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00:00So am I addressing everything to you?
00:24Yeah, just...
00:25Okay.
00:26I think it's got to go that way.
00:33Straight pieces.
00:35Oh, thank you, everybody.
00:40You good?
00:42I'm good, I guess.
00:56Where are we?
00:57What are we doing?
00:58Well, I'm talking about me, which I have never done before.
01:01I don't like talking about me.
01:03You know, I'm talking about everybody else.
01:05I'm cool with, I can go perform.
01:07But this is, like, very strange, a little different, me talking about me.
01:11So I'll do the best I can.
01:15I'll do the best.
01:16Larger than life, Vince McMahon, more famous than some of the wrestling stars he helped
01:21create.
01:22McMahon has been called the PT Barnum of wrestling, building WWE into an international billion-dollar
01:28business.
01:29He's also an on-screen presence as the billionaire bad guy boss.
01:36For a long period of time, people have wondered who I really am.
01:40You know, portrayal of me that I'm a bad guy.
01:44But no one really knows me.
01:46And it's been a while for me to try and figure out myself.
01:49I still haven't quite figured out who I am.
01:52Do I know Vince McMahon?
01:54I don't think anybody knows Vince McMahon.
01:57Please welcome Mr. McMahon!
02:02People know who he is, but they really don't know who he is.
02:08The person that he puts out there, the larger-than-life promoter, a lot of that is a character.
02:15When it comes to him personally, he's going to show you what he wants you to see.
02:20Very few people are in control of a world.
02:23Vince McMahon was.
02:25He has built something so powerful, so big, and so ingrained in people generationally.
02:33He did things that no one thought were possible.
02:36And he took no prisoners in the process.
02:39With Vince McMahon, he comes as advertised.
02:42And what you expect, well, that's exactly what you're going to get.
02:46I love Vince, and I have a lot of respect for him.
02:49And he was a guy that often lied to me and let me down with his lies.
02:53Do you think your dad gets a bad rap?
02:55I think my dad gets the rap that he wants.
02:59The 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.
03:14It started with a tip, and the tip was that the board of WWE had received an anonymous email.
03:32The emailer was accusing McMahon of having taken advantage of an employee and then covered it up.
03:38Another thing we heard was, you're only scratching the surface, and there's a lot more here.
03:42That first story in June of 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.
04:05The WWE mogul resigning on Friday after a former employee filed a lawsuit accusing him of subjecting her to, quote, countless depraved and humiliating acts.
04:16I wish I could tell you the real stories.
04:28Holy shit.
04:29Give us one.
04:33No.
04:34Why?
04:35That's what I'm saying.
04:36I don't want to tell you these stories.
04:38I'll give you enough that it's semi-interesting.
04:41I don't want anybody to really know me.
04:44He's as polarizing as he is entertaining.
04:51Vince McMahon is part renegade, part mogul, and all showman.
04:56Over decades, McMahon turned the WWE into a billion-dollar juggernaut.
05:01Throw in one part athletics, one part theatrics, and more than a dash of violence, and what do you get?
05:07One of America's favorite pastimes.
05:09100% grade-A Americana.
05:11The Justice Department has announced the indictment of a man who runs the World Wrestling Federation.
05:17This is about crime.
05:18This is about breaking the law.
05:20This was a tyrant ahead of this organization that ruled by fear.
05:25What did he know?
05:26What did he do?
05:27And what did he try to hide?
05:29This goes beyond business.
05:30It's a family matter as well.
05:32This is like succession in a wrestling ring.
05:34Another corporate leader mired in a sex scandal.
05:38We're not talking about guard-variety misconduct.
05:41We're talking about some real awful things.
05:43A lot of Vince McMahon, his ability to get away with stuff, was because he was also this character.
05:49Where does the line between Vince McMahon and Mr. McMahon end?
05:52You're fired!
05:54Well, the first thing I need to tell you is, you're not going to totally understand what happened or what is, because you have to live it to comprehend it.
06:20You're only going to know what they tell you.
06:23I just know wrestlers and promoters and know this business, so you're not going to get, you know, the whole enchilada.
06:33To explain what pro wrestling is, is turning fantasy into reality.
06:41I remember, guys, but why do you watch that bullshit wrestling?
06:52It's all, none of it's real.
06:53Who cares?
06:54It's just phony wrestling.
06:56It's like, you're wrong.
07:00I look at what I did, that's an art form.
07:04Just watch the beauty of it.
07:07Wrestling is this curious phenomenon that allows people to let out their aggressions while watching a morality play.
07:13Most people, when they're driving home, they go, ah, it was all show.
07:17Son, none of that was real.
07:19But when they're there in the building, you want to believe it's real.
07:24I was a true artist.
