The Fall of the McMahon Family

WrestleTalk

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Transcript

00:00 America's greatest TV show of recent times is one of familial betrayal, corporate treachery,

00:06 sexual scandal and…

00:09 Succession.

00:10 I am, of course, talking about…

00:12 Monday Night Raw.

00:40 1.

00:46 Marking the Territory The story of the McMahon family doesn't begin

00:50 with Vincent Kennedy McMahon putting on WrestleMania 1.

00:54 It doesn't even start with his father, Vincent James McMahon.

00:58 Instead, it starts with Vincent's grandad.

01:00 That's Vinny K's grandad.

01:03 Or, um, Vinny J's dad.

01:06 Yeah.

01:08 Roderick James Jess McMahon.

01:11 No idea why he was called Jess.

01:13 Jess McMahon was born in 1882 in Queens, New York City as the son of hotel owner Roderick

01:18 McMahon and his wife Elizabeth, who were a pair of Irish immigrants from County Galway.

01:23 After getting a commercial diploma from Manhattan College at age 17, Jess and his brother Edward

01:28 took that business knowledge and took it into sports.

01:32 In the early 1900s, they became managing partners of the Olympic Athletic Club, a semi-professional

01:37 football team.

01:38 They founded the New York Lincoln Giants, a black baseball team who played at Harlem's

01:42 Olympic Field, and started a black professional basketball team, the Commonwealth Big Five.

01:48 The McMahon brothers had football, baseball and basketball teams to their name, but it

01:53 was a different sport where Jess would gain notoriety.

01:58 Boxing.

02:00 Because of his links with Harlem, Jess was able to book black fighters to cater to the

02:05 growing black population, with fights between black and white fighters during the largest,

02:09 most racially mixed crowds.

02:11 Jess McMahon was seen as a real fighters promoter, a promoter who booked boxers based on how

02:17 skilled they were, not because of the colour of their skin.

02:20 And he was so successful, Jess became the official matchmaker for Madison Square Garden,

02:27 starting the McMahon family connection with the famous venue that would last the better

02:31 part of a century.

02:33 And in 1932, he started another family lineage.

02:38 Professional Wrestling.

02:39 The McMahon family's first ever professional wrestling event took place at the Municipal

02:43 Stadium in Freeport.

02:45 The New York Territory in those days was a rough place to get started, with other promoters

02:50 fiercely protective of their turf, but Jess knew the right people and was able to book

02:54 the top stars at the time.

02:56 But it took 20 years for him to go from booker to owner.

03:00 In 1952, Jess created the Capital Wrestling Corporation with the pro wrestler Joseph Raymond

03:05 Toots, Mond and Vince McMahon.

03:08 Vincent J McMahon, that is.

03:10 Although he looked like it for a bit when he had that moustache, our generation's Vince

03:14 McMahon isn't 100 years old.

03:16 Vincent J McMahon was born in 1914, and once he was done serving as a coast guard during

03:22 World War II, he officially made promoting a family business.

03:26 He helped his dad put boxing in concerts, but it was pro wrestling that really captured

03:32 his imagination.

03:33 Because just like his son would see the potential for the new invention of pay-per-view distribution

03:37 decades later, Vinny J saw a gap in the market for pro wrestling on this new thing called

03:44 television, a burgeoning industry that needed content on its screens.

03:50 So in the mid-1950s, Vincent J bought a wrestling venue called Turner's Arena for $60,000,

03:57 which in today's money is around $700,000, and he renamed it the Capital Arena for brand

04:02 synergy with Capital Wrestling Corporation, which is what modern-day WWE NXT's main arena,

04:08 the Capital Wrestling Center, is named after.

04:11 On Thursday 5th January 1956, the first ever televised wrestling event from a McMahon took

04:19 place.

04:20 The show was a hit, and it got Vincent a Capital Wrestling TV deal for a weekly two-hour live

04:24 event broadcast in 11 states.

04:27 Capital Wrestling would become affiliated with the National Wrestling Alliance, a collection

04:31 of powerful wrestling promotions across the country who shared a singular world champion.

04:35 I'm sure introducing the McMahon family will never backfire on them.

