The docuseries about Vince McMahon’s life and career appears to be set to premiere this year, following years of development in which the producers were forced to shoot additional content due to the McMahon controversy.
WWE first announced on its third-quarter 2020 earnings call that they had partnered with Netflix to air it, with Bill Simmons serving as executive producer. Chris Smith, best known for Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, has been named director.
A lot has changed since 2020, with McMahon being forced to step down from his role in the company in the summer of 2022 due to the hush money scandal, only to return in January and agree to be acquired by Endeavor and merge WWE and the UFC into the TKO Group Holdings company.
While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer, who was interviewed for the documentary and recently announced that it would be released soon, stated that the documentary is not a puff piece because the scandal, retirement, and other controversies are expected to be addressed.
“So this is what I can say about the Vince McMahon documentary. And, of course, this is all subject to change. Because when this documentary started, ordered by Netflix years and years ago, obviously, this was not the end result that anyone imagined. It was going to be something that they did. And Vince told them that he does not want a fake documentary. And Vince was probably the most interesting interview on the documentary. I don’t know all the different people they talk to. I only know what I talked about. And they were told this was anything but meant to be a puff piece if it ends up being, perhaps, much of the documentary. It’s a multi-part. Several of the parts were already done, the only stuff that was left to be done was the stuff that would have covered the period from Vince forcing himself back in and the sale, everything else was done. I mean, they were done with the scandal with Vince, retiring, quitting, whatever, forced out whatever that deal was last year or actually 2022, so work 2023, actually, sorry. But that stuff was all done. Now? Can they go back and clean it up? Of course, they can’t. And I guess when the finished product comes out? Well, no, I don’t anticipate it because it didn’t feel like Vince actually wanted that, believe it or not. I can’t say 100% Because I know what they were aiming for. This could change. Politics do get in the way of documentaries, that’s for sure. I don’t expect it. I’ll just say that,” Meltzer stated.
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
