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TRANSCRIPT: STEPHANIE MCMAHON INTRODUCES WWE'S 9/11 DOCUMENTARY

By Mike Johnson on 2021-09-10 19:25:00

Earlier today, WWE's Stephanie McMahon introduced WWE's Never Forget documentary at a private screening at Madison Square Garden prior to the Smackdown taping.  

Here is a complete transcript of that introduction:

"Thanks Tom, and Tom really didn't get the proper introduction.   He's lnown as one of the greatest storytellers of all time, and we're very honored to have him not only do the narration of this film, but also to help tell the story in many different ways. So thank you Tom, we're grateful to you and thank you all for being here tonight at Madison Square Garden, and I've always known it as the house my grandfather built for apparently having the highest number of consecutive sellouts at that time.

But 9/11, this is the 20th anniversary of the tragedy and I think the way WWE is looking at it, is the celebration of how far we've come together since that time. But this story is one that has really never been told.  WWE SmackDown was the first live event, live gathering of its size, after the tragedy. And, as Tom was saying before, not many people know about that.

And I can't imagine the pressure that my father, Vince McMahon, the chairman and the CEO, had on him that that day and those days ensuing. It was two days after that we produced SmackDown Live.  I remember being there in his hotel room that morning. Monday Night Raq had been the night before, and we were then gathering Tuesday morning to write Smackdown as we often did, because so many things had changed during RAW. And we walked into his hotel room and saw the first building on fire....

I'm not going to give away all of the stories that are going to be told in the documentary, but it was a day and a moment that I will never forget and I wish my father's whole speech, when he opened the show that night, was in this documentary, but we just didn't have time to put the whole thing in there. It's going to be posted on social. I encourage you to listen to it, because if there was ever a tribute to what it means to come together as a people, as a nation, it was in that speech.

It was in that moment. It was all of us as Americans coming together to celebrate one another, and what it means to have the freedoms that we have, that we are privileged to have in this country.

So I won't keep talking, I won't keep pontificating. I do want to say a specific thank you though to the director, Brian Decker, the producer, Ben Houser, of course, all under the leadership of Jamie Horowitz, who is Emmy award-winning producer and executive and the head of our digital and studio's business, of course, all reporting in to Kevin Dunn, who runs it all for WWE.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is... I will say after... sorry, just to jump around for a second, Tom had mentioned a WWE Superstar is going to be giving community awards. That superstar is going to tell her own story. She's not able to watch this documentary because her father passed in 9/11 and the only common ground that they had, that they shared together, it was well, not their only common ground, but their love for WWE and the fact that she is a WWE Superstar, who is going to be performing at Madison Square Garden tonight, where she used to watch the shows with her father, in honor on the 20th anniversary of his passing, is something very, very powerful.

So she's really incredibly special when you see her after this documentary. So, ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, allow me to please introduce WWE's Never Forget...."

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