Ringmaster

How do you tell truth from theater when the show keeps swallowing reality? In Ringmaster, Abraham Riesman argues that modern American life looks a lot like professional wrestling because Vince McMahon industrialized a technique for fusing fiction and fact. He didn’t just build an empire; he trained you to decode it. The core claim is simple and unsettling: kayfabe, the old code that protected wrestling’s illusion of real competition, publicly died—and was reborn as neokayfabe, a system where everyone knows it’s scripted but still treats the performance as a potent vessel for meaning, money, and power.

From kayfabe to neokayfabe

For decades, kayfabe demanded that promoters and wrestlers present matches as real. That code—borrowed from carnivals and enforced like omertà—made faces and heels feel morally clear and locally rooted. But the 1980s and 1990s broke the covenant. Newspapers like the New York Times printed that matches were prearranged; state hearings in New Jersey logged executive testimony acknowledging the work; media literacy spread among fans. Rather than collapse, the business adapted. Under McMahon, the industry invited you to become a decoder: you learned to ask if a loss came from backstage politics, if a scandal was a work, if a push meant corporate blessing. This is neokayfabe: a marketplace where the admission of fakery intensifies the pleasure of interpretation. (Note: Roland Barthes’s essay on wrestling anticipates this by treating the ring like theater, but Riesman shows how the theater colonizes life in the cable-and-internet era.)

Vince McMahon as ringmaster

Riesman paints McMahon as both architect and avatar of this new order. Raised as Vinnie Lupton in a violent home, he later found and fell for his absent father, the promoter Vince Sr., absorbing a gospel of control and calculation. That private wound becomes public architecture: McMahon centralizes a territorial industry with cable deals and pay-per-view tentpoles, then writes himself onto television as the heel Mr. McMahon. After the 1997 Montreal Screwjob—when Bret Hart was double-crossed in the ring—Vince embraces villainy on camera, converting outrage into ratings. The Attitude Era surges as Stone Cold Steve Austin, a worked-shoot rebel honed in ECW, flips off the boss and drinks beer while you buy T-shirts. You know it’s a show; you also feel like it’s speaking to your real contempt for corporate authority. That is neokayfabe’s profit engine.

What changes when spectacle runs the business

Once McMahon frames entertainment as the core product, everything becomes content. MTV partnerships with Cyndi Lauper and Mr. T in the mid-1980s rebrand wrestling for youth culture and advertisers; WrestleMania becomes a prototype for media tentpoles you can slice across TV, closed circuit, PPV, toys, and music. Stars are manufactured as intellectual property—The Ultimate Warrior is rushed to the top with short squashes and other wrestlers ordered to "do the job"; Hulk Hogan is leveraged into Hollywood via No Holds Barred, then strategically cooled when returns disappoint. When steroid panic erupts, McMahon both promises reform and launches the World Bodybuilding Federation—doubling down on muscle spectacle in the very moment society panics about it. (Note: This kind of audacity recalls Guy Debord’s spectacle thesis, but Riesman grounds it in payrolls, TV slots, and legal filings.)

Ethics, labor, and the human bill

Beneath the lights lies a brutal ledger. Wrestlers are classified as independent contractors, touring endlessly without union protection or benefits. Drug culture, concussions, and hazing normalize risk and humiliation. Women face systemic exploitation: from Fabulous Moolah’s cut-taking control to Wendi Richter’s televised screwjob. Scandals proliferate—Jimmy Snuka and Nancy Argentino, referee Rita Chatterton’s allegation against Vince, the Ring Boys abuse cases—and internal crisis management often prioritizes the product over victims. Live tragedy pierces the fiction at Over the Edge 1999 when Owen Hart falls to his death; production cuts away, the pay-per-view continues, and the company quickly packages a tribute. After the Chris Benoit murder-suicide, WWE sanitizes content and later masters the COVID "ThunderDome," piping in virtual cheers—a reminder that control over perception remains the company’s superpower.

Consolidation and politics

The late 1990s and 2000s deliver corporate triumph: a 1999 IPO, the 2001 acquisition of WCW and ECW remnants, and a rebrand to WWE. With rivals gone, WWE controls the stage and the archives that define wrestling history. Political power follows. The McMahons befriend Donald Trump (WrestleManias IV and V in Atlantic City marketed as Trump Plaza affairs), donate heavily, and see Linda appointed to the SBA. Globally, WWE inks a long-term Saudi partnership reported to pay tens of millions per show, and domestically secures a rich Fox deal for SmackDown. The show becomes a diplomatic and commercial instrument as much as a TV product.

The thesis in one line

Wrestling didn’t just mirror America; under Vince McMahon, it taught America how to turn reality into a show—and how to cash it in.

