[audience cheering]
[backing vocalists] ♪ Baby! ♪
[upbeat music playing]
[audience cheering]
♪ I was just a boy ♪
♪ Everybody told me ♪
♪ What I should do, who I should be ♪
♪ Ain't never understood The kinda man I am ♪
♪ I do my own thinking ♪
- ♪ Got a lot of big plans, stand back ♪ - ♪ Stand back ♪
♪ I'm a man running wild ♪
♪ Heading for the top ♪
♪ Never slowing down And I'm never gonna stop ♪
♪ Along the way you're gonna see A lot of men drop ♪
♪ Baby, watch them drop ♪
♪ Baby, baby ♪
♪ Headed for the top, stand back ♪
♪ Stand back ♪
♪ Stand back! ♪
- Woo! - [crowd cheering and applauding]
[applause fades]
- [bell ringing] - [crowd cheering]
[Gorilla Monsoon] Every man for himself in there!
And the Hulkster at this moment cleaning house on The Honky Tonk Man!
Look at him!
Professional wrestling. It's always been popular,
but lately it's been emerging from second-rate arenas
to attract a whole new generation of fans.
[crowd cheering]
[Dave Meltzer] '84 and '85 was a very pivotal year in wrestling.
Things were changing rapidly.
WrestleMania I was very, very successful.
Vince was ahead of everyone when it came to understanding how to market
and had the more modern product, and he had the bigger stars.
[reporter] This once-scorned pastime has grown so trendy
that NBC will soon begin a regular late-night television program
combining rock, comedy, and wrestling.
[upbeat music playing]
[McMahon] Saturday Night's Main Event was on NBC late night
whenever Saturday Night Live takes a break,
And had a big impact on the perception of the business.
That was a real big deal to be on network television.
My love, my life, wrestling, is on network television.
- [commentator 1] Look at that! - [commentator 2] My goodness!
- [screams] - Oh my God.
That was crazy.
[Gorilla Monsoon] Oh yeah!
Hogan scoops him up!
[exclaiming]
[Prichard] When you look at pivotal moments in our industry,
Saturday Night's Main Event was a huge coup.
[crowd cheering]
So, WrestleMania is this huge success,
and they start doing more TV shows, more live shows.
Now they're out there every night, touring the country.
But you're doing all of this on the backs of the wrestlers,
who have to work twice as hard to make the business grow.
We wrestled seven days a week. I don't know if people knew that.
We had no time off.
[Jimmy Hart] It was seven days a week, 52 weeks a year,
and so it was a pretty hard grind.
- [Gorilla] No, he's not going to-- - [Gene Okerlund] Over the top rope!
I wish they'd given me, uh, a few more days off a year.
[Meltzer] They could have been better at managing the schedule,
especially in the late '80s, when it was just a disaster.
...do the video package.
[Meltzer] The schedule now, I don't think it's that bad.
They're on guaranteed contracts,
so they're not under the same pressure to perform while hurt.
In the '80s, if you were hurt and didn't wrestle,
you were not paid.
Because of that, you wrestled hurt all the time,
and the injuries got worse and worse and worse, and you used painkillers.
It was brutal.
But at that time, it was about capturing the most amount of money,
and that is how they did it.
Wrestlers, as a group, were often exploited.
These wrestlers were not unionized.
They didn't have medical protection.
There was definitely a need for a union in wrestling.
That's what Jesse Ventura was trying to do.
Please welcome Jesse "The Body" Ventura.
[applause]
[Terry Bollea] Right before WrestleMania 2,
Jesse was trying to start a union and undermine Vince.
I'm here to make sure that Vince McMahon tells it like it is...
[Bollea] I was on Vince McMahon's team all the way,
so I went straight to Vince, said, "Jesse's stirring shit up, man."
"You know, he's trying to start a union here,
and you're gonna have bunch of wrestlers walk out on you at Madison Square Garden."
"Just letting you know what's up."
Hulk Hogan double-crossed Jesse
and ratted on all the guys that were trying to get a union going.
Hulk Hogan stooged him out.
Hogan ratted him out.
The whole thing was a sham,
something, uh, he pulled out of the air,
mostly like, I don't know, "We should get together."
And quite frankly, no one in the locker room
would ever get behind Jesse.
So what Vince would do, he called each wrestler, one by one.
He's like, "I know about the meeting."
"Everybody that shows up for this will not have a job in the morning."
So nobody showed up.
It was almost always acknowledged that these guys will never go for it.
These guys will never stick together. And the wrestlers would tell me that too.
"We say 'boycott WrestleMania' all together,
and half the guys are gonna go back and do it and undercut us."
Unionizing never happened.
And I think it's less likely to happen now than it was right before WrestleMania 2.
[announcer] WrestleMania 2.
What the world has come to.
[McMahon] WrestleMania I was such a success, so what do you do to top this?
Oh. I know.
We'll have an event from New York,
we'll have one from Chicago, and we're gonna have one from LA.
Three shows in one day?
Okay. It's kind of impressive.
WrestleMania 2 and the three cities, that was a disaster.
To try to send a signal from three different cities?
It felt like we weren't in control. Vince could not be in all three places.
Beg your pardon? We have technical problems.
I just remember after that, Vince goes, "We'll never do that again!" You know?
[indistinct]
[Shoemaker] WrestleMania 2 was a success in that it made money
and that it wasn't a total catastrophe.