07:31People that weren't fans would say, it's all fans that are too stupid to realize that it's not real.
07:37No, 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 manner.
07:47Pro wrestling has always been a soap opera, just in broad primary colors.
07:54Here's your hero.
07:55Here's your villain.
07:56Here's your damsel in distress.
07:58We give you an opportunity to feel.
08:01When you see everything that we do, it's about emotion and it's about grandeur.
08:08That's what America is.
08:10It's part of your life.
08:12It's great stories.
08:14Our form of entertainment is American culture.
08:17Professional wrestling matters in that it's so much a part of American culture and nobody talks about it as mattering.
08:27Vince McMahon's influence and impact is largely ignored, but it is affecting the way the world around us is working.
08:48From there, we're going to have to swing down to Phoenix to do some PR for March 31st.
08:52This is 39-year-old Vince McMahon, a third-generation wrestling promoter, sometime announcer, and the force behind the WWF.
08:59One day, we hope to be recognized as the premier source of sports entertainment in the world today.
09:07I got my start in the business because of my dad.
09:13My dad was considered the best promoter in the business.
09:18I first met Vince McMahon Sr. in Madison Square Garden when I was 15 years old.
09:24He looked and presented himself like the Pope of Madison Square Garden.
09:30When I was growing up, I didn't know that my last name was McMahon until I met my dad when I was 12 years old.
09:36Before that, I grew up in a trailer park with my mom and this certain stepfather who was abusive.
09:43I got the crap out of me on almost a daily basis.
09:47You just live with it until you can get out of it.
09:51When all that physical abuse and everything was happening, I never heard a word from my dad.
09:59I saw my dad for the first time.
10:03It was almost like my dad had a glow about him.
10:06I ran up to him, open arms, expecting to have this big hug.
10:11And I got a, you know, on the back, kind of like a boy.
10:15Hmm, that's a little bit different.
10:17But nonetheless, I sort of fell in love with him right away.
10:21You could feel he had his heart the way that you wanted him to be, somewhat.
10:27Or maybe I was just bullshitting myself. I don't know.
10:31My dad and I never had the conversation about why he wasn't in my life during all those formative years.
10:38Or even when I became much older, we never talked about that.
10:44One thing that's indisputably true about Vince McMahon is that he came from basically nothing.
10:50But once his father came into his life, whatever dreams of escape Vince had went from the abstract to the concrete.
10:58He could point at his dad and say, that's what I aspire to.
11:02And that's going to be my way out of this.
11:08I never saw much rustling on television until I met my dad.
11:11And then, oh, this is what he does. Hmm.
11:16Look at these big charismatic individuals, larger in life.
11:19And they have problems with each other.
11:21And the resolution is physical and they fight.
11:24I like that.
11:27At that time, a sort of a strange relationship with my dad.
11:31We didn't play ball together or there was no camaraderie that way.
11:35We talked business even at that age.
11:38That was sort of what we had in common of the fact that we were blood.
11:44Vince and I met when I was 13 and he was 16.
11:48I don't think I ever heard him talk about doing anything else other than wanting to be involved in the business of professional wrestling.
11:57I knew I wanted to be in my dad's business.
11:59Come on, Pop, there's got to be something.
12:01And that's when he allowed me to go to Bangor, Maine.
12:04It's the furthest northern outpost in my dad's territory.
12:09Bangor was a success.
12:11And my dad was thinking, huh, the kid did pretty well.
12:16Then one day, I'm with my dad.
12:18He's doing a television show.
12:20And our television announcer kept asking for more money.
12:23The show is about ready to begin.
12:25And he said, well, if you don't pay me what I want, I'm walking out.
12:29And my dad a lot of times had these quarters.
12:31He would, like, click these quarters in his hand as he was thinking.
12:35So I see him off like this.
12:36He's thinking.
12:38I said, Pop, what are you going to do?
12:42Go announce.
12:43Hear the announcer.
12:44Show number one recording of All-Star Wrestling in Hamburg, Pennsylvania.
12:49Just quick enough for you, Pop.
12:51Slated play.
12:52Just roll it, Daddy.
12:53Hello, everybody.
12:54My name is Vince McMahon.
12:55So I start trying to BS my way through as an announcer.
12:59Bobo, look at those neck muscles.
13:01Big biceps.
13:02A great athlete and really, indeed, not to belabor a point.
13:06But it is indeed nice to have him back here this week.
13:09Vince was a horrible commentator.
13:13But one thing that Vince had was emotion.
13:16And Vince told stories.
13:18I realized that I'm the conduit.
13:22I have to translate to the audience what's going on in the ring.
13:26Here's the story that's being told.
13:28Zabisco is facing a legend.
13:30Our business is no different than a play, a movie, books.
13:34It's all the same.