04:41 And it was around this time Vincent reconciled with the 12-year-old son he had left when

04:46 he was just a few months old.

04:48 Despite somehow managing to create a near-monopoly within the NWA's actual monopoly, with Vincent

04:54 and Toots controlling almost 70% of the organisation's booking decisions, them and the CWC broke

05:00 away when their top star buddy Rogers was booked to lose the NWA World Heavyweight Championship

05:05 to Lou Fez.

05:07 Despite losing the belt, Vincent and Toots kept promoting Rogers as the NWA Champion,

05:12 until they awarded him the inaugural belt of the CWC's rebrand, the World Wide Wrestling

05:18 Federation World Heavyweight Championship, aka the WWWF.

05:27 They rejoined the NWA in 1971, and by 1979 they'd dropped the 'WIDE' from their

05:34 name, making the far easier to say World Wrestling Federation or WWF - a rebranding that was

05:40 the idea of that son he reconciled with 25 years before, who was also called Vince.

05:47 Before we go any further, thank you so much to all the people behind the scenes who help

05:50 make this video.

05:51 It's not just me, although I do pretty much everything around here.

05:55 It's Kelly, it's Pete, it's Ellis, it's Brandon, so many talented, so many expensive

06:01 people which is why we couldn't do these videos without the support of all of you on

06:05 Patreon.

06:06 If you like our content, please consider signing up over there on Patreon.com/wrestletalk,

06:10 where you'll also get loads of exclusive video content like WrestleTalk Extra - that's

06:15 where Luke and I do a deep dive into wrestling history and survival series Thunderdome - a

06:21 remote version of everyone's favourite wrestling trivia show.

06:25 That's patreon.com/wrestletalk.

06:28 Chapter 2 - Becoming a Titan Vince Jr, aka Vincent 'Kennedy' McMahon,

06:35 the one we know worst, had a rough childhood.

06:39 His father left his mother Victoria when he was just a few months old, taking his older

06:43 brother with him.

06:44 Vince instead lived with Victoria's various partners, including Leo Lupton, who was physically

06:49 abusive to both of them.

06:50 Vince would later say he regrets that Lupton died before he could kill him.

06:56 Although Vince and Jay re-entered his life when Vince Jr was 12, they had a strained

07:00 relationship, with Vince Jr being sent to military school.

07:03 Vince wanted to become a wrestler, but his dad shot him down, explaining how the wrestling

07:08 business worked.

07:10 Promoters don't appear on their own shows, and they should stay separate from the wrestlers

07:15 themselves.

07:16 Vince would, of course, go on to become one of the most infamous on-screen wrestling characters

07:21 of all time.

07:23 Not all fatherly advice is good, I don't know what to tell you.

07:25 Vince graduated from East Carolina University with a business degree in 1968, and by the

07:31 following year, he made his wrestling debut as a ring announcer for the WWWF.

07:37 He had to wait until 1971 to get his first proper break.

07:41 Vince and Jay didn't seem to want his son in the wrestling business, but one of his

07:45 promoters in Maine had just been caught stealing and let go, so he sent Vince down to run it,

07:51 promising his son this would be his first and last opportunity he'd ever get in this

07:56 industry.

07:57 He was right, but, you know, probably not in the way he intended.

08:00 Vince started promoting wrestling cards, and very quickly took up play-by-play commentary,

08:05 which he'd keep doing for the next 25 years, and somehow still didn't know the names

08:11 of moves.

08:14 Years before properly getting into the wrestling business, Vince had married his childhood

08:18 sweetheart Linda McMahon in 1966, where they had financially turbulent beginnings, filing

08:25 for bankruptcy in 1976, mostly because of 5 years of unpaid taxes and $1 million worth

08:31 of debt Vince had from promoting evil-knievel botching trying to jump Snake River Canyon.

08:55 Bouncing back, Vince and Linda founded Titan Sports in 1979, and three years later, they

09:01 bought his retiring father's WWF stock.

09:04 Even with Vincent J's decline in health, though, he still didn't trust his own son.

09:09 He hadn't wanted him to be a wrestler, didn't want him to be a promoter, and kept shutting

09:13 down Vince's aggressive expansion plans because it would ruin their relationship with

09:18 the NWA.