[commentator] Beautiful...
[Shoemaker] But even if it was a commercial success,
it wasn't a spectacle on the level of WrestleMania I.
So WrestleMania III, then, was like. "Hmm."
"What am I gonna do?"
I knew there was a very large stadium in Pontiac, Michigan.
It seats 93,000 people or something like that.
It was almost like, "Wow, could you really do that?" [laughs]
I thought, "With the right attraction we could."
That involved Andre the Giant.
[Gorilla] Andre the Giant, ladies and gentlemen,
is the only undefeated superstar in professional wrestling.
Hogan versus Andre.
[commentator] Another headbutt, and Hogan is in trouble.
[McMahon] Even though they had met many times in the past,
in order to sell tickets, we would sell it as if they had never met.
But I had to convince Andre to come back to the business.
[Bollea] At the time, Andre's health was failing him.
He needed crazy back surgery, as I recall.
[McMahon] Andre did a film in the UK...
Were you burned by acid?
...and was gonna cash his chips in.
"Done as much as I can in the business. I'm hurting. I can't move. I'm in pain."
So I went over in the middle of that film, said, "Andre, here's what I want to do."
"I want you to get the operation that you refuse to get,
and I want you to come back
and draw the largest crowd that's ever been drawn."
"How many seats, boss?" "93,000."
[mimics Andre's laughter]
He laughs.
I said, "No, Andre, I'm serious."
"You versus Hogan with the way we can present this, you as the heel."
Because he'd never been a heel, a bad guy.
He was always a babyface.
So he thought about it, and... "Okay. I'll get the operation."
[Andre] I'm here for one reason.
To challenge you for a world championship match
in the WrestleMania.
[crowd cheering]
Are you or are you not gonna fight him in WrestleMania III?
Yes or no?!
Yeah!
[cheering]
It was such a huge promotion.
They're talking about it all over the world.
Heavyweight champion Hulk Hogan to defend his crown
against challenger Andre the Giant.
[reporter 1] So great is the lure that WrestleMania III
will draw the largest audience
ever to witness an indoor sporting or entertainment event
in the history of the world.
We sold 93,000 seats.
[reporter 2] We're expecting fans from France, Germany, Africa, South America,
the Orient, all over the world.
[bell ringing]
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the magnificent Silverdome...
[crowd cheering]
...and welcome to WrestleMania III!
[cheering intensifies]
And now, the Queen of Soul,
Ms. Aretha Franklin!
[crowd cheering]
[playing "America the Beautiful"]
♪ Oh, beautiful... ♪
[Gorilla] Take a look, Jesse, it's unreal.
History will be made here this afternoon at the Pontiac Silverdome.
Little Beaver just gave Bundy a shot in the boiler.
Rowdy Roddy with a sleeper.
From behind with a cane!
- Bombs away! - [Ventura] He got him!
Oh! He broke his guitar!
[Gorilla] And Alice Cooper is inside.
[Ventura] He keeps holding pythons!
[Gorilla] The Stars and Stripes pinned on the end of that equalizer.
♪ ...shining sea ♪
[crowd cheering]
[McMahon] There were a lot of great attractions
underneath this huge main event,
but it was Hogan and Andre that drew that house.
Sooner or later, you gotta live and die, and you gotta face the truth.
And for you, Andre the Giant, it's time to face the truth, brother.
[Okerlund] Hulk Hogan has never met a man bigger than him, stronger than him,
and with a burning will inside, more than Andre the Giant.
[McMahon] Andre never told Hogan
whether or not he would allow Hogan to win the match.
And Hulk kept coming to me, "Did you talk to Andre?"
I said, "I did." "Well, what did he say?"
I said, "There's not gonna be any problem."
You couldn't force him to do anything. Come on. He's a giant.
[Bollea] I sat in the locker room with Andre.
I would say, "Hey, boss, any idea what we're doing out there?" "Don't worry."
Finally got a hold of Vince, I said, "What's gonna happen?"
"What am I doing out there? Am I winning or losing?"
He goes, "Andre will do the right thing. Don't worry." What does that mean?
[crowd cheering]
[Gorilla] This is the main event of the evening.
He weighs 520 pounds.
Andre the Giant!
And now, his opponent, Hulk Hogan!
[Bollea] When I walked out to the Silverdome,
I just couldn't believe how full it was.
I said, "This is either gonna be the easiest thing I've ever done,
or this is gonna be a total disaster. There's no in between."
[Ventura] This is the biggest match in the history of professional wrestling.
[Gorilla] The irresistible force meeting the immovable object.
[Ventura] Look at the size of the giant!
Up!
[McMahon] We had this giant, and we had this individual with so much charisma,
who was almost a superhero. [chuckles]
And the two of them colliding, it was awesome.
- [crowd cheering] - [Gorilla speaking indistinctly]
During the match, it was the first time I realized how bad his back really was.
I told him in the ring, "Boss, stay close to the ropes,"
because I knew he couldn't get back up on his own.
But we got through the match, and then out of nowhere, he goes, "Slam!"
And I went, "What?" And when I said, "What?" he came at me.
[thud]
[Bollea] After I slammed him, I dropped the leg and covered him.
I didn't know if this was gonna be a one-two kickout.
I had no idea if I was gonna win or lose the match.
[interviewer] Until when?
[Bollea] Until Andre didn't kick out.
