Ringmaster

Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America

By: Abraham Josephine Riesman

Narrated by: Alyss Weissglass

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

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

This definitive biography of Vince McMahon, former WWE chairman and CEO, is “riveting, essential reading” (Rick Perlstein, New York Times bestselling author) as it charts his rise from rural poverty to the throne of one of the world’s most influential media empires. Featuring 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 and has helped foment “the worst of contemporary politics” (Kirkus Reviews).

Ringmaster built on exclusive interviews with more than 150 people, from McMahon’s childhood friends to those who accuse him of destroying their lives. “Smart, entertaining, impressively reported, and beautifully written. Wrestling fans will devour it, but everyone who wants to better understand this crazy country and one of its truly original characters ought to read it” (Jonathan Eig, author of Ali: A Life).

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.

Excellent investigative book, narrator should do research

The book was rough because of the subject matter and depressing at times but an incredible deep dive into an evoil genius. Bravo to the author on a tour de force. The narrator, while very expressive and theatrical had several glaring mistakes that showed she did not research the pronunciations of names and words. The three that kept being repeated among many were,
1. pronouncing Vern and Greg Gagne as "gag-knee" instead of the correct, "Gahn-Yay"
2. Razor Ramon as "ray-man" instead of "Rah-mone"
And the most egregious and sort of ridiculous was
3. "NWO" instead of saying each letter as written, calling it "En-Woe". That one was a head scratcher.
Overall, very entertaining read!

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?

A Beginner's guide to Vince MacMahon

A good start for the unfamiliar, but as constructed it functions mostly like a Wikipedia article about Vince MacMahon. No real revelations, and the attempts at anchoring the story in emotion, or as an actual metaphor for the "unmaking of America", fall very flat.

Part of the most sinister thing about Vince is that he has made the entirety of wrestling history gravitationally centered on him. This book doesn't feel like it's able to zoom out all that much to really take in the breadth of his empire and the damage he's caused, and as a result focuses on the same (albeit legitimately troubling) stories that Vince has mostly been able to spin in his favor.

3.5/5

Very good but biased

I must say the story and the way it was written was very captivating, but it was too obviously one sided. I loved all the details but grew a little tired of hearing how much of a jerk Vince is… like yeah I get it tell me something I don’t know. I was also not a fan of the reader, it felt as though a teacher was reading a story book to me. Other than all that I loved it