How to read the rest

As you move through this summary, you’ll see how McMahon built a national empire from a patchwork of territories; how kayfabe died and neokayfabe took over; how stars are made and unmade by promoter calculus; how scandals and tragedies are folded into the machine; and how consolidation and politics entrench WWE’s dominance even as indie scenes keep the art alive. The lesson travels far beyond wrestling: when a leader owns distribution, narrative, and the archive, the line between truth and theater becomes a lever—and you, the audience, become both mark and partner in the work.

Before Vince McMahon’s ascent, American wrestling resembled a feudal map: regional territories under the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) traded talent, respected TV borders, and cultivated local stars. Promoters protected one another with handshake norms; you went to your city’s arena to boo the foreign heel and cheer the hometown face. Riesman shows how McMahon dismantled that order with three levers—television distribution, talent acquisition, and mega-events—turning a local carnival into a national brand you could sell everywhere.

Buying distribution in a cable moment

McMahon and Linda formed Titan Sports and experimented with venue ownership (Cape Cod Coliseum) to learn promotion at the ground level. As cable blossomed, he bought TV time in key markets—Buffalo, Southern California—and capitalized on superstations like TBS (pioneered by Ted Turner’s Georgia Championship Wrestling). In 1984 he executed the infamous "Black Saturday": buying controlling interest in Georgia Championship Wrestling to seize TBS’s timeslot, enraging traditionalists like Ole Anderson and accelerating national exposure. He also locked in cable agreements with USA Network and the Madison Square Garden Sports Network, giving the WWF coast-to-coast reach that local promoters couldn’t match.

Poaching talent and controlling IP

Distribution meant nothing without stars. McMahon aggressively signed and repackaged top draws—Hulk Hogan (from AWA), Roddy Piper, and more—while trademarking names, catchphrases, and gimmicks. Characters became intellectual property you could monetize across media. That legal shift mattered: if you left the promotion, the company kept the name that fans knew. For wrestlers, it narrowed leverage and made the boss the custodian of your legacy.

WrestleMania and the cross-media template

The 1985 launch of WrestleMania crystallized the new model: a multi-platform spectacle amplified by celebrity co-signs and music television. The Rock ’n’ Wrestling Connection with Cyndi Lauper (and manager Lou Albano) brought MTV audiences, while Mr. T, Muhammad Ali, Liberace, Joan Rivers, and Andy Warhol lent mainstream sheen. Events like The Brawl to End It All and The War to Settle the Score primed the pump for pay-per-view, and Saturday Night’s Main Event filled SNL’s slot with glossy sports entertainment. Toy lines, the Rock ’n’ Wrestling cartoon, and the Piledriver album (with McMahon himself on vocals) extended revenue far beyond the ring. This was vertical integration with a neon grin.

Timing plus ruthlessness

McMahon arrived exactly as technology enabled national distribution and then used predatory marketcraft to seize it. Opportunity met audacity—and the map changed.

Costs of consolidation

Riesman asks you to admire the business savvy while seeing its casualties. The territorial mosaic—regional styles, local heroes, community ties—gave way to a centralized, polished brand. Creative control narrowed; wrestlers became contractors in a monoculture that prized spectacle and uniformity. Stu Hart’s sale of Stampede Wrestling and later disputes over payments exemplify how regional families got squeezed. Fans got bigger shows; performers lost bargaining chips and safety nets.

Why it matters to you

If you work in media or tech, you’ll recognize the playbook: buy distribution, own the IP, stage tentpoles, and collapse local competition into a national pipeline. McMahon treats wrestling like a scalable platform, not a folk art. You can apply this lens to today’s streaming wars and franchise economies: the company that commands the channel and the characters can write the story—for audiences and for workers. (Note: Think of Disney’s MCU strategy as a parallel in a cleaner industry; the WWF model is a rougher, earlier draft built on the bodies of freelancers.)

Kayfabe, the claim that wrestling is a real contest, once structured every handshake and promo. Riesman shows you how it died in daylight—then returned as a stronger, stranger force. The collapse came through courts, commissions, and front pages. The revival came through a creative pivot that made confession part of the act.

Exposure in New Jersey and the papers

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the McMahons pushed to deregulate wrestling as mere entertainment, not sport, to dodge athletic commission oversight. Behind closed doors, they admitted matches were prearranged. That tactic backfired publicly when coverage like Peter Kerr’s New York Times piece ("Now It Can Be Told") made national sport of the disclosure. Kayfabe’s aura evaporated: the press told your parents it was fake, and the myth that protected the locker room crumpled.

Vince’s answer: sell the artifice

McMahon had a choice: deny or embrace. He embraced. Instead of retreating in shame, he highlighted the theater. He amped up cartoonish characters (like The Ultimate Warrior) and, crucially, turned executives into characters. The 1997 Montreal Screwjob—when the referee called for the bell while Bret Hart was locked in his own Sharpshooter—made private control public. Bret spit on Vince and punched him backstage; fans saw through the curtain and hated the owner. Vince then made that hatred the story, launching the on-screen tyrant Mr. McMahon. The audience learned a new grammar: you cheer and boo while parsing what’s worked and what’s real.