13:35Okay, you have an environment, so we establish what that environment is.
13:38They've jam-packed this arena.
13:40The next thing you have to do is create some very interesting characters.
13:44Zabisco, of course, the only individual to have been trained by Bruno Sammartino.
13:47The good and the bad.
13:49A baby face, which meant a good guy.
13:51And the other was a heel, which meant a bad guy.
13:54And Sammartino holds the rope open for Zabisco.
13:57Uh-oh.
13:59Look out!
14:00And then you introduce another character.
14:02Sends a referee flying out.
14:04There's always this big finish.
14:05Zabisco's striking Sammartino.
14:07And he really let him have it.
14:09Zabisco couldn't take it.
14:12The formula is simple, but not that easy to do.
14:18Sammartino laying in a pool of blood.
14:23He kept that job announcing for my dad.
14:27And it wasn't long after that, but my dad wanted to get out of the business.
14:30He wanted to sell to someone.
14:32And when he was going to sell to someone, he wasn't thinking about me at all.
14:36As a matter of fact, he was going to sell it to Gorilla Monsoon, who was a partner at that time.
14:41Monsoon with another little jab there.
14:43Ollie's not finding his back at all.
14:46When I joined the company, Gorilla Monsoon was the heir apparent.
14:50And I could feel the tension right away.
14:53Gorilla Monsoon thinks I'm competition.
14:56And boy was he right.
14:58When I proposed to buy my dad's business, he made a deal with me.
15:02I'll give you extra dollars here, three months later those, three months later that, and then the final payment.
15:09And if I miss a payment, then you get the business back and keep the money.
15:14That appealed to my dad and appealed to his other stockholders because they're thinking his kid's not going to make it.
15:20We took over Vince's father's company.
15:24We actually were paying with money that they would have been generating should they have stayed in the business.
15:30You know, it was robbing Peter to pay Paul.
15:33Made the last payment and no one could believe it.
15:37My dad was really, really surprised.
15:39Do you think your dad wanted you to succeed?
15:42I think my dad wanted me to succeed.
15:46But then again, sometimes I think he didn't.
15:50I honestly thought that he didn't want to make it easy for Vince.
15:54That he really wanted to let him know what it was like to struggle.
15:58But it was strange because when I bought the business, there was some friction there.
16:03Because my dad, he then worked for me.
16:06And I knew he didn't want what I wanted.
16:09Hello, everyone. Welcome to All American Wrestling.
16:11My vision was to upgrade the product.
16:14My vision was to make this mainstream, not the lower class that everyone thought it was.
16:21I didn't want to be pro wrestling.
16:23I don't like that term today.
16:25I want to be something beyond pro wrestling.
16:28I wanted us to grow and compete against all these other promoters all over the country.
16:34During this point in time, the wrestling industry was regional and operated in what was called the territory system.
16:40There were separate wrestling companies around the country and they each ran shows both live and on TV within their own territories.
16:50So you had Florida, you had Georgia, you had the Mid-Atlantic, the Carolinas, there was San Francisco, Portland, Seattle.
16:58Vince's dad had the WWE, which was then known as WWF, in the Northeast territory.
17:05And there were these imaginary lines that no one crossed.
17:10It was a good old boy system.
17:12People had agreements and you didn't break those agreements.
17:16As soon as I closed the deal, I knew right what I wanted to do.
17:21I'm going to go right into their territories.
17:23One of the great World Wrestling Federation cities, St. Louis, Missouri.
17:29Vince started promoting his own shows in what would traditionally be someone else's territory.
17:36And that ruffled a lot of feathers.
17:38Whether it's in St. Louis, Los Angeles, Hoboken, New Jersey, or wherever, no doubt the World Wrestling Federation will be there.
17:47So my dad was very much against that.
17:50He said, take it easy, Vinny.
17:52Don't rock the boat.
17:53It hurt my dad, but at the same time, I'm in business.
17:57Other promoters started threatening my dad.
18:00You know your kid, Vince, is going to wind up at the bottom of a river.
18:04I don't know what it is these promoters, I guess, love the bottoms of a river.
18:08Whenever I threatened, I didn't care.
18:12Because you didn't own anything.
18:15I'm competing with you.
18:18Back with you here on All Star Wrestling.
18:20And joining me now, former nine-time heavyweight champion of the world, Vern Gagne.
18:24I worked for Vern Gagne in the AWA, which was one of the strongest territories.
18:29And as far as Vern Gagne was concerned, Vince was Satan.
18:34He was the devil.
18:35He came in and ruined all the territories.
18:38In a moment, we'll take you to Tampa, Florida.
18:40Once they made their national expansion and started shattering the territory mold,
18:45so many of the top talent who were really fixtures in other territories
18:49decided to take a better opportunity with Vince McMahon in the WWE.
