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Netflix released Thursday a trailer for its highly anticipated six-part series profiling former WWE chairman Vince McMahon.
Mr. McMahon will cover both McMahon’s rise and the scandals that eventually led to his final exit from WWE earlier this year. The final product was the result of 200-plus hours of interviews with McMahon, members of the McMahon family, and others around the wrestling business.
McMahon purchased the WWF from his father, Vince Sr., in 1982. He proceeded to turn the company into the biggest wrestling promotion in the world, a rise that coincided with the demise of the old territorial system in the United States. Even WCW, which had been bankrolled by Ted Turner and briefly surpassed the WWF, fell by the wayside in 2001 and left the WWF with a near-monopoly domestically.
All the while, McMahon built the WWF, which eventually rebranded as WWE, in his image for better and worse.
Wrestling fans had come to believe the 79-year-old was untouchable. Beyond his success in the business, the federal government failed to get him convicted of distributing steroids to wrestlers in a trial that concluded in 1994.
Even after reports surfaced of McMahon paying out millions to confidentially settle allegations of misconduct, he returned to WWE after stepping down in 2022 to help facilitate a massive merger with the UFC. He was named the executive chairman of TKO Group Holdings, the new parent company for the two properties.
However, McMahon resigned for good after the Wall Street Journal‘s Khadeeja Safdar reported on a lawsuit filed by Janel Grant, a former WWE employee. Grant alleged that McMahon had sexually abused her and trafficked her to others within the company.
A lawyer for Grant said in May she paused the lawsuit amid a federal investigation into the allegations.
Mr. McMahon will premiere Sept. 25 on Netflix.