09:19 So even when leaving the company, he hedged his bets.

09:23 To make sure Vince didn't have full control, Vincent J kept Arnold Scarland, Phil Zacco

09:29 and Robert Morella - better known to fans as Gorilla Monsoon - with percentages in the

09:33 business.

09:34 Vince has no time for checks and balances, though, and bought them all out with his own

09:38 money, becoming the full CEO of the World Wrestling Federation.

09:42 And when his father passed away two years later in 1984, his reported wish wanting the

09:47 WWF to remain as a Northeastern promotion, Vince Jr pushed through his own plans, destroying

09:55 the territories.

09:56 He took the WWF out of the NWA in 1983 and began signing other promotions' top stars

10:03 with promises of national exposure on syndicated TV and bigger paydays.

10:08 He took Hulk Hogan, Jesse Ventura, Bobby Heenan and Mean Gene Oakland from the AWA, which

10:13 would consequently go out of business in 1991, and he got Roddy Piper, Greg Valentine and

10:19 Ricky Steamboat from Jim Crockett Promotions, which was defunct by 1988.

10:24 Vince said in a 1991 interview with Sports Illustrated, "He knew exactly what he was

10:29 doing.

10:30 Had my father known what I was going to do, he never would have sold his stock to me.

10:34 In the old days, there were wrestling fiefdoms all over the country, each with its own little

10:39 lord in charge.

10:40 Each little lord respected the rights of his neighbouring little lord.

10:44 No takeovers or raids were allowed.

10:46 There were maybe 30 of these tiny kingdoms in the US, and if I hadn't bought out my

10:50 dad there would still be 30 of them, fragmented and struggling.

10:54 I, of course, had no allegiance to those little lords."

10:58 Still, even after signing all this top talent and having nationwide TV exposure, he needed

11:04 to take a huge gamble to break through to the mainstream.

11:08 Taking the Super Show concept of NWA's Starrcade and crossing it over with celebrities like

11:13 Mr. T, Cindy Lauper, Muhammad Ali, Liberace and MLB manager Billy Martin, 1985's WrestleMania

11:21 established the pay-per-view model as a fundamental part of the wrestling business, and popularised

11:27 the means of distribution across the country.

11:31 Because before WrestleMania, shows like Starrcade were broadcast on CCTV, which no, isn't

11:37 loads of tiny security cameras.

11:39 CCTV stands for closed circuit television, and was how most people would watch big boxing

11:44 matches like the Rumble in the Jungle or the Thriller in Manila in the 60s and 70s.

11:50 But rather than ordering it on the phone and watching it at home, you would go to a theatre,

11:55 buy a ticket and watch it there.

11:57 And 1 million people still watched WrestleMania this way, because it was also available on

12:02 pay-per-view in people's homes.

12:05 McMahon made watching WrestleMania unprecedentedly accessible.

12:09 To this day, McMahon owns pay-per-view.com.

12:13 He literally owns the website, which just reroutes to the WWE Network.

12:18 WrestleMania's performance made McMahon the most successful promoter in the country,

12:24 making his WWF the number one promotion with no serious competitors for over a decade.

12:31 Instead, the greatest threat to himself and his business was Vince.

12:37 CHAPTER 3 - The Steroid Trial

12:40 In 1991, Dr. George Zahorian III was convicted of illegally supplying anabolic steroids.

12:47 During his trial, it came out that, while working as a ringside doctor, he supplied

12:52 steroids to the WWF.

12:54 Specifically, to Vince himself in his office at Titan Towers.

12:59 Two years later, Vince was indicted and charged with conspiring to distribute steroids, possession

13:04 of illegal steroids with intent to distribute, and embezzlement for allegedly using money

13:09 from Titan Sports Inc to purchase illegal steroids.

13:13 If Vince was found guilty, he was looking at up to 8 years in prison.

13:17 This trial would be known as United States vs. McMahon.

13:23 Not a wrestling match.

13:24 With a very real chance of going to jail for the first time ever, Vince had to think about

13:29 who would run the WWF in his place.