18:54Our talent were making so much money, which attracted other talents.
18:59It's a virtual flood of wrestling talent into the World Wrestling Federation, the likes of which we've never seen before.
19:06If you really look at what he did, he was quite cutthroat.
19:10He basically went into almost every territory and brought out their top guys.
19:14Then he would go back to their town with the three or four guys that he stole from there.
19:18There was nothing anybody could do about it.
19:21We understand that you're attempting to invade almost every area in the United States.
19:25That's right.
19:26Most wrestlers that worked for Vince came from somewhere else,
19:29and somebody else did the hard work to make that person who they were.
19:33And one phone call, they ran and left that guy standing in the dusk.
19:39Just like he did with me.
19:40I could make you more money here.
19:42It's a dog-eat-dog world, and you have to get your bite out of it.
19:48It was one of those things where I'm not taking anything away from anyone.
19:52I'm building.
19:54And if you can't compete with me, it's America.
19:58Tough.
20:00There's no doubt that the popularity of the World Wrestling Federation continues by leaps and bounds.
20:07At that time, I'm competing with all these promoters successfully.
20:10So, I then said, okay, now I can do things my way.
20:15My dad chose Bob Backlund as a champion.
20:17I love to travel.
20:18I love the fans.
20:19I love wrestling.
20:20And every minute of my life is a pleasure.
20:23He was the all-American boy, but a little too milk toast.
20:28I was looking for someone that had more charisma.
20:31Look at that.
20:32Are you kidding me?
20:33Look at this.
20:34The dream.
20:35Just pummeling his man now.
20:37Oh, no.
20:38Okay, there was Dusty Rhodes as a possibility.
20:40You can look up in this building in a matter of few hours when it's full.
20:43And you can see a black man and a white man needing now the same popcorn box.
20:48Woo!
20:50That's funky.
20:51That's the American dream.
20:53I had only ever been told by my father that he just didn't believe in it.
20:58It seemed too large of an endeavor.
21:02Dusty could not take advantage of the opportunity.
21:05And so I kept looking for someone that would charm you.
21:08Someone that would excite you.
21:09You know, someone that was larger than life.
21:12This man is not a television illusion.
21:18The first time I met Hulk Hogan, it was years before I bought my dad's business.
21:24Wow.
21:25What a physical specimen.
21:26And he was Sterling Golden.
21:29Sterling Golden.
21:31My dad saw him and said, no, no, that's not your name.
21:34And he changed it to Hulk Hogan.
21:36The Incredible Hulk Hogan.
21:41When they brought me up, they needed somebody that the people thought could beat Andre the Giant.
21:47It was one of their big stars.
21:50Hold on!
21:52Hold on!
21:54Andre the Giant is sports entertainment's first attraction.
21:58You could advertise Andre the Giant, and you could trawl a house.
22:04I was kind of like Andre's other half.
22:08We'd rustled everywhere.
22:10Chase Stadium was sold out with me and Andre the Giant.
22:12So, I was pretty well established.
22:14And one of the ways I would get established was to have these so-called TV matches.
22:20During those matches, I would wrestle two guys.
22:24Sylvester Stallone saw that.
22:27And so that's how I ended up getting offered the part in the Rocky movie.
22:32I was talking with Vince Senior about doing Rocky III.
22:35And Vince Senior says, you're not doing that.
22:37You're a wrestler.
22:38You know, you don't act and you don't do TV stuff.
22:42He asked my dad, and my dad said, no.
22:44No.
22:45Because my dad had invested a lot in Hogan and wanted to get his money out of it.
22:50He goes, well, if you do that, you're fired and you'll never work here again.
22:54I said, okay, cool.
22:59When I did the Rocky movie, I knew it was going to be big.
23:03I'm coming after you, Malibuwa.
23:05If you took Starface, if you took The Godfather, the Rocky franchise was bigger than all that.
23:13It was Americana.
23:14I knew it was going to put me on the map.
23:19It just went crazy.
23:21Would you welcome Hulk Hogan?
23:24You are one good-sized person.
23:26Thank you, thank you.
23:28One big man.
23:29One big man in the middle of this.
23:31Vern Gagne got a hold of me.
23:32It was, how quick can you get to Minnesota?
23:34Hulk Hogan, back in the AWA and I come up.
23:38When I went to the AWA, I started the Hulkamania stuff.
23:42I started ripping my shirt off.
23:44And it was growing and becoming dominant.
23:47I followed his career, and he was really honing in on his talents.
23:53Here comes Hogan.
23:54Here is the leg smash.
23:56I am the champion.
23:57This is your goal.
23:59Vince came to me and said, hey, I want to take over all the territories.
24:03And I want to do it with you.
24:04And I went, let's go, brother.