[Gorilla] It's over! It's over!
[Ventura] Unbelievable! I never thought it could be done, Gorilla Monsoon.
That moment in time, it's just something very, very special.
[Gorilla] World Wrestling Entertainment heavyweight champion, Hulk Hogan!
[Ventura] Listen to the emotion!
[crowd cheering]
[McMahon] That's probably the greatest attraction we've ever had.
That's something I'm very, very proud of today.
WrestleMania III is a key part of the WWE and Vince McMahon mythology
and story of wrestling,
that Andre the Giant passed the torch to Hogan.
The reality is Hogan was a bigger star than Andre before that match happened.
[Gorilla] Hulk Hogan, electrifying this capacity crowd!
" Andre had never lost."
[Ventura] The first time in 15 years Andre the Giant had ever been defeated.
Nah, Andre lost.
- [Ventura] Andre is out! - [Gorilla] He's out! I can't believe it!
"Andre had never been slammed."
Been slammed probably 25 times before that. Maybe more.
[Gorilla] Oh! Look at that!
[thud]
They've said 93,000 for so many years, they probably believe it.
93,000 people.
93,173 people.
We held the record for 93,000 in that building.
Yeah, it was actually 78,000 in the building.
[Shoemaker] I don't know why this is one of the greatest controversies
in pro wrestling history.
I think the truth is probably somewhere in the middle,
and I'm not sure that it matters at all.
Nothing that any wrestler,
that anybody involved in wrestling tells you, should be regarded as fact.
But regardless of the real attendance figure,
WrestleMania III was an enormous success.
[upbeat music playing]
[Gorilla] History is made here in the Silverdome, Pontiac, Michigan,
and that guy right there has made history all over the world.
[McMahon] A victory for Hogan at that time
would build him greater as an entertainer
and an athlete and representation of our brand,
but of course, the brand comes up that way too.
♪ I am a real American ♪
♪ Fight for the rights... ♪
WrestleMania III changed the business, and it launched me into superstar stratus.
["Real American" by Rick Derringer playing]
[Robin Leach] He is the most famous
and successful professional wrestler the world has ever seen.
His name alone can generate millions of dollars of revenue,
and when he performs at indoor arenas,
he has attracted bigger crowds than the Rolling Stones and even the Pope.
[White] When Hulkamania was running wild,
he gotta be the most popular person in the world.
You book Hogan on the card, the building sold out. That was it.
♪ I am a real American... ♪
[Bob Costas] He was a figure of national fame.
You didn't even really have to be someone who regularly watched wrestling.
Hulk Hogan had broken through.
[crowd cheering]
[Stephanie] At that time, Hulk Hogan--
That's all anybody talked about was Hulk Hogan,
so I do remember feeling a little bit of resentment as a kid,
because my dad never got the credit
that he deserved for creating all of this.
After...
[White] Every word that came out of Hogan's mouth was Vince talking.
[McMahon] Better stock 'em on your shelves.
Make sure you've got plenty of 'em right on your shelves.
Hogan and Vince were like one person. Vince came up with the idea, Hogan did it.
[Bollea] Every single thing was Vince.
When he would tell me stuff, I'd be, "Eh, I don't know, man,"
but I'd do it anyway,
because everything he did turned to gold.
[announcer] With wrestling superstars...
It's like having a real match right in your own home.
[McMahon] This huge swell of fans and what have you
that we now had, middle-class America,
it's like, "Let's bring this together and let's sell it."
You can start by getting in shape with a Hulkamania workout set.
[announcer] 1-900-454-HULK.
[all] Yay!
[reporter] One of the most remarkable success stories
has been written by the WWE,
as marketing merchandise grossed over 200 million last year alone.
I'm Vince McMahon...
[reporter] The man behind the magic, the man behind the mic
is Vince McMahon, Jr.
[White] Vince never stopped.
He didn't complain about the hours he worked.
He's a workaholic.
As Hogan was out doing the shows and drawing the money,
Vince was out setting up other stuff.
[McMahon] At that time, because of the success that we had,
Hogan wanted to be part of Hollywood.
And I'm going, "Kill myself. I'm gonna lose Hogan to Hollywood now."
And I said, "Terry, you're going to do a film, I'll do one with you."
I knew nothing about filmmaking.
So Terry and I decided, "Well, all right, we'll go write a movie."
It was basically Vince and I spending two, two and a half days, in a hotel room
writing the whole script.
Didn't know what the hell we were doing. We were just having fun.
[announcer] The movie! The Hulkster as you've never seen before!
No Holds Barred!
- [yelling] - [clattering]
It's not the world's worst movie...
[groaning]
...but uh, it wasn't great.
What's that smell?
Dookie.
[Prichard] It was pretty hokey.
Dookie?
I thought, "I'll do this great movie, and everyone's gonna wanna see it."
Not exactly the way it worked out.
[sobbing]
[McMahon] It didn't prevent Hogan from then going to Hollywood,
but it delayed it for a while.
[interviewer] When did you notice Hulkamania was starting to fade?
You know, I go back, and I look at WrestleMania VI.
[Gorilla] The Hulkster putting his title on the line
against the Ultimate Warrior...
At that time, for Hogan, his star may have been fading a little bit.
Do you want to live forever?
[McMahon] You can't stay on top every day, every year.
It was probably time for Hogan to be on the bench for a while.
Hulk's getting older, and you need something new.
