Mr. McMahon

- - Take one, common mark.

-Am I addressing to you? - Yeah.

Okay.

I think it's gotta go that way.

The lighting's super.

Okay.

No stray pieces.

-Thank you, everybody. - Yeah, that sounds good.

- You good? -I'm good, I guess.

Where are we? What are we doing?

Uh, well, I'm talking about me, which I have never done before.

I don't like talking about me.

You know, um, talking about everybody else, I'm cool with.

I can go perform, but this is, like...

pretty strange, a little different, me talking about me.

So, I'll do the best I can.

Larger than life, Vince McMahon,

more famous than some of the wrestling stars he helped create.

McMahon has been called the P.T. Barnum of wrestling,

building WWE into an international billion-dollar business.

He's also an on-screen presence

as the billionaire bad guy boss.

Where the hell have you been?

For a long period of time, people wondered who I really am.

The portrayal of me is I'm a bad guy.

But no one really knows me,

and it's been a while for me to try and figure out myself.

I still haven't quite figured out who I am.

Do I know Vince McMahon?

I don't think anybody knows Vince McMahon.

- - Please welcome Mr. McMahon!

People know who he is, but they really don't know who he is.

The person he puts out there,

the larger-than-life promoter,

a lot of that is a character.

When it comes to him personally,

he's going to show you what he wants you to see.

Very few people are in control of a world.

Vince McMahon was.

He has built something so powerful,

so big, and so ingrained in people generationally.

He did things that no one thought were possible.

And he took no prisoners in the process.

With Vince McMahon, he comes as advertised.

And what you expect, that's exactly what you're gonna get.

I love Vince, and I have a lot of respect for him.

But he was a guy that often lied to me and let me down with his lies.

Do you think your dad gets a bad rap?

Mm, I think my dad gets the rap that he wants.

Breaking news that was just brought to me.

Vince McMahon, the legendary CEO and chairman

of Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment, is stepping aside.

The Wall Street Journal reports that WWE is investigating

a secret $3 million settlement

that Vince McMahon agreed to pay a now former employee

who McMahon is accused of having a consensual affair with.

It started with a tip,

and the tip was that the board of WWE had received an anonymous email.

The emailer was accusing McMahon of having taken advantage of an employee

and then covered it up.

Another thing we heard was,

"You're only scratching the surface, and there's a lot more here."

That first story in June 2022

touched off a series of events that included us reporting on other NDAs.

Government investigations,

Vince stepping down,

Vince McMahon returning and then selling the company,

and then a lawsuit against him

that contained some of the most graphic details imaginable.

A WWE mogul resigning on Friday

after a former employee filed a lawsuit

accusing him of subjecting her to

"countless depraved and humiliating acts."

I wish I could tell you the real stories. Holy shit.

- All right, give us one. -No.

- Why? -That's what I'm saying.

I don't wanna tell you these stories.

I'll give you enough that it's semi-interesting.

I don't want anybody to really know me.

He's as polarizing as he is entertaining.

Vince McMahon is part renegade, part mogul, and all showman.

Over decades, McMahon turned the WWE

into a billion-dollar juggernaut.

Throw in one part athletics, one part theatrics,

and more than a dash of violence, and what do you get?

One of America's favorite pastimes.

One hundred percent, Grade-A Americana.

The Justice Department announced the indictment of a man

who runs World Wrestling Entertainment.

This is about crime. This is about breaking the law.

This was a tyrant, a head of this organization,

that ruled by fear.

What did he know? What did he do? And what did he try to hide?

This goes beyond business. It's a family matter as well.

This is like Succession in a wrestling ring.

Another corporate leader mired in a sex scandal.

We're not talking about garden-variety misconduct.

We're talking about some real awful things.

A lot of Vince McMahon, his ability to get away with stuff,

was because he was also this character.

Where does the line between Vince McMahon and "Mr. McMahon" end?

You're...FIRED!

Well, the first thing I need to tell you is...

...you're not going to totally understand

what happened or what is,

because you'd have to live it to comprehend it.

You're only going to know what they tell you.

I just know wrestlers and promoters and know this business,

so you're not going to get, you know, the whole enchilada.

To explain what pro wrestling is,

it's turning fantasy into reality.

- -

Go!

- Kane's on fire! -

I remember guys going,

"Why do you watch that bullshit wrestling? None of it is real."

"Who cares? It's just phony wrestling."

And it's like... "You're wrong."

I look at what I did. That's an art form.

Just watch the beauty of it.

Wrestling's this curious phenomenon

that allows people to let out their aggression

while watching a morality play.

Most people when they're driving home, they go, "Ah, it was all a show."

"Son, none of that was real."

But when they're there in the building, you wanna believe it's real.

I was a true artist.

People that weren't fans would say,

"It's all fans that are too stupid to realize that it's not real."

No, it's all people that are smart enough to accept the fact that it's a show

and buy into characters and the storylines

and engage in it in that matter.

Pro wrestling has always been a soap opera,

just in broad primary colors.

Here's your hero. Here's your villain. Here's your damsel in distress.

We give you an opportunity to feel.

When you see everything that we do, it's about emotion.

-And it's about grandeur. - Woo!

That's what America is. It's larger-than-life.

It's great stories.

Our form of entertainment is American culture.

Professional wrestling matters

in that it's so much a part of American culture,

and nobody talks about it as mattering.

Vince McMahon's influence and impact is largely ignored,

but it is affecting the way the world around us is working.

From there, we have to swing down to Phoenix to do some PR for March 31st.

This is 39-year-old Vince McMahon,

a third-generation wrestling promoter, sometime announcer,

and the force behind WWF.

One day, we hope to be recognized as

the premier source

of sports entertainment in the world today.

I got my start in the business because of my dad.

My dad was considered best promoter in the business.

I first met Vince McMahon Sr. in Madison Square Garden

when I was 15 years old.

He looked and presented himself like the Pope of Madison Square Garden.

When I was growing up,

I didn't know my last name was McMahon until I met Dad when I was 12 years old.

Before that, I grew up in a trailer park with my mom

and this certain stepfather who was abusive.

I got the crap beat out of me on almost a daily basis.

You just live with it until you get out of it.

When all that physical abuse and everything was happening,

never heard a word from my dad.

I saw my dad for the first time...

It's almost like my dad had a glow about him.

I ran up to him, open arms, expecting to have this big hug.

And I got a... You know, on the back, like, "Hey, boy."

"Mm. That was a little bit different."

But nonetheless, I fell in love with him right away.

You could feel he had, at his heart,

the way that you wanted him to be... somewhat.

Or maybe I was just bullshitting myself. I don't know.

My dad and I never had the conversation

about why he wasn't in my life during all those formative years.

Even when I became much older, we never talked about that.

One thing that's indisputably true about Vince McMahon

is that he came from basically nothing.

But once his father came into his life,

whatever dreams of escape Vince had went from the abstract to the concrete.

He could point at his dad and say,

"That's what I aspire to, and that's gonna be my way out of this."

I never saw much wrestling on television until I met my dad,

and then, "Oh, this is what he does."

"Mm."

"Look at these big charismatic individuals, larger than life,

and they have problems with each other,

and the resolution is physical, and they fight."

"I like that."

At that time, I had sort of a strange relationship with my dad.

We didn't play ball together or... There was no camaraderie that way.

We'd talk business, even at that age.

That was sort of what we had in common, other than the fact that we were blood.

Vince and I met when I was 13 and he was 16.

I don't think I ever heard him talk about doing anything else

other than wanting to be involved in the business of professional wrestling.

I knew I wanted to be in my dad's business.