24:07Hulk knew where the business was going, and he knew Vince was the direction.
24:11It was an easy decision.
24:12Some guy's going to push you and make you the biggest star,
24:16and you're going to go national.
24:17And the other guy just wants to promote Minneapolis and Chicago and Milwaukee.
24:21I've been dreaming my whole career about going back,
24:24and then said what he was going to do with me.
24:27I knew what was going to happen.
24:29Oh!
24:30You've got to be pissed!
24:31Hulk Hogan!
24:33I would like to thank the WWF for bringing the Hulkster back!
24:37So, somehow I had to transfer the theater from Bob Backlund to get to Hogan.
24:41I couldn't make that match.
24:42There were two, quote, baby faces.
24:44So, I used the Iron Sheik.
24:51The Iron Sheik from Iran was one of the most disliked individuals we've ever had as a heel in our company.
24:59There was a lot of nationalism then.
25:03A lot of robbing America.
25:06And for years we had problems with Iran.
25:08The President met with the National Security Council in Washington about the fast-breaking developments in Iran.
25:13There was American hostages that were being held in Iran.
25:17It's front page news.
25:18It was talked about every single day.
25:20So, when the Iron Sheik would be in the ring, you know, waving the Iranian flag and all of that.
25:27Actually, I got a negative reaction.
25:29You look at what is happening and you try and tell a story off of that and have people be able to react in a way that they couldn't necessarily react in real life.
25:40Again, a lot of people do not like the Iron Sheik.
25:43You can't find an Iranian Sheik walking down the street that you can boo and hiss at and see him get beat up.
25:50But you could go to the wrestling matches and you could see it.
25:57It doesn't always age well.
26:02But you look at the movies.
26:05Movies depicted Japan as the evil empire attacking America.
26:10Anybody from Japan was not to be trusted.
26:13Germany.
26:15Russians.
26:16If he dies, he dies.
26:20You were taught in an early age.
26:25These people, foreigners, they were the bad guys.
26:31From Russia.
26:33Right, wrong, indifferent.
26:34In that time, the bad guy was the Russian bad guy, the German bad guy, the Japanese bad guy.
26:42And it was easy to understand for people.
26:44Wrestling is an imitation of the world.
26:49If you want to know what America is like, watch wrestling.
26:53We show you yourself.
26:54Tell me a wrestler you don't like.
26:56Sheik.
26:57Sheik.
26:59How come?
27:01How come you don't like him?
27:02From another country, man.
27:03From another country.
27:05When you see what's going on, he followed the river.
27:08That's how he became rich.
27:09He never swam upstream.
27:14You can look back on anything and say, oh, I bet you regret that.
27:19Well, look back on, you know, 10 years, 20 years, 5 years ago.
27:23Life was different then.
27:25You know, things were different.
27:26Values were different.
27:27And you can't take the values of today and look back and say, okay, the same values apply to that.
27:32Well, it was a different time, different life, different set of values then.
27:35If it were done today, wow, that would be a problem.
27:39But then, I didn't think it was a real big deal.
27:43The Iron Sheik!
27:48So I wanted to transfer the title from Bob Backlund to The Iron Sheik.
27:53And then, of course, setting us up for this big, blonde-haired, all-American to come in and beat The Iron Sheik from Iran.
28:01Hulk Hogan needed the ultimate opponent.
28:05And the timing was impeccable.
28:07It's the all-American hero versus this evil Iranian.
28:11The Iron Sheik has Hulk Hogan.
28:14And it is his work circle.
28:16Back then, Vince made the decision if I was going to win or lose the match.
28:20But what we physically did in the ring, I called in the ring on the spot when we didn't rehearse anything.
28:28That star form of wrestling.
28:32I jumped in before the bell rang.
28:34Didn't tell him I was going to do it.
28:35Just felt like the right thing to do.
28:37Hulk now has The Sheik's robe and he clotheslined him with it.
28:41Didn't tell him I was going to clothesline him with it and choke him out with it.
28:44It just all happens.
28:46The Hulk now is in trouble.
28:48You have to listen to the crowd.
28:49The noise is deafening.
28:51You kind of like, feel it, you listen, you think.
28:53Hulk Hogan, he drops a big leg at him!
28:56One, two, he's got him!
28:59It's a really huge response from Madison Square Garden.
29:04Hulkamania is here!
29:08And of course, everyone knows of Hulk Hogan to this day.
29:11All I asked was for the whole WWF to stand behind the Hulkster.
29:15And I told him I'd bring it home for the USA.
29:17Hulkamania is running worldwide!
29:21To put the belt on the Iron Sheik and then to have the business direction that the belt's coming to me
29:27because we need a guy to be the hood ornament to take over the world.