[Gorilla] The Ultimate Warrior!
[Prichard] And Warrior had a groundswell of popularity.
[Gorilla] Listen to the ovation, Jess, for the Ultimate Warrior!
[Bollea] The Ultimate Warrior was built better than me,
and his colors were brighter than me.
The only problem he had was he wasn't in love with this business.
It was a situation, behind that shiny object, there wasn't much go.
But I did what Andre did for me. I passed the torch to him.
[Gorilla] He's impervious to those moves!
[Ventura] Unbelievable! Hogan has never had anyone do that!
[crowd cheering]
[Gorilla] Look out! The big splash win!
[Ventura] Two! And out! He got him!
[Prichard] Warrior became the champion and was very popular with the audience.
As popular as Hulk? No.
[crowd cheering]
[Prichard] As time went on, Warrior wasn't all that we had hoped he would be,
and he was not a popular person backstage,
so immediately you look at, "Oh my God, we need to move back to Hulk."
We had this storyline, uh, in which Sergeant Slaughter,
who was a big, huge fan favorite...
[man] Sergeant Slaughter
[McMahon] ...he was a Marine Corps drill sergeant
and a great American,
so he, as a babyface, a good guy in the parlance of our business,
was turning into a bad guy.
And, like any good organization, you're always like,
"What can I take from pop culture? What's happening out in the world,
and how can we present it in a different fashion?"
So, there was a lot of heat, as we call it, with Iraq and USA.
Troops and civilians on edge in the Middle East.
So, okay, good. Then we can capitalize on that.
[Sergeant Slaughter] Atten-hut!
[Okerlund] My guest this week, ladies and gentlemen,
is the former United States military man, Sergeant Slaughter.
[Ventura] Yeah, Sergeant "DD." Dishonorable Discharge.
[McMahon] Sergeant Slaughter sort of was drafted
into the Iraqi culture, so to speak,
and now he wanted to represent Iraq.
I will take the flag
of the brave Iraqi country
and raise it high in the air!
[McMahon] We had this big storyline going with Hogan versus Sergeant Slaughter,
USA versus Iraq, and it was working.
It was working really well.
And then all of a sudden, from a reality standpoint...
ta-ta-ta-dum.
Iraq invades Kuwait. We have Desert Storm.
As I report to you,
air attacks are underway against military targets in Iraq.
[Prichard] Having Sarge as an Iraqi sympathizer,
it was way too fresh, way too new and in the now.
It was like, "Wait a minute. I've got a relative over there,
or a niece, or something like that, that's serving our country."
The audience didn't want to see it.
[Bollea] We got to the point where
Sergeant Slaughter was getting death threats at home,
they wanted to kill his wife and his kids,
so as far as telling a wrestling story, it worked awesome.
I just thought that, "Phew, boy, this was a risky move here."
Americans could die in this thing,
so change it up, back off with the story line a little bit,
but still have the match.
[Gorilla] Once again, the largest pay-per-view audience
in the history of pay-per-view.
Aw, no! Give me a break here!
It's not over yet!
Hulkster tearing it to pieces!
You're not gonna do that to the United States of America.
It's over!
[crowd cheering]
[Gorilla] He got him! He got him!
At the end of the day, the great American won.
[Gorilla] He did it for World Wrestling Entertainment
and for the United States of America!
The wrestling of the early to mid-'80s, I liked it a lot.
I was very amused by it.
But it took a nastier turn somewhere down the line,
and at some point, it ceased to be something
that I was comfortable being involved with.
[McMahon] You learn from everything,
and since you have no control over world events,
you have to be very careful associating yourself with events
in the real world.
Anything can happen, so don't go there.
[Prichard] So we move back to Hulk, and there wasn't, "Thank God Hulk's back."
The audience was tired of Hulk,
at least Hulk in that role of being the All-American, being the hero.
They were sick of him.
And on top of that,
there started being the whispers of the Dr. Zahorian trial
and whispers of all this other stuff.
In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania next Monday,
a doctor will go on trial charged with prescribing anabolic steroids
to several professional wrestlers.
[reporter] Dr. George Zahorian has been indicted by a federal grand jury
on 15 counts of distributing muscle-building steroids.
To my right, Dr. George Zahorian. Thank you for joining us this week...
[McMahon] Dr. George Zahorian was appointed
by the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission
as the doctor of note for WWE.
We had nothing to do with who was appointed.
His role was to make sure that all the laws
of the state athletic commission were followed.
He would be in our locker rooms and things of that nature,
and he began to sell steroids to our talent.
At that time, steroids were part of the culture
because all the stars during that time period had the perfect bodies,
and so it was the norm.
You know? Like people go to Starbucks before work,
people took steroids because they were wrestlers or actors
or baseball players or hockey players or football players.
[Costas] It was an era where steroid use in sports ran amok.
If you just looked at the wrestlers themselves,
they went from, you know, a burly guy who could plausibly be introduced
as having come off his grandpa's farm in Iowa,
built his muscles from hoisting bales of hay,
to these guys who were like cyborgs.
The WWE reeked of steroids.
It's obvious.
[Okerlund] Now you tell me he ain't ripped.
Dr. George Zahorian would come, and he would have steroids and painkillers
and sleeping pills and different things
that he would then prescribe and sell to the talent.
He would check you for your match. Blood pressure, pulse rate, and all that.