13:32 He decided Linda could handle the business day-to-day runnings, but for the creative

13:36 side of the company, he'd need to go back to his dad's advice.

13:40 Vince Sr. had once told Vince Jr. that if he ever needed anything in the wrestling business,

13:45 the person to call is his close friend, Jerry Jarrett.

13:51 The father of Jeff Jarrett was the wrestling genius behind Jerry Lawler and the Memphis-based

13:56 Continental Wrestling Association.

13:58 Jerry initially turned Vince down, but was eventually brought into WWF as a consultant

14:03 under the guise that he'd take over creative if McMahon was found guilty.

14:07 Vince was cleared due to insufficient evidence, so Jerry immediately requested his release

14:11 from WWF, which Vince not only granted, he also paid the entirety of the remainder of

14:17 Jerry's three-year contract as a thank you for stepping in when things got rough.

14:21 But this close call was the first time Vince had to seriously and practically consider

14:26 the process of succession, and how he was ill-prepared to keep this a family business.

14:34 So enter the fourth generation of wrestling McMahons.

14:39 CHAPTER FOUR - TO BE THE MCMAHON

14:42 Vince had two children with Linda - Shane, born in 1970, and Stephanie, born six years

14:47 later in 1976.

14:50 Unlike Vince's own dad, he got them working the family business as soon as he could.

14:55 From the age of 15, Shane worked in the warehouse on merch orders, he worked as a referee in

15:00 the ring, a producer, an announcer, and when he was 27, he spearheaded the launch of WWF's

15:06 first official website in 1997.

15:09 Stephanie, meanwhile, started as a model for WWF's sale and merchandise department before

15:14 becoming an account executive for the WWF offices in New York.

15:18 But again, going against his own father's advice, Vince didn't just have his children

15:23 working behind the scenes.

15:25 He also used them as on-screen characters throughout the late 90s onwards, including

15:31 one thankfully scrapped incest storyline where either Vince or Shane was going to be the

15:36 kayfabe father of Stephanie's real-life baby.

15:40 As the noughties developed, Vince integrated Shane and Stephanie more and more in the creative

15:45 and business aspects of the company.

15:47 They would be in position to take over WWE when, sorry, if Vince ever retired.

15:54 But the McMahons appeared to mistake family business succession with building a wrestling

15:58 match feud, in which there can only be one winner and one loser.

16:03 Vince would often play his employees, wrestlers and children off one another, fostering a

16:08 ruthless corporate culture.

16:11 Shane took the early lead, helping close big TV deals in Mexico and Brazil, founding his

16:16 own fintech company called China Broadband, and strongly pitching two ideas that were

16:21 genuinely ahead of their time.

16:23 Seeing the potential of the UFC in the early 2000s, when it was a fraction of the size

16:28 it is today, Shane pushed his father to buy the MMA promotion, but Vince shot it down.

16:35 Two decades later, UFC would merge with WWE as an equal in TKO Group Holdings.

16:41 And in 2006, eight years before the WWE Network and even a year before the launch of Netflix,

16:48 Shane wanted to bring back ECW as an online-only show, catering to literally hardcore wrestling

16:55 fans on the internet.

16:57 Vince overruled him, relaunching the promotion on traditional TV as WWECW.

17:03 Which was awful.

17:04 Whereas his grandfather had seen the potential of television and Vince had grabbed the mainstream

17:09 power of pay-per-view, Shane could have been a third generation innovator in wrestling

17:14 distribution.

17:15 Instead, in 2010, it was suddenly announced that effective immediately on January 1st,

17:21 Shane McMahon would be leaving WWE.

17:25 With Vince's wife Linda having resigned as the company's CEO to pursue a career in

17:29 politics just a few months beforehand, Vince and Stephanie, daddy and daddy's little

17:36 girl, became the only McMahons in WWE.

17:40 There was never an official explanation for Shane's departure, but in a 2016 interview

17:45 with Mick Foley, Shane said it was because the business was no longer fun, and he felt

17:50 his ideas weren't being listened to.

17:52 Because Shane had found himself in a handicap match with WWE's other power faction behind

17:58 the scenes, his sister and her boyfriend Paul.