29:30That was a business decision that Vince had to execute creatively.
29:35And it worked.
29:37Many fans feel that Hulk Hogan is perhaps the most exciting pro wrestling champion ever.
29:42You can't overemphasize the importance of Hulk Hogan.
29:47You take Hulk Hogan out of the equation.
29:49I think Vince fails in his expansion.
29:51I'm relatively certain he fails in his expansion.
29:54Pro wrestling is a star-driven business.
29:57And the ability to make stars is what makes you popular.
30:00Vince was much better at making stars than all of these other promoters
30:04because his father was.
30:06Vince McMahon Sr. was really good at making the top guys come across like stars,
30:11which was more important than having good wrestling matches.
30:14That was Vince's strength because it was his father's strength.
30:17There was a point when my dad told me he was proud of me.
30:21He said, you know what, Vinny?
30:23All these friends of mine.
30:24They're not really friends of mine.
30:25All these promoters I've worked with all these years and their territories.
30:27You know what?
30:28Fuck them.
30:29You're beating all of them.
30:31I'm proud of you for what you've done.
30:33Fuck them all.
30:34And I thought, wow.
30:36It's the first time my dad ever said anything like that that he was on my side.
30:40Of course, he waited until I was a success.
30:44And maybe he felt that way all along, but he never told me.
30:47That was one of the biggest moments of my life.
30:53Until.
30:58I would like to have you all rise in a moment of silence for Mr. Vincent J. McMahon.
31:07The day before he died, it was the only time that he told me that he loved me.
31:11But, Paul.
31:12He told me before he died.
31:15That felt so good.
31:19Whether or not they care for you or not, it's so wonderful in life to have someone that you care for.
31:24And I had that opportunity to really care about my dad and to love my dad.
31:29I don't think he liked his father, to be honest with you.
31:36Why do you say that?
31:38When Junior came along, he had a vision that wrestling is going to change.
31:44It can't remain the same.
31:46And every idea that came out of his head drove his father up the roof.
31:51It drove the wrestlers up the roof.
31:53I remember the guy sitting in the dressing room talking about how nutty he was.
31:57When Vince became the owner of the company, and he and his father started to clash.
32:03The clashes were mostly because of Vince Senior's lack of willingness to accept where the industry and the business was headed.
32:14Vince came along with all the ideas that we thought were crazy.
32:21It was just, it was not wrestling.
32:24Vince had ideas about programming to a younger audience.
32:29And not shying away from the fact that this was scripted entertainment.
32:34Vince really wanted to grow and expand.
32:37While everybody else was looking at the territories, Vince understood that National Cable was the future.
32:43It was very clear to me from the very beginning that Vince was looking at a bigger distribution.
32:50The USA Network became the marketing channel for WWF.
32:55Vince always wanted to promote something new that they were doing.
33:00Vince was never in the wrestling business.
33:03He was always in the entertainment business.
33:05He was very informative.
33:06Like for example, when he first came in and took over, he made that talk show.
33:12And we thought he was off his deep end.
33:15Thank you. Welcome to TNT.
33:17It was so much fun.
33:19so much fun it was the wild west in a talk show format it was a riot
33:27Vince was experimenting with different kinds of ways to expose the talent to
33:35different audiences I'm in favor of that for sure he always wanted to use rest
33:40as a stepping stone into other stuff our company was growing and things just
33:47started opening up and it's like well yeah let's do this let's do that the voice of the World
33:53Wrestling Federation and host of TNT Mr. Vince McMahon
33:56Dave as you know there are lots of mothers in New York City there was an overlap that you and
34:04Vince had early on oh yeah yeah it was Letterman's third anniversary show and they decide if a baby
34:13was born during the show then that baby would become the late night baby and so they sent Vince
34:20McMahon to one maternity ward and me to another Vince I have a question for you yes David is that
34:27your tuxedo I know actually it's not okay I think Vince enjoyed being on David Letterman it was as
34:36culturally hip a show as you could find it was a mark of credibility if David Letterman gave you
34:42a figurative thumbs up I have a question for you Larry is that your tux no it's mine
34:47Vince always looked at how could he connect different aspects of the world of entertainment
34:56how can we co-brand with something and make both of our brands bigger and stronger
35:01hi you're listening to MTV music television and I'm Cindy Lauper Cindy Lauper was on MTV at that time
35:13and she was a huge star
35:15for the uninitiated this is Cindy Lauper whose debut album She's So Unusual placed four singles in the top
35:26five on the video for one of them girls just want to have fun Captain Lou Albano appeared as Cindy's
35:31father Cindy Lauper met Captain Lou Albano on a plane and just felt that there could be some connection
35:40there's an opportunity to grow our businesses both of us
35:46Cindy tell all these people out here how I made you a superstar tell them how you came off my
35:51reputation Cindy how all women are nothing Cindy Cindy was associated with us and that made MTV think
