Vince McMahon is the weirdest person to have ever lived.
He’s fought God and won, fought Billionaire Ted and won, sits atop the dominant global brand in his industry that also happens to turn out some of the worst content in that industry, his biggest weakness is a total rejection of weakness as a concept, for someone whose career is dedicated to simplifying down what it means to be a good guy or a bad guy, he doesn’t know what a good guy acts like.
Point is, Vince McMahon fascinates people, from the fans who hate him and pay him, to those that deify him.
He is everything and nothing, and god I want to read an honest autobiography of him so much.
One of the things that people tend to agree on is that Vince is a ruthless business genius, who knows a good thing when he sees it and knows when to buy it, Hulk Hogan, raiding the territories, etc etc.
But the more you read up on the early days of some of WWE’s biggest stars, the more you realise… Vince might just be the luckiest man in wrestling history.
I’m Adam hailing from partsFUNknown, and here are 10 Wrestlers Vince McMahon Initially HATED.
10. Randy Orton
Let’s talk about this first, because it’s the most recent story to come to light.
Next year, Randall Keith Orton will celebrate his twentieth continuous year on the main roster full-time. That is a LUDICROUSLY long career.
He’s outlasted Cena, he’s been a full-timer longer than Triple H was, longer than Shawn Michaels, the man’s put in the years, which makes the apparent fact that Vince wanted no part of him even more insane.
See, before Randy was hitting RKOs, he was hitting AWOLs. He enlisted in the Marines in the late 90s before going AWOL on two occasions and receiving a dishonorable discharge.
Vince graduated from military school which explains just a BUNCH and if you cut him he bleeds troops.
As such, according to Jim Ross on the Grillin JR podcast, Vince didn’t want to sign Orton based on his negative past in the military and had to be convinced by good ol’ JR to give Randy a second chance.
I guess you could say it paid off.
8. Samoa Joe
Absolutely heartbreaking news this week that Samoa Joe has had to vacate the NXT title due to injury. Talk about people who can’t catch a f**king break.
In the light of the news you can’t help but wish that Joe had found a place in WWE sooner, when he was more entrenched in his physical prime, because according to an interview with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp, who is a nice boy and everyone should tell him he’s a nice boy on Twitter, Vince did not want to sign Joe.
In Samoa Joe’s own words, he was, quotes “vehemently opposed” to the idea.
Some might have thought it was to do with the TNA connection, but in fact, Bruce Pritchard revealed on Something To Wrestle With that it was because it was thought in WWE that he was and I’m quoting again “a fat Samoan. He looked out of shape – he wasn’t the body type that Vince liked and they felt that it wouldn’t work.”
Jesus, don’t pull your punches lads. Here’s hoping this new development doesn’t jeopardize Joe’s place in the company, took him long enough to get there.
8. Christian
When Edge and Christian split up, the lyrics to Christian’s new operatic theme (his best theme btw, don’t @ me with your just close your eyes bulls**t) were “Christian Christian, at last, you’re on your own.”
A lovely sentiment that Vince McMahon absolutely did not agree with. To this day it’s a long-running wrestling in-joke that Vince hates Christian, something they even referenced in their sketch show on the network.
And honestly, and I really shouldn’t find this funny, but Vince, he just hated Christian’s face.
He didn’t think Christian could connect with the audience, according to, again, Bruce Prichard, which means Vince definitely didn’t watch TNA in the mid-2000s, where the Instant Classic was one of the tentpoles of the promotions hottest period.
In fact, whenever anyone suggested