18:02 While Shane focused predominantly on WWE's business development, Stephanie slowly took

18:06 over the company creative.

18:08 She replaced experienced TV writer Chris Kresge in November 2000 as head writer, despite only

18:14 being in her mid-20s, and was promoted to Senior Vice President of Creative Writing

18:19 in 2006.

18:20 A period that just so happened to coincide with Triple H's reign of terror.

18:26 The two began dating in 2000, following their romance storyline onscreen, and they got married

18:31 in 2003.

18:33 Even though Triple H didn't have an official backstage title, he was rumoured to influence

18:37 creative decisions.

18:38 For the Succession fans amongst you, he's Tom.

18:42 Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, Triple H's behind the scenes role was made official

18:47 the same year Shane officially left.

18:50 He was first made Executive Senior Advisor, then the following year, took over as Executive

18:55 Vice President, Talent and Live Events from long-time talent relations head John Laurinaitis.

19:00 By 2013, they added 'creative' to his Vice President title, giving him control over

19:06 WWE's creative direction.

19:08 It seemed Vince had chosen his successors, the power couple of Stephanie McMahon and

19:13 Paul Leveque.

19:14 Leveque was even given his own promotion, NXT, to one day prepare him for taking over

19:20 WWE.

19:21 But they had a powerful enemy who was closer to Vince than almost anyone.

19:27 Kevin Dunne!

19:29 Give me the Crash Zooms right now!

19:31 Kevin Dunne was WWE's Executive Vice President of Production and Vince's right-hand man

19:36 for three decades.

19:38 Perhaps seeing them as a threat, he never took to Stephanie and Triple H in the same

19:42 way he did for Shane, and the feeling was seemingly mutual.

19:46 Despite their growing power backstage, Stephanie and Trips couldn't control Dunne, and when

19:51 business started to take a downturn in 2012, Dunne struck.

19:55 Kevin Dunne reportedly set up a meeting with himself, Vince, businessman and author James

20:01 Frey and Shane, who had been gone from the company for two years, where he was now the

20:06 CEO of You On Demand, China's first VOD and pay-per-view service.

20:12 In that meeting, Shane allegedly pitched the solution to WWE's declining ratings.

20:19 He'd take over all the creative, including the writer's room.

20:22 Apparently when Stephanie found out about the meeting, she went white in the face while

20:27 Triple H freaked out.

20:30 But once again, Vince shot Shane down.

20:33 For now.

20:35 Stephanie and Triple H were not just enjoying behind-the-scenes power, they had it onscreen

20:40 too, running WWE as the Authority Faction, trying to recapture Vince McMahon's heel

20:45 authority figure antagonist from 15 years previously.

20:49 But ratings still kept falling, fans were growing frustrated, and everyone had just

20:54 decided they didn't like WWE's next top star Roman Reigns anymore.

20:59 So in 2016, maybe remembering that 2012 meeting, Shane returned to WWE in one of the most psychologically

21:06 loaded McMahon segments ever.

21:09 Vince was about to present the Vincent James McMahon Legacy of Excellence Award - an award

21:14 named after his father - to his daughter Stephanie.

21:17 They were then interrupted by the returning Shane, who told Vince he knew his secrets,

21:23 that Vince had "covered a lot of things up" and he knows about "The Lockbox".

21:32 Which is super weird in retrospect.

21:34 The MacGuffin of The Lockbox was, like many other things at the time, then completely

21:39 dropped and never followed up on.

21:41 Shane then faced The Undertaker at WrestleMania 32 for control of Monday Night Raw, lost and

21:47 gained control of Raw anyway.

21:48 Shane said he was only back in the family business purely so his children could see

21:53 him wrestle, and not for any political power grabs backstage.

21:58 By 2019 he was a producer again, and by 2022 he was booking the Men's Royal Rumble match.

22:03 But oh Icarus, you climbed too far up the Titantron.

22:09 That match is considered one of the worst Rumbles in history, mostly because Shane created

22:14 chaos, had everyone in an uproar, pissed off everyone in the Rumble, openly buried other

22:20 producers and was changing things that Vince wanted.