36:01well okay here's Cindy she's going into this other genre well that's worked with this other genre as
36:06well this week on MTV the brawl we did two television shows on MTV got great ratings for MTV and it was a great
36:15storyline I challenge you you fat bag of win at that time women's wrestling was
36:24de classe in a de classe business and so I thought I'll have Cindy connect with one of our female performers
36:32that'll make that division mean more
36:33of our female performers
36:39Wendy Richter was the choice to represent Cindy I just got a call from her out of the blue asking
36:46if I could represent her in the ring and I said sure
36:51managing the challenger
36:58there was a buzz in the arena and it was because of her involvement
37:03that's proud it's on their feet
37:06at this point many of my friends
37:09we were wrestling fans we liked the whole tongue-in-cheek aspect of it like here's a
37:14mainstream sports guy and now he's lending his voice to introducing
37:19Hulk Hogan and Rowdy Roddy Piper and he's doing it straight
37:23thank you Howard this is indeed an honor it was funny I loved it
37:28oh
37:28we're at it
37:29we're at it
37:29we're at it
37:31we're at that wrestling connection
37:33oh
37:34oh
37:34look out
37:36oh you gotta be kidding me here comes Mr. T ladies and gentlemen
37:41I had made friends with Mr. T and Mr. T was white hot at the time just really on fire
37:48so you bring the celebrity into our world
37:52oh we've got a we've got a madhouse what is going on ladies and gentlemen
37:59to have this partnership with MTV it was quite a step up from what we had been doing
38:05MTV was red hot back then so this product that Vince McMahon put together just wasn't in the back
38:11rooms to people that smoke cigars I mean this was getting to be mainstream it changed wrestling
38:18now it's it's okay for people to say I watch wrestling Andy Warhol your impressions of what took
38:24place earlier on here I'm speechless uh it's just so exciting I just don't know what to say
38:31I don't think it's over I think we have just seen the tip of the iceberg
38:36at that time the business was a growing leaps and balance and I enjoyed putting in the work
38:43but my wife finally you needed a vacation so I went to the Caribbean someplace for for two days
38:51I came back the next day and announced we're gonna have one big event a year just like the
38:55Super Bowl and we're gonna call it Wrestlemania she turned to me she said you weren't relaxing
39:01you weren't enjoying any of that at all you were thinking about business
39:04on Sunday afternoon March 31st it's Wrestlemania Mr. T risks it all wrestling for the first time
39:11teaming up with champion Hulk Hogan you will see the greatest production of wrestling ever in the
39:17world wrestling history will be made the woodstock of professional wrestling
39:22Wrestlemania was obviously just again common sense there was a Super Bowl there were other big
39:28combinations of sports and things of that nature so why wouldn't we have one big end of a
39:33season type deal Wrestlemania Wrestlemania Wrestlemania maybe we could take this one huge event
39:40and put it on what this was known as closed circuit there gonna be over a million people watching on
39:45closed circuit television all over the United States here closed circuit was simply a very large
39:51projector projecting on a screen in an arena what you were presenting and you paid money as if it
39:57were a live event to come in and watch that concept today sounds ridiculous but that's the way it was
40:03then closed circuit television every major city in the United States not only that jack but it's going to
40:1024 foreign countries on big screen the hype worked so well that Hulk Hogan and Mr. T have been granted the
40:18ultimate yuppie honor co-hosting saturday night live
40:25we got a really big match coming up Madison Square Garden Wrestlemania that is so in terms of
40:31publicity for Wrestlemania you wanted to invite the media as much as you possibly could
40:37we had an event in Madison Square Garden this isn't really wrestling this is wrestling and
40:42John Stossel from one of the networks wanted to interview some of our performers John Stossel's
40:48there under the premise that he wants to find out if Hulk Hogan's really as popular as the New York
40:53Times said and as we're walking he goes do you guys use razor blades to bleed and I said are you kidding
40:58me isn't that kind of masochistic my head was already carved up from the last couple weeks you know
41:04man I make a beeline to Vince I say Vince this guy is not here to find out how popular Hulk Hogan is he's
41:12here to expose the wrestling business Vince come into the dressing room and he said there was a
41:18reporter here that run around acid wrestler is wrestling fake fans I'm afraid I have to tell you
41:24it is fake he's I wish somebody do something with that guy I did not hear Vince McMahon say anything
41:32about putting him in this place that's verbiage I never heard he didn't tell it us to do it but he
41:38said I wish someone would take care of that guy and he walked out the dressing room and as the rest of
41:46my name David Schultz decided he would step into the shot I think this is fake you think it's fake
41:53out of nowhere David Schultz just slaps the crap out of Stossel
41:58you think it's fake do you remember Vince's reaction to John getting hit we're all celebrating
42:09not just Vince everybody I mean David was getting pats on the back people were banning drinks