And it's like, "I need a few other things,"
and then you'd negotiate for your steroids and your pills.
[McMahon] It wasn't illegal to buy steroids from a physician.
I bought some from him.
But it was illegal to prescribe them just to sell them.
[Prichard] Steroids, early on, they were legal.
However, when they became illegal, that's when it became an issue.
[Shane McMahon] Following Reagan's era of the war on drugs...
[Reagan] Just say no.
[Shane] ...the laws started changing,
and at some point,
steroids were categorized as a Class III substance.
[Prichard] The feeling was that doctors were prescribing them
not for the purpose that they were intended for.
[McMahon] So George Zahorian was arrested by the federal government.
The government came down hard on him and sent him to jail.
It's hard to believe what's occurred today.
All of the media hoopla behind the steroid trial
definitely came at a really bad time for Vince.
We had just started the WBF, the World Bodybuilding Federation.
Here comes the World Bodybuilding Federation.
I've always enjoyed bodybuilding and physiques,
so I thought maybe I could get these bodybuilders
to perform various routines
and add a lot of entertainment value to it.
Turned out not a good time to do that,
because bodybuilders, all they do is take steroids.
So, the writing's on the wall. This is not gonna work.
I decided, "Well, let's fold this."
At that time, there was a lot of heat,
and I felt like, boy, I'm getting hit from all sides.
Most of us think of professional wrestling as harmless entertainment
and Hulk Hogan as the King of the Ring.
But was there a sinister side to his success?
[reporter] Dr. Zahorian testified he had treated Hulk Hogan
for a serious steroid abuse problem.
After the Zahorian trial, Vince ended up being pressured by the media
to start steroid testing.
When you see this symbol,
you can be assured of drug-free sports entertainment
that you and your entire family can be proud of.
I held a press conference and said, "Hey, look, I took steroids."
"Not anymore."
"We're gonna establish protocols and procedures
to make certain that none of our performers do either."
World Wrestling Entertainment will be the standard-bearer
for drug-free sports and entertainment.
[upbeat music playing]
[McMahon] The same day, Hulk Hogan went on The Arsenio Hall Show.
Your name came up recently when a doctor got himself into trouble.
- Have you heard about this? - Yeah, I've heard about it.
I remember talking with Vince about going on Arsenio Hall.
He thought it was a bad idea.
My suggestion to him is to come clean.
That's not what happened.
I'm not a steroid abuser, and I do not use steroids.
It was like, "Oh God, please. You know. Just tell the truth. It's so much easier."
[reporter] Hulk Hogan went on The Arsenio Hall Show
and told everybody that he only took steroids three times.
He lied like a dog.
I myself injected him personally.
I injected Hogan with steroids many times.
I self-destructed my own self, you know.
That was one of the worst decisions I ever made was not listening to Vince.
When you do stuff like that, uh, and don't tell the truth,
then it's an open door for people to come get you,
and, unfortunately, we were caught in the crosshairs of that as well.
I was never assigned to cover wrestling,
but pro wrestling was so highly rated on TV it was hard to ignore,
and I slowly began to feed it into my column.
There was a newspaper columnist, Phil Mushnick, with The New York Post.
Try to be nice here, but there's nothing nice to say about him.
He seemed to be on a vendetta against the company
and Vince in particular.
Phil Mushnick was digging for anything he could.
I don't know why he has a vendetta, still does, against our company,
against our form of entertainment.
Against me. I don't know why.
'Cause he's a dirtbag.
[tense music playing]
[Mushnick] What Vince had by running wrestling
is that it's wrestling.
So the real reporters, for the most part,
"It's wrestling. We don't wanna waste our time covering it."
And Phil Mushnick was the one guy to cover it,
and he wrote very strongly against Vince. Stronger than I would write.
Back then, no one had seen anything written critical of pro wrestling
in mainstream media.
And when I first wrote this stuff, my mailbox was stuffed with messages,
and they essentially all read the same.
"You don't know the half of it."
"You don't know how truly bad it is within the ring
and within the locker rooms."
And I returned some calls, and it was mind-blowing.
[Shoemaker] You know, as wrestling becomes more popular,
naturally, people are interested in the stories
of what's going on behind the scenes.
And pulling back the curtain in the pro wrestling world
can be pretty shocking.
You know, the stories of depravity, of sex, of violence, of drug use...
We would have been looked upon, in today's society,
as some of the worst human beings walking the face of the Earth.
I mean, we abused the hell out of women.
All of us did.
You know, they was like a toy for us.
You don't have to do a lot of research to understand
that being a woman in or around
the pro wrestling world at this point in history
was not necessarily a safe place to be.
I hear some horrible stuff about women in wrestling.
Horrible.
With us now, ladies and gentlemen, "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka.
[White] For example, the Jimmy Snuka thing.
When that girl got killed.
In 1983, Jimmy Snuka...
[crowd cheering]
...was the most popular wrestler in the company at the time.
Something happened in a hotel room in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
His girlfriend hit her head and died.
The forensic pathologist who investigated thought it was a homicide,
but, at the time, no charges were ever filed.
"Superfly" Jimmy Snuka.
Was the power of Vince involved in that?
I think that Vince had a hand in making it go away.
I mean, exactly what, I don't know.
And hell, brother, is gonna be hot.
Hot, brother.
No doubt.
At this point, most fans didn't know about these darker stories about pro wrestling.
