMahon but also John Laurinaitis, who was also an executive at the company.
The women all signed deals that would prohibit them from “discussing potential legal claims against or their relationships” with the billionaire.
News of the hush payments shook the wrestling industry with many calling for McMahon to resign as CEO and chairman of WWE.
In June 2002, McMahon resigned from the company only to return six months later when TKO bought WWE. But in January 2024, he announced his retirement after former WWE employee Janel Grant made damning accusations.
Wrestler’s death
At the 1999 Over the Edge pay-per-view, wrestler Owen Hart was set to challenge The Godfather for the company’s Intercontinental Championship.
At the event, Owen was scheduled to make his entrance from the arena’s rafters. He was supposed to drop down while suspended by a harness.
The stunt was successfully tested at a previous show with a different harness configuration. But at the pay-per-view, a cable disengaged from the safety vest he wore.
Owen was dropped more than 70 feet from the rafters into the ring. As he landed, his chest hit the top rope. Owen was rushed to the hospital.
Despite several efforts to save his life, doctors stopped all work on him after 13 minutes and pronounced him dead at 34. It was revealed that falling chest first onto the top rope resulted in him bleeding to death internally.
Owen’s death shocked the wrestling community. Bret Hart, Owen’s brother, who had a longstanding feud with McMahon, blamed the businessman for his sibling’s death.
He said the incident resulted from McMahon’s “obsession for ratings and revenues”. Talking about McMahon, Hulk Hogan said: “I hope he learns a lesson from this horrible accident.”
McMahon received fierce backlash for his decision to carry on with the show, despite the accident. A columnist for the Calgary Sun said it “was sick, disrespectful and wrong. But what else would you expect from the WWF?”
Owen’s wife Martha said: “After he lost his fight for life they just scooped him up and ordered the next match out. Where’s the humanity? Would he have wanted the show to go on? Absolutely not.”
Racism allegations
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GettyIn April last year, former WWE writer Britney Abrahams sued the promotion for discrimination after she objected to alleged “offensively racist and stereotypical jargon used in WWE scripts”.
One of the examples cited by Abrahams was Apollo Crews, an American wrestler who returned to the company with a whole new gimmick.
The black wrestler entered the ring holding a tribal spear and spoke with a strong Nigerian accent, which he never had before. Abrahams alleged that she had complaints about the accent.
She also claimed that there was a pitch for Mansoor, a Saudi American, to say that he was behind the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
The attacks happened in 2001 – Mansoor, who is now 28 would have been five at the time.
The suit further claimed that Bianca Belair, a black female wrestler, was made to say lines such as “uh-uh! Don’t make me take off my earrings and beat your ass!”
In her lawsuit which named McMahon and several others claimed that she was fired when she took home a commemorative chair after a pay per view event.
She alleged that although some of her caucasian colleagues took home chairs, they faced no consequences.
Getty - ContributorMontreal screwjob
Most wrestling promotions like WWE feature wrestlers in storylines that have predetermined winners.
In one match at the Survivor Series pay-per-view in 1997, Canadian wrestler Bret Hart, the WWE champion at the time, was supposed to lose the title to his real-life arch-nemesis Shawn Michaels.
Bret was leaving the WWE to join its rival promotion WCW and McMahon was keen to make sure he wouldn’t leave with the title.
Although Bret agreed to drop the title, he didn’t want to lose in Canada as he felt it would disrespect the fans.
However, during a match against Shawn in Canada, McMahon instructed the referee to call the match in favour of Shawn, making him the new WWE champion.
This infuriated Bret and sparked a 12-year-long rivalry between him, Shawn and McMahon.
Bret said: “I was well under the understanding that they were going to try and screw me that day somehow. I was just determined not to let it happen.”
The three men have since made peace.
Mr McMahon is on Netflix from Wednesday September 25
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