42:14well at the time we were very protective of the business because wrestling is not fake it's
42:19predetermined and it's exhibition but I can tell you in the last 10 years I've had 23 surgeries in 10 years
42:26so if that's fake please explain it to me I didn't get the memo at the time you gotta realize you know
42:33David was protecting the business we loved it until the lawsuit came down that's when the hit the fan
42:41how is it physically a doctor now says I have ear damage that's probably permanent mainstream culture
42:47was coming to pro wrestling but pro wrestling wasn't quite ready for prime time you see a similar thing
42:54on the Richard Belzer show when Hulk Hogan who's the most media ready of anybody in that crew
43:01finds himself in this incredibly bizarre and unfortunate situation well you know apparently
43:06you don't know what's going on man you must have found a ball cabin or something well let me
43:09I'll lay it out for you little dude let me tell you okay thank you
43:13it's tough to take when people are trying to undermine our business and the thing is I fear no man
43:19I believe you can you dig it I can dig it twice are you a man what do you think I really don't know
43:22you want to step up like when Richard Belzer says hey put one of those wrestling moves on me
43:29well you just tell me brother when you want to put squealing okay all right
43:33brought him over and I just hooked him in the front chin lock
43:36how about it T keep like that for a little while
43:40when I let him go he fell and hit his head
43:42and it was bleeding this was not good I sued Mr. T I sued Hulk Hogan I sued Vince McMahon I sued the World Wrestling
44:05Federation I sued them all yeah Vince wasn't real happy with me we were at a very very vulnerable
44:11stage with Wrestlemania 1 for me to be going around choking people out and stuff you know
44:17Wrestlemania was a big risk Vince banked everything on this Wrestlemania being a success he put a lot of
44:23money into it the story is if it would fail he'd have been belly up and you know um it's very possibly
44:30true well my parents mortgaged everything they owned uh to make Wrestlemania 1 happen
44:36I was so young I didn't truly understand what that meant my parents never really took finance in front
44:43of us uh but you can feel it you know my dad would just keep saying this is going to work and uh you
44:48know we're betting a lot on this one you know at this point you know I'm a teenager and I'm just like
44:53we really didn't have the money to do it and if it was a huge failure then we were in trouble
45:00I'd say that's an accurate statement welcome everyone Gorilla Monsoon here at ringside
45:06as the World Wrestling Federation presents the wrestling extravaganza of all-time Wrestlemania
45:13I knew that if we didn't pull this thing off that we were completely out of business
45:23it was a roll of the dice a big one
45:41but so many things that night went right it was a big success
45:46from Vince perspective you could not hit a bigger home run it really was the sum of all parts
45:56when you think back to Wrestlemania 1 I was trying to make a statement as to what our business really
46:00is we wanted to be all forms of entertainment all rolled into one when you have all these extraordinary
46:07people from all different parts of the entertainment combined that is sports entertainment that's what we're
46:13about if there was ever a perfect storm this was it Vince was very excited and very happy you could
46:21tell he was vibrating man he was he was on a high he knew we pulled it off Hulk Hogan and Mr. T in a
46:29tag team grudge match they called it Wrestlemania the biggest event in pro wrestling since gorgeous
46:35George everybody Madison Square Garden all the way around the world now you know what it's all about
46:40brother so right before the first Wrestlemania the whole business was looking good Vince was the
46:45strongest but you know there was still all these territories still going on after Wrestlemania 1
46:51nobody knew of yet and these other promoters didn't know it yet but Vince won the war with that show
46:56I don't know if it was good for the industry it was good for me and my organization that's all I cared about
47:02after Wrestlemania whatever city we were in all of a sudden more tv cameras were everywhere in the
47:10buildings and people wanted to do interviews with us it was such a major success it really just put a
47:15skyrocket on the company this whole momentum changed the wrestling business from cigar smokers
47:22and beer drinkers who want to see violence to having families in the front row that want to buy a ton of
47:27merchandise it definitely made wrestling so mainstream there was no denying that we were here to stay
47:41Wrestlemania 1 is a huge success it achieves more than Vince could have possibly imagined for his
47:48company but with greater success comes greater scrutiny and Vince becomes a target
47:55that expression of there's no such thing as bad publicity that's bs because there is the special
48:02investigation has turned up allegations that could outrage the biggest wrestling fan a legal fight is
48:08in store for the head of the world wrestling federation it's a scandal that threatens to knock
48:13him right out of the ring right on the heels of this huge success Vince finds himself caught up in a
48:19a series of scandals that threatened up in his entire world
48:37you
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