Phil Mushnick was one of the first people
to really bring this out into the public's face.
[Meltzer] Phil Mushnick was vigilant against Vince.
He had told me once, and he said,
"I've got a story. The day I write it, they may have to close the doors."
A battle royale in professional wrestling over new allegations of sexual harassment
by top officials in the sport.
This growing scandal could put wrestling down for the count.
There was so much going on at the time,
and one accusation is that someone from our organization
was coming on to someone on the ring crew.
[Mushnick] The ring boy scandal began with a fellow named Mel Phillips,
who was what they called a ring boss.
He would bring with him ring boys.
In too many cases,
these ring boys were underage, and they were being sexually abused.
[reporter] Former ring boy Tom Cole
says that top WWE executives sexually harassed and abused ring boys,
the teenagers hired to put up and take down rings at matches.
Mel Phillips was a total pedophile that preyed on young boys,
and if these young boys weren't complying with their requests for sexual favors,
they weren't hired.
And then I learned there were others involved.
Terry Garvin, an executive in Connecticut,
and Pat Patterson, one of McMahon's top executives.
Here at ringside, Vince McMahon along with wrestling great Pat Patterson...
[Prichard] In a business that was very homophobic,
Pat was gay, and openly gay.
But Pat prospered and became a top guy everywhere he went.
I was grabbed on numerous occasions on my testicles, on my buttocks
by Pat Patterson of World Wrestling Entertainment,
and Terry Garvin propositioned me when I was 16,
offered me cocaine and all kinds of drugs to have sex with him.
When I refused, I was let go from the company when I was 16.
I think, uh, Vince is guilty of aiding and abetting the ring boy scandal.
At best, he's guilty of rank neglect.
[McMahon] Phil Mushnick was trying to build this whole case
of how rotten the company was.
He didn't care how he did it.
He didn't care whether he hurt the people that were involved
on one side or the other.
He just wanted to write this salacious piece about WWE.
It was a pedophile ring!
Three of these guys were all in on it.
These were real kids being sexually abused on McMahon's watch.
I do think there was a lot of turning a blind eye
to some of the things that were going on, but I don't think anybody...
could ever prove anything. It was like, how do you prove it?
[Meltzer] And eventually Vince settled with Tom Cole.
Mel Phillips and Terry Garvin,
they were let go and never worked there again.
Pat Patterson resigned,
but during that period, Vince and I talked.
He goes, "One of the three was innocent."
And I go, "Who?" And he goes, "Pat Patterson."
And I go, "Why is he gone if he's innocent?"
He goes, "You don't understand running this business."
"It's a gay witch hunt, and he had to go."
Most people in wrestling that were around
believe that Patterson never acted unprofessionally,
and, uh, months later, Patterson was back.
In regards to the allegations made against Pat,
nothing has ever been substantiated, and I just don't believe them.
- Please, not me. - He's doing home movies, Patrick.
None of it rings true. The others?
No comment.
[White] We all knew Pat was doing this stuff.
I didn't like Pat because he kept grabbing my pecker in the locker room.
- [interviewer] He what? - He would grab my pecker.
Yeah.
[interviewer] Did you guys complain?
To who? He's the booker.
He's the number two guy in the office. To whom?
- [interviewer] Vince. - [chuckles]
[laughs]
You know nothing about the wrestling business, don't ya?
[chuckling] There's nobody to go to, son.
You either take it, or you're going home. Who are you going to complain to?
[interviewer] Vince.
For what? To get fired?
He needed Pat more than he needed me.
[Meltzer] Pat was like the savant of professional wrestling,
and he was Vince's right-hand man when it came to booking
and was very, very valuable in the company.
[interviewer] Did Vince protect Pat?
[White] I wouldn't say he protected him.
I would say... he protected the business.
These allegations are absolutely absurd that have been raised.
[reporter] McMahon insists it's all just a conspiracy to wreck his business.
It seems as though they're all ganging up on us,
all at one time.
[reporter] There's no sign the charges have done any harm.
No, wrestling, or whatever this is, has survived scandals before,
and there is no reason to believe this one too won't be drowned out
by all those fans who couldn't care less.
[Mushnick] What reaction there was was meager from legitimate media.
Those who seemed to eat it up were the scandal shows,
like the Phil Donahue kind of show.
[Donahue] Here you are being accused, Mr. McMahon,
of presiding over an organization that looked the other way
while sex harassment activity was taking place.
I'm one of the few people who enjoys confrontation.
If there is a situation like Donahue,
I have no problem confronting someone, especially when they're lying.
You did a horrible job. That's the only reason why you were fired.
Donahue was an opportunity to stand up for himself.
I don't think it went the way he wanted it to.
[Hodgson] Sexual harassment is running rampant...
[Donahue] Where were you all these years?
[Graham] His father blackballed me.
[Hodgson] I didn't sleep with your VP. Two weeks later, I'm fired.
I don't know that that happened.
Whether it was a good decision or a bad decision
at that time, at this time...
I did it.
[Meltzer] I was sitting right next to Vince. He was not comfortable.
At one point, he whispers to me, "This is the longest hour of my life."
- It's not the truth. - Okay.
- You lie about this to children! - You're finished.
I don't buy it.
- [applause] - Got it. Well...
[clears throat]
[Prichard] I think that this was one point in his life
that everything was kind of coming down at once.