22:24 Several days later, Vince fired his own son from the family business.

22:29 But that was the least of the problems the McMahons would face in 2022.

22:35 CHAPTER 5 - THE FALL In June 2022, Vince McMahon stepped down as

22:42 the CEO and Chairman of WWE due to mounting allegations of sexual misconduct.

22:47 The Wall Street Journal had reported WWE's own board was investigating Vince over hush

22:52 money payments to multiple female employees.

22:56 These totaled just shy of $20 million between 2006 and 2022.

23:02 He kept hold of his creative booking duties and because wrestling is wrestling, was cheered

23:07 one night when he came out defiant on an episode of SmackDown, but he ultimately resigned the

23:12 following month.

23:13 For the first time in over 40 years, Vince McMahon was no longer in wrestling.

23:20 In his absence, the McMahon, Helmsley and now also Nick Khan power trio took control

23:25 of WWE.

23:26 Stephanie and Khan were named co-CEOs, while Triple H became Chief Content Officer, which

23:31 is essentially the head booker.

23:33 It might not have been the steady succession the company would've hoped for, but WWE

23:37 had successfully gone from father to daughter, while the creative became the best it had

23:43 done in years.

23:45 But just one more thing.

23:47 Vince McMahon forced his way back in control just six months later.

23:52 Vince might have resigned as Chairman and CEO, but he still majority owned the company,

23:57 a position he used to block any potential sale of WWE unless they brought him back.

24:03 So in January 2023, in a corporate coup, Vince bulldozed his way back onto the board and

24:09 reinstated himself as its chairman, where he replaced many of those who had blocked

24:14 another attempted return the previous month.

24:18 Like his own daughter.

24:19 Just several days later, Stephanie McMahon resigned from her position and left the company

24:24 entirely.

24:26 Nick Khan and her husband Triple H stayed on.

24:29 In that half a year out, Vince had an opportunity to keep WWE a family business, which could

24:36 have continued, maybe even thrived, under his own daughter Stephanie as CEO.

24:42 But like he once said about the NWO, if anyone was going to kill his creation, he's going

24:48 to be the one to do it.

24:50 Because really, Vince screwed the McMahon family out of WWE.

24:57 On April 3rd 2023, Vince, along with Dana White and Harry Emanuel, announced a merger

25:03 between WWE and UFC to form TKO, which would be owned by Endeavor in a deal worth $21 billion.

25:12 But crucially, Emanuel promised Vince McMahon would still be in control of WWE.

25:18 It turned out to be a Faustian bargain, because after all the paperwork was completed and

25:23 the merger was finalised in September, Vince became more and more isolated from the WWE

25:30 he fired his own son and daughter from to keep control of.

25:34 Maybe it was because Ari secretly thought Vince was past it.

25:37 Maybe Nick Khan was plotting to bring his friend The Rock in all along.

25:41 Maybe Endeavor, just like their public SEC filing laid out, identified McMahon as a threat

25:46 to their own business on account of those sexual misconduct allegations.

25:51 On the 25th January 2024, a lawsuit was filed against Vince McMahon, accusing him of physically,

25:58 emotionally and sexually abusing a past employee, as well as trafficking her to other people.

26:04 Vince denied the allegations, but nevertheless, on the very next day, he resigned from WWE

26:10 for the second time.

26:11 But this time was different.

26:13 This was in a post-merger world.

26:15 There was no take-back clause, no legal mechanism for Vince to return to power, which meant

26:20 that January 26th marked the last time Vince McMahon would ever work for WWE again.

26:28 Which also meant that for the first time ever in its history, for WWE, the WWF, the WWWF

26:36 or even CWC, the company no longer had one of the four generations of McMahon in official

26:43 positions.

26:44 No more Jess, no more Vincent, no more Linda, no more Stephanie, no more Shane, no more

26:50 Vince.

26:53 In fact, wrestling has more than one royal family, and with the Rock and Roman Reigns,

26:57 it seems like they're taking over WWE instead.

27:01 Watch my video breaking down the fascinating history of arguably now the most powerful

27:06 family in wrestling, the Anaways, the Maivia's, the Samoan Wrestling Dynasty.

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