On the latest episode of the Shut Up and Wrestle podcast, Valerie Marella-Jankowski, the daughter of the late WWE Hall of Famer Gorilla Monsoon, revealed that A&E was once in talks to produce a documentary on her father, but the project was halted by Vince McMahon. The decision reportedly came after McMahon was unhappy with his portrayal in the 1998 A&E documentary, Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows, which chronicled the “Montreal Screwjob”.
Appearing on the podcast to promote the new book, Irresistible Force: The Life and Times of Gorilla Monsoon, Marella-Jankowski explained that the family was approached by A&E during the height of the network’s popular wrestling biographies in the late 1990s. “I remember we would watch them every Sunday night, and they were really good,” she said. “And they approached us and they said, ‘You know, we’d like to do one on your dad.’ And we were like, ‘Oh yeah, great'”.
However, the timing coincided with the fallout from the Bret Hart documentary. “It was right after they did the Bret Hart Montreal Screwjob one,” she explained. “And Vince, for whatever reason, didn’t like the way he was portrayed… And he told them that he would never give them another piece of footage, anything, ever again”.
Without access to WWE’s extensive video library, the project became unfeasible. “They called us back and they said, ‘Listen, we still want to do it, but here’s the deal, we can’t get any footage,'” Marella-Jankowski recalled. “And I thought, ‘Well, that’s gonna suck.’ You’re not going to be able to show him commentating, you’re not going to be able to show him wrestling… What’s it gonna be? Like, a couple pictures”.
The family, particularly her mother, felt that a documentary without match or commentary footage would not properly honor her father’s legacy. “My mom was like, ‘I don’t think that’s going to honor your father, you know, it’s going to be crappy.’ And we didn’t want that,” she said. The family decided to put the project on the “back burner,” and A&E never re-approached them, even after the network and WWE began working together again years later.
Marella-Jankowski’s appearance on the podcast is part of the promotion for Irresistible Force: The Life and Times of Gorilla Monsoon, a new biography by Brian R. Solomon. The book, which is currently the #1 new wrestling release on Amazon, features extensive interviews with Marella-Jankowski and her late mother, providing an in-depth look at the life and career of the legendary performer and backstage figure. The book is available in print and digital formats wherever books are sold, with an audiobook version coming next month. You can hear the full interview on the Shut Up and Wrestle podcast.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Shut Up and Wrestle with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