There was a bit of frustration in what he couldn't control.
Oh my gosh. There was so many scandals going on
with who was dating who, who was sleeping with whom.
[interviewer] Do you remember any of those?
[sighs] Well, you know...
You know what? I'm trying to be really cautious on doing this.
I don't know what they want out in the open or not.
I know there was some girl that I think was a referee, girl referee,
that had claimed that Vince had, uh, sexually assaulted her.
[announcer] For the first time ever, a lady referee.
[Meltzer] I remember Rita Marie the referee,
because there was only one female referee in wrestling at that point in time,
and it was her.
Vince was definitely trying to push her as the hot blonde woman ref
as a character in his soap opera.
[McMahon] Rita Marie, ladies and gentlemen,
the very first ever lady referee in World Wrestling Entertainment.
Hopefully, we'll be seeing more of her in time to come.
When you're accused of this, accused of that,
and there's this deluge of things, "You're this, you're that,"
one of the things was an alleged rape, uh, that never happened.
I was forced into oral sex with Vince McMahon.
When I couldn't complete his desires,
he got really angry.
Started ripping off my jeans.
Pulled me on top of him and told me, again,
if I wanted a half-a-million-dollar-a-year contract,
I had to satisfy him.
And if I didn't satisfy him, I was blackballed.
I was scared.
My wrist was all black and blue.
He just didn't stop.
[McMahon] Once you're accused of rape, you're a rapist,
but it was consensual, and actually, had it been a rape, um,
the statute of limitations had run out.
So it's all kind of crap like that that people are digging up
and trying to find something on you.
[Meltzer] Vince did sue her over it, and he sued Geraldo Rivera,
but the general public, I think they just thought that it was all sleazy.
People looked the other way.
God, I just hope somebody listens.
They just thought it was a woman making up a story on a rich guy.
Rita, what do you expect to get now? I mean, what do you want?
Did you just wanna come on Geraldo?
They were very, very negative on her.
[Mushnick] It just didn't resonate with a public
that it should have resonated with.
This was the biggest guy in cable TV.
Nobody wanted to look a little deeper.
They didn't wanna look. They didn't wanna know.
[Meltzer] Most newspapers ran away from it or wouldn't touch it
because it's wrestling, it's beneath us, but Phil was not, um, dissuaded by Vince.
He kept going and going.
And I do think that the negative headlines and attention,
that did lead to the indictment, it did lead to the trial.
The Justice Department has indicted the most powerful man
in professional wrestling in this country. Not a wrestler,
but the man who runs World Wrestling Entertainment.
The charge, illegal distribution of steroids.
[interviewer] Do you know what triggered the federal government to look into you?
Well, I think Phil Mushnick, uh, triggered all of this,
and whether he had any connections to the federal government, I don't know.
But again, that's where it seemed to, uh, to begin.
I was an FBI informant. I admit to that. You know why?
The FBI would read what I wrote and then act on it.
[Meltzer] When the indictments came,
there were no indictments or anything on the ring boy story
or Rita Chatterton.
There were steroid indictments.
[reporter 1] The three-count indictment charges that he conspired
to defraud the government
by possessing and distributing steroids through Dr. George Zaharion.
- Morning, guys. - [reporter 2] Mr. McMahon.
[reporter 3] It was not a good morning
for World Wrestling Entertainment owner Vincent McMahon.
On this day, he was in federal court
entering a plea of not guilty
to charges that he bulked up his wrestlers with steroids.
[reporter 4] Prosecutors say McMahon, who admits being a former steroids user,
is a corporate drug pusher.
McMahon's lawyers, on the other hand,
say the wrestling mogul is the victim of a government witch hunt.
Sometimes life isn't fair,
and, unfortunately, for me, I believe this is one of those instances.
The federal government and the Justice Department
can be the biggest bullies.
They have unlimited resources.
The average person can't afford to buck the government. They just can't.
So that's why so many people cop a plea.
They wanted me to cop a plea.
[Prichard] He would have to plead guilty to some charge,
but he would pay a fine and everything goes away.
I wouldn't do it. I wasn't guilty of anything.
I said, "Fuck yourself."
[reporter 4] If convicted, McMahon could face up to 11 years in jail
and $500,000 in fines on each count.
Right before the trial, Vince had neck surgery,
so he goes into the trial, and he's wearing a neck brace.
My impression was that it was not an operation
that he needed to do at that moment.
[McMahon] A lot of people thought, "He's wearing this thing
because he's trying to invoke some sort of sympathy,
you know, from the jury."
[chuckling] That was not the case.
[Shoemaker] It's impossible to not think
there was some sort of storytelling contrivance behind it.
I mean, in pro wrestling, bad guys would wear those neck braces
because they knew the crowd would boo them for like, being overly dramatic.
It's not a facade. I'm-- I'm not well.
With Vince, everything is a show,
even in the midst of this very serious trial.
I mean, there's a lot at stake here.
[Kay Koplovitz] It was a tense time.
If he was proven guilty,
that would have been a problem for us, and they would be off the air.
[Bollea] During that time, there was a lot of turbulence
and instead of people cheering me nonstop,
I'd hear a couple boos here.
Instead of, "We love Hulk Hogan" or "Hulkamania Live Forever,"
I'd see a sign up that said, "Did you take your shot today?"
[crowd clamoring]
[Bollea] And so I didn't feel like I was in control of the crowds anymore.
