Watching Mr. McMahon, Netflix’s glossy new “sports entertainment” docuseries, the lapsed fan recalls all manner of wrastlin’ minutiae. Fresh off her best new artist win at the 1985 Grammys, Cyndi Lauper launched a brief second career as a World Wrestling Federation “manager” and mascot. WrestleMania II, a strange and unlovely affair, felt disjointed because it was broadcast from three separate venues: in Uniondale, New York; Rosemont, Illinois; and Los Angeles, California. 

The question is whether the six-episode production achieves anything more significant than nostalgia. Its titular subject is, of course, one Vincent Kennedy McMahon, the second-generation wrestling impresario who transformed his father’s middling concern into the globe-straddling WWF, now World Wrestling Entertainment. In 1969, the McMahon enterprise was sleepy, regional, and bound by a gentlemen’s agreement not to poach talent from competitors. By 1987, the company was strong enough to fill Michigan’s Pontiac Silverdome with a paid attendance of more than 93,000.