Ringmaster

Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America

By: Abraham Josephine Riesman

Narrated by: Alyss Weissglass

Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“Riveting, essential reading.” —Rick Perlstein, author of Reaganland

The definitive biography of Vince McMahon, former WWE chairman and CEO, charts his rise from rural poverty to the throne of one of the world’s most influential media empires—and features never-before-seen research and exclusive interviews with more than 150 people who witnessed, aided, and suffered from his ascent.

Even if you’ve never watched a minute of professional wrestling, you are living in Vince McMahon’s world.

In his four decades as the defining figure of American pro wrestling, McMahon was the man behind Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, John Cena, Dave Bautista, Bret “The Hitman” Hart, and Hulk Hogan, to name just a few of the mega-stars who owe him their careers. For more than twenty-five years, he has also been a performer in his own show, acting as the diabolical “Mr. McMahon”—a figure who may have more in common with the real Vince than he would care to admit.

Just as importantly, McMahon is one of Donald Trump’s closest friends—and Trump’s experiences as a performer in McMahon’s programming were, in many ways, a dress rehearsal for the 45th President’s campaigns and presidency. McMahon and his wife, Linda, are major Republican donors. Linda was in Trump’s cabinet. McMahon makes deals with the Saudi government worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And for generations of people who have watched wrestling, he has been a defining cultural force.

Accessible to anyone, regardless of wrestling knowledge, Ringmaster is an unauthorized, independent, investigative chronicle of Vince McMahon’s origins and rise to supreme power. It is built on exclusive interviews with more than 150 people, from McMahon’s childhood friends to those who accuse him of destroying their lives. Far more than just an athletics or entertainment biography, Ringmaster uses Vince’s story as a new lens for understanding the contemporary American apocalypse.

©2023 Abraham Riesman. All rights reserved. (P)2023 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Incredibly Frustrating

If you follow Vince McMahon or the inner workings of WWE, then you already know a lot of what's on offer.

The UNMAKING OF AMERICA component of this book is a promise that is not delivered on so don't look for strong parallels to WWF/WWE and society at large. You'll get bookends of political intrigue but other than that there's not much meat on those bones.

Far too much emphasis and detail is placed on specific instances, which have already been well documented. More time and energy should have been spent on the last two decades.

I came in expecting to learn more about what was going on in the US when some of these events unfolded. The Attitude Era only worked because it came along at the right time. What else happened in America that made it successful?

Instead of drawing those lines the author provides us with a play-by-play of the Greater Power storyline. Instead of giving us the how and why he ended up buying WCW and that fallout we get a deep dive into The Montreal Screwjob.

What's happened over the last 20 years? Surely more than what's crammed into the final hour of a 15 hour book.

Missed Opportunities

- Relationship with Ultimate Warrior (good and bad)
- Vince's penchant to micro-manage scripts, stories, characters
- WCW purchase, inclusion of talent, working with team, etc.
- XFL
- Saudi Arabia (how the relationship began, why they
- WWE Network (genesis of idea, execution, selling to Peacock, etc.)
- Hulk Hogan (washing hands of him, welcoming back, etc.)
- Moving into film production, talent moving to and from Hollywood
- Social media (leveraging it, understanding its potential, pivoting to YouTube, etc.)
- Immediate aftermath of hush money payments

There's surely another five hours worth of content that could have been included which would have lived up to the expectation teased in the book's title.

Perhaps most frustrating is the narration. Off the top of my head I can name mispronunciations of Ole Anderson, Lanny Poffo, Joe Piscopo, Rocky Maivia, and NWO. It's jarring to hear these over and over and really signals to the listener that there was no oversight or vetting.

Poor narration

The story is great but the narrator comes off as scoffing towards the topic. Print may be the way to go.

Fun story, poor narrator

Enjoyed hearing the ins and outs of Vince and the WWF/E. However, the narrator didn’t know any of the subject matter. She made several mispronunciations throughout the story.

Not what I expected or wanted.

My Confirmation Bias chose this book for me because I had long agreed with the Author’s late admitted premise that there was remarkable similarity between Trump’s “Covfefe” and McMahan’s “Kayfabe”.

I was expecting that there would be an emphasis on revealing these parallels. Instead it was a probably well-researched Biography of McMahan’s rise to dominance over the World of “Professional” Wrestling. Most of the anecdotes he shares ring true to anyone with even a fleeting exposure to the craziness of his productions over the years.

I’ll give it three stars for his mention of some of the Greats a neighbor took me to see at Sunnyside Gardens in New York City when I was ten. At the risk of sounding sexist, I would have preferred a male voice narrating this subject, but Weissglass did a good enough job. Three Stars. ***

For real?????

Even if the narrator was unfamiliar with the material, the editors should have picked up on the mispronunciations that made listening difficult

Worst narrator in over 300 books I’ve listened to

The book was clearly written with an agenda to teach rather than a recollection of a man’s life.

The narrator is however by far the worst I have listened to in over 300 books on this platform.

It appears it was read by the lowest bidder and no research was put into proper pronunciation.

Also, why bleep out the N word and not all the other offensive words. Plus the use of the N word was completely irrelevant and not even part of the biography.

Didn’t like the narrator

Too much detail in storylines that doesn’t matter and was annoying listening her emulate crowd chants

Solid History of a Controversial Figure

Some pronunciation issues with the reading, but otherwise very solid. Well researched. The history of McMahon's wrongdoing should be reason enough for anyone to take a pass on the current WWE product until they properly clean their house.

Research how the names are pronounced!

This narrator mispronounces at least half of the names in the book. Is no one editing or fact checking the content?

I really wanted to like this

So the word on this book before its release was that it did an excellent job of covering Vince's early years and not much after that...and that sums it up pretty well.

Once the book reaches its halfway point and gets into the mid-late 90s it does nothing but regurgitate and recount a very basic timeline of events that almost all wrestling fans have burned into their brains. No additional perspective, very few references to new research or interviews. It gets mind-numbing for a good 50-60% of the book before landing nicely with a decent conclusion.

There are a ton of mispronunciations but I can't hate on them too much. I don't fault fault narrator because the production director should have corrected them. I don't know if they author had any input but one would think they would want to make sure that was addressed. Also, they are really a crucial source of entertainment when the story goes dry (my favorites are Razor Raymon, Olay Anderson and enwoah for NWO) .

I can only recommend this for folks who don't have much or any background knowledge of 90s pro wrestling history.