And that's when I told Vince I needed to go.
And it was not an easy conversation.
[McMahon] And whether or not this is your last match,
I'd like to say that on behalf of all of us, your Hulkamaniacs,
thank you for the memories, and thank you for Hulkamania.
Thank you.
I don't think people fully appreciate how dire things were looking.
All the scandals were all piled on at the same time,
and it was a great opportunity for our competition to make a move.
[bell ringing]
[McMahon] At that time, Ted Turner, who owned WCW,
he was my biggest competitor.
I've been involved with the wrestling business
since we started televising it back in, I think, '73.
[Shoemaker] Ted Turner is one of the pioneers of cable television.
Obviously founded TV networks like CNN, TBS, TNT.
And he was one of the first people
to broadcast professional wrestling nationwide.
[Bischoff] We were the number two wrestling promotion in the world.
Good morning, America, and welcome to WCW...
We might as well have been number 202.
That's the distance between WWE and WCW.
[indistinct]
[Bischoff] The type of program and the content that WCW was producing
prior to me being hired as executive producer
was just a really bad imitation
of what WWE was successful at.
There was no vision. There was no strategy.
There was just throwing things up against the wall
and hoping something would work
as long as it looked something like what WWE was doing.
I had been following the steroid trials
and the controversy and everything that went on as a result of that.
I was very well aware that Hulk had left WWE
and was going to pursue television and movies.
And, coincidentally, I was down at Disney-MGM Studios
shooting my show for WCW
while Hulk Hogan was at Disney-MGM Studios
shooting a show called Thunder in Paradise.
[Bollea] Here comes Eric Bischoff wandering over to the set,
and he said, "We really would love to have you
consider coming back to wrestling."
"We know you're filming the TV series."
"Even if part-time--" I said, "Let's talk." You know? Let's talk."
I was not happy with the acting and being locked up in a trailer most of the day.
Just wasn't me.
[Bischoff] Hulk was torn, because he loved wrestling,
he missed it,
but he also had two very, very young kids at home,
and it was really important to him to not be on the road 300 days a year,
and WCW provided Hulk an opportunity to do both.
The nature of our contract was,
you may have a total of 30 appearances a year
as opposed to 300.
Ted Turner was giving these guarantees.
"We'll give you a million dollars a year."
"How many days do you work?" "How many you want?"
"I wanna work, uh, 100 days." "Okay. You got it."
Where at WWE, I know when we were there, it was seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.
I just looked at it as, "I have this amazing opportunity."
"I'm gonna put my salesman hat on and get this guy to join WCW."
[Bollea] When I left and I had the meeting with Vince,
and it was an emotional meeting,
I actually told Vince, "I will never run against you."
Because that was a concern.
[McMahon] He said, "I'm gonna go off and do movies and things like that,
but I do want my release."
"But you're not gonna compete? You know? You aren't gonna..."
"No. Absolutely not."
So, um, it was one of those things where I gave him his release,
and next thing you know, he's with the other guys.
WCW is about to dominate the globe in professional wrestling.
That's why we're here today,
to sign the contract for a match
between two of wrestling's biggest superstars,
Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair.
[McMahon] We had a very close personal relationship.
I took him, and of course, and made this huge star out of him.
And then from there, he decides he wants to flip to our competition
and no longer be associated with you.
So, sure, emotionally, it hurt.
It broke my heart, you know. I mean, damn.
[Shane] Hulk Hogan's defection to WCW, right there in the middle of the trial,
that was an enormous slap in the face.
Even to this day.
That was taboo in my book.
[Prichard] Vince viewed Hulk as a lifer,
but Hulk was offered a better deal with Ted Turner,
offered guaranteed money with Turner.
"Money talks," as the expression goes, I guess.
[Prichard] Hulk's looking at it also like,
"Man, I don't know if Vince is gonna be there after the trial."
"I don't know if there's even gonna be a company there to work for."
[reporter] It's another day in court
for World Wrestling Entertainment founder Vince McMahon.
Vince McMahon was charged with conspiring to beef up his brawny wrestlers
with anabolic steroids.
This case should go on for several days,
and interest is expected to peak
when a pro wrestler by the name of Terry Bollea testifies.
Of course, he goes by the name of Hulk Hogan.
Wrestling insiders say that Hogan will be the government's star witness
and testify against McMahon at his trial in May.
[Bollea] After I left the WWE,
the government wanted me to be their star witness.
I was told that if I didn't say what they wanted to hear,
the target of the investigation would be directed to me,
and I might do 17 years.
[Meltzer] Hogan didn't want to testify against Vince. They forced him to.
They basically had something on Hogan and they wanted Vince,
and so Hogan had to.
The conviction rate in cases like that was very, very high,
so at that point, it was like, "God, the odds look against Vince."
I think a lot of the stuff in there is evidence
of what I believed all along has proven to be true...
I was there for two weeks, and I could tell that Vince was scared to death.
Vince was in serious, serious problems at that point.
[McMahon] I truly believe in the law of the jungle.
Something's weakened, then you want to pile on it and kill it.
So, at that time, it was coming from everywhere.
How could I possibly stand up to that and hold up, you know?
The law of the jungle. I get it.
[Bollea] I was granted immunity,
and I said, "Well... cool. I got it. I know what I'm gonna say."
[intense music builds]
[music fades]
[closing theme music playing]