An early look at what’s in the “Mr. McMahon” Netflix docuseries

With the “Mr. McMahon” docuseries set to premiere on Netflix on Sept. 25, questions remain about how deeply it will explore the life and scandals of its central figure, especially given the lengthy production process and WWE’s media partnership with the streaming giant.

We can exclusively share some details of the docuseries provided by a source who has prescreened all six one-hour episodes.

“Mr. McMahon” begins by noting that most interviews in the docuseries were conducted before McMahon’s initial resignation, his return, WWE’s merger into TKO, and the sex trafficking lawsuit filed by Janel Grant — events that took place between 2022 and 2024. In the first episode, those events are touched on with brief clips featuring Wall Street Journal reporters Joe Palazzolo and Ted Mann, who broke the stories about multiple nondisclosure agreements McMahon made with women who worked for WWE and alleged they were targets of sexual misconduct by McMahon. Those subjects return in the last episode of the series.

After that initial coverage in the first few minutes of the first episode, the docuseries moves into a largely linear history of McMahon’s life and career, with the rest of the first episode focusing on his childhood, his early days in the World Wide Wrestling Federation, and eventually, his purchase of the company from his father, Vincent J. McMahon.

As the episodes go on, the narrative delves into the Hulkamania era, the creation of WrestleMania, and how WrestleMania III marked the peak of that period. It then explores the decline of Hulk Hogan and the company in the early 1990s before going into detail on the various scandals that made headlines in 1992. 

The series covers the steroid and “ring boy” scandals. An interview with New York Post reporter Phil Mushnick, who covered the scandals at the time, is included. Archival footage appears of the late Tom Cole, the former ring boy and alleged target of sexual abuse, who spoke out against the company. Clips from the infamous episode of the Phil Donahue Show that covered sexual harassment allegations in the WWF are shown. And archival clips of Rita Chatterton, the former referee who accused McMahon of raping her in 1986, are included.

Tony Atlas appears in a new interview for the series, where he claims he was groped in the locker room by Pat Patterson. When asked why he didn’t speak up, Atlas laughs and indicates that McMahon wouldn’t have cared.

The last of the six episodes focuses largely on the Grant lawsuit. Grant herself doesn’t appear in the series for an interview, as we reported Tuesday. Khadeeja Safdar, the Wall Street Journal reporter who broke the news of the suit, is interviewed. Interviews with Bruce Prichard, who currently works for WWE as a creative executive, and Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter are also a part of the episode.

WWE doesn’t have a production credit, which confirms our report from last week. WWE’s only onscreen credit is for “archival footage” along with others who are credited. However, notably, this observation is based on a prescreening version of the content and the credits could appear differently in the final edit.

When the documentary was originally announced in 2020, WWE Studios was set to be a co-producer, according to comments from WWE President Nick Khan at the time. Since that announcement, news of sexual misconduct allegations broke, McMahon resigned, returned, merged WWE with UFC, and then resigned again — all or any of which may have weighed heavily into how this project unfolded.

The opening credits give Chris Smith’s Library Films the main production credit. Ringer Films gets an “in association with” production credit. Names seen in the onscreen credits also include Smith, Bill Simmons, Zara Duffy, Abhay Sofsky, Matt Maxson, and David Shoemaker. Shoemaker also appears in the trailer Netflix released on Thursday.

Others we can confirm appear in the series in new interviews, many of whom are seen in the trailer, in addition to those already mentioned, are Hogan, Shane McMahon, Linda McMahon, Stephanie McMahon, Paul Levesque, Paul Heyman, Bret Hart, Cody Rhodes, the Undertaker, Wendy Richter, Eric Bischoff, Steve Austin, Dwayne Johnson, and John Cena.

All six one-hour episodes are set to be released on September 25 on the streaming platform.

We contacted Netflix representatives for this report asking them to point out any inaccuracies or add details. They declined to comment.