Stone Cold and the worked-shoot revolution

Into this breach stepped Steve Austin. After an ECW stint sharpened his shoot-style promo voice, he detonated King of the Ring 1996 with "Austin 3:16." McMahon initially hesitated, then realized he could monetize rebellion by making himself the corporate heel. You watched Austin Stun his boss, drink beer, and swear across prime time while the WWF sold millions of shirts. This loop—sell defiance manufactured by the system itself—is neokayfabe distilled. (Note: Advertising culture often co-opts anti-establishment aesthetics; the Attitude Era is wrestling’s version of that paradox.)

Family as content, meta as default

McMahon didn’t stop at executives. He folded his children into plots. Shane played the smarmy heir. Stephanie, fresh from college, became a kidnapped damsel in the Undertaker’s Ministry storyline—a sexualized ritual rescue that spiked ratings and sympathy. When the hooded "Greater Power" revealed himself as Vince in June 1999, the show declared what fans suspected: the boss is behind everything. Narrative swallowed reality whole, and the boss’s persona fused with the company brand.

Neokayfabe in practice

Admit it’s a show; perform like it isn’t; use real events to spike emotion; make the owner the villain who profits from the outrage.

Why it matters to you

Once you see this formula, you’ll spot it beyond wrestling: in politics, influencer culture, even corporate PR. Confession becomes branding; scandal becomes serialized content. Riesman’s point isn’t that truth dies—it’s that truth becomes a prop, and the prop pays well if you control the camera.

If the promoter is author, then wrestlers are characters—written up or written off at will. Riesman shows how Vince McMahon manufactures superstars to serve the moment, then discards or rewrites them when the market shifts. This isn’t just creative; it’s a labor regime dressed as storytelling.

The Ultimate Warrior’s brittle push

The Warrior’s rise was a case study in forced acceptance. Surreal promos, sprint entrances, and a conveyor belt of short squashes trained crowds to see him as an unstoppable phenomenon. Opponents were told to lose quickly; referees were positioned to endorse the coronation. Fans popped for the mystique, but the edifice was fragile—limited in-ring skill and backstage friction made the push hard to sustain once kayfabe loosened. The company had built spectacle on speed, not craft; a wobble was inevitable.

Hogan: platform, Hollywood, and payback

Hulk Hogan, the 1980s cornerstone, was also subject to the calculus. He hauled in merch and mainstream attention with "say your prayers and eat your vitamins," then fronted the McMahon-produced film No Holds Barred (1989). The movie underperformed, tensions rose over payouts, and Hogan’s top-slot security faded. The lesson is blunt: in this system, nobody is bigger than the promoter’s plan—not even the icon who built your boom.

Steroids, scandal, and the WBF gamble

As national steroid panic heated up, the Zahorian investigation dragged locker-room habits into court. McMahon publicly promised drug testing, wrote op-eds about family entertainment—and simultaneously launched the World Bodybuilding Federation. He poached talent at Mr. Olympia with contracts slid under doors and pitched "bodybuilding as it was meant to be" (a dog whistle at exactly the wrong cultural moment). The WBF fizzled, sponsors squirmed, and WWE adopted a stricter testing regime that reshaped bodies and booking. McMahon’s instinct to monetize even the controversy was audacious—and costly.

The locker room and the ledger

Behind the camera, the workforce functioned like precarious freelancers. Few benefits, no union, pay at management’s discretion. Journeymen scraped by on small match fees; headliners feasted if they stayed in favor. Hazing rituals and coercive dynamics policed loyalty—Terry Bollea (Hogan) recounts early humiliation threats; others describe drugs, painkillers, and groupie culture as coping mechanisms. Women faced added exploitation: Fabulous Moolah’s alleged skimming and control, Wendi Richter’s public screwjob at Madison Square Garden, and the erasure that followed. This wasn’t just a casting department; it was a hierarchy with real bodily costs.

Promoter’s calculus

Push whoever fits the story and the quarter; turn the screw if leverage weakens; rewrite endings when the archive and airtime are yours.

What you can use

If you manage talent, Riesman’s portrait is a caution. It’s easy to over-index on narrative fit and burn out the human engine that makes the narrative go. Manufactured stardom without craft and care yields brittle outcomes; top-down control without guardrails breeds abuse. The healthiest version of this model would pair creative ambition with institutional protections. Wrestling, under Vince, rarely did.

Riesman refuses to let the spectacle obscure the harm. Across decades, sexual violence, coercion, and negligence appear not as isolated shocks but as structural byproducts of concentrated power. The hardest pages track how the company handled crisis: protect the brand first, deploy leverage second, honor victims last.

