Based on Vince’s PR statement, he’s never studied film and doesn’t understand that you can never escape the documentarian’s gaze or lens.
I get wanting to wait until Vince has passed, but even then wrestlers are carny workers and won’t speak truthfully about his man, and those who profited from working with him likely never will to a full extent. Moreover, if they did speak up, maybe Vince would have a more reflective take on his actions and realize he’s not right about everything.
I don’t have Netflix but if this is remotely good, I’ll subscribe for a month to watch. But I’m sure there will be a lot of long-time wrestling fans like us who will have sharp critiques and comments about seeing a story we lived through much of being told by someone with somewhat of an outsider’s gaze.
As a perfomer you cannot win anyway. When you speak up now you kind of show that you have no backbone what so ever because you never spoke out while it was happening what could have made a real difference. But even now people seem to be afraid of him and his influence on the business or a big law suit coming their way.
Speak out now and at least one of these things happens:
Vince gets acquitted and sues you for slander.
Vince is found guilty and you have admitted that you knew about at least some of his criminal acts.
You bashed Vince publicly and, down the road, you find yourself trying to get a payday from his son-in-law, who may or may not hold a grudge on his behalf.
This is why it’s so surprising to hear Jim Ross talk about being Vince’s “right-hand man” for so long and wondering out loud why he wasn’t asked to be interviewed. A valid question for sure, but do you really want to go out of your way to link yourself that closely to Vince right now?
I also find it very interesting that none of the producers/crew are doing any media on it so far. Bill Simmons is not promoting any of this, none of the Ringer pods mentioned a peep on this.
It depends who else they have, but there’s not many other people around who worked as closely with Vince and as long as JR did. Not even contacting him is a big alarm bell to me
JR basically worked for Vince for as long as Bruce Prichard did – and in a similar role. He absolutely should have been interviewed.
If there are no contracted AEW talking heads, there’s your (unsatisfying) explanation as to why JR isn’t there. Or, I wonder if they intentionally avoided the “Dark Side of the Ring” regulars?
I don’t play to stay up all night to watch for myself tonight, but we’ll find out soon enough.
That’s the problem. There are certain people you need if you’re trying to make the “definitive” Vince profile, such as Hogan, Meltz, and members of Vince‘s family
But unless he makes up an entertaining new lie, what is Hulk Hogan going to say that anybody interested in the topic hasn’t already heard? What is Dave going to say that he hasn’t said 100 times before? What is Stephanie going to say that’s even remotely interesting?
After reading the first wave of reviews and feedback to it, I’ll be skipping it. It certainly sounds like my assumptions about what this thing is, are correct.
I think you have to keep in mind of what we all are for the most part, we are fans that have followed WWE for decades that read every single story that comes out. Documentaries like this are typically done with the mindset that the person watching doesn’t know a thing about the subject.
I haven’t watched yet outside of a minute so I have no comment.