Women harmed, stories managed

Nancy Argentino’s death after an encounter with Jimmy Snuka becomes a grim lesson. Police reports, the family’s accounts, and later investigations suggest McMahon personally intervened, with whispers of a mysterious briefcase; prosecutors demurred; the company kept moving. Referee Rita Chatterton’s allegation of sexual assault by Vince underscores the chokehold of gatekeeping: when one man controls bookings, silence becomes survival. Whether or not every accusation meets courtroom proof, the pattern of asymmetrical power is unmistakable.

The Ring Boys scandal

When former ring boy Tom Cole alleged abuse by senior staffers Mel Phillips, Terry Garvin, and Pat Patterson, the story burst into national media. Reporters like Phil Mushnick amplified it; Geraldo broadcast segments that also featured Chatterton. McMahon met Cole in negotiated settings that mixed flattery and pressure; a modest settlement and a job followed; the larger figure publicized in tabloids never arrived. Resignations occurred, but the machine protected itself. Cole later died by suicide—a haunting coda to a tale of leverage and lost recourse.

Owen Hart: tragedy on live TV

On May 23, 1999, Owen Hart fell more than seventy feet during a stunt entrance at Over the Edge. Director Kevin Dunn cut away; the live crowd saw the horror; EMTs hurried in. Jim Ross told viewers, "This is not your typical wrestling story line," then later announced Hart’s death. The show continued that night. A tribute Raw followed, raw and tearful; footage from the Hart funeral appeared without Martha Hart’s permission, according to accounts. The ethical questions are searing: What do you tell wrestlers in the back? Do you stop the show? Who owns the narrative of a death?

Crisis playbook

Minimize exposure, control the camera, settle quietly, and repurpose what you can for programming that reassures stakeholders.

Sanitization without structural reform

After the 2007 Chris Benoit murder-suicide and revelations about CTE, WWE pivoted to PG. Chair shots to the head were banned; sexualized angles receded; John Cena’s brighter heroism replaced the Attitude Era’s grime. During COVID, the company innovated the "ThunderDome," piping in virtual fans and on-demand reactions. Yet the core labor regime—independent contractor status, no union, precarious benefits—endured. The content softened; the incentives behind the curtain largely didn’t. For you, the lesson is wider than wrestling: PR-friendly fixes can leave power structures intact.

By the late 1990s, McMahon had what old promoters dreamed of and feared: a near-monopoly. WWF revenue leapt from $126 million in 1998 to $250 million in 1999; Gallup estimated 20% of Americans as fans, with Steve Austin atop popularity polls. An IPO in 1999 injected capital and scrutiny; the 2001 buyout of WCW and later control of ECW’s remnants consolidated the archive and the market. In 2002, a rebrand to WWE announced a corporate future: World Wrestling Entertainment.

Owning the stage and the story

With competitors gone, WWE controlled not just bookings but history. Footage libraries locked up rival legacies; documentaries and DVD retrospectives became bargaining chips for returns and reconciliations. Bret Hart, whose career ended with the Montreal Screwjob, eventually came back in 2010; Hulk Hogan returned for a 2003 WrestleMania moment; The Ultimate Warrior was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014 and died the next day after a Raw appearance. These redemptions sell closure—and underline dependence. If you want your story told, you often return to the man who owns the tapes.

The Trump connection and state power

McMahon’s bond with Donald Trump starts as business theater—WrestleManias IV and V marketed as at Trump Plaza (though held next door at the Convention Center), with Trump beaming at ringside—and grows into political capital. The McMahons donate heavily; Linda runs for Senate twice and then becomes Trump’s SBA chief. WWE programming repeatedly features Trump, melding celebrity and politics in a reciprocal brand lift. Image-making turns into policymaking access.

Global partners, domestic windfalls

The 2018 ten-year Saudi arrangement (reported at $40+ million per co-sponsored show) reframes wrestling as soft power. It finances extravaganzas, buys global headlines, and raises moral alarms about human-rights trade-offs. That same year, a rich Fox deal moves SmackDown to broadcast TV, cementing WWE as a live-content anchor in a fractured media landscape. Broadcasters crave predictable spectacle; WWE offers it, sans union headaches.

Memory as leverage

When one company owns the highlight reels, it can erase, exalt, or reframe. In wrestling, history is a contract negotiation.

What survives beyond the monopoly

Riesman closes on a smaller stage: indie shows in VFW halls where a hundred fans live and die with each near-fall. The paradox is poignant. WWE’s dominance narrowed options and standardized a style; yet the form itself—unarmed struggle as parable—outlives empires. For performers, that endurance is both hope and trap: independence exists, but the money and megaphone still belong to Titan Tower. For you, it’s a reminder to separate the art from the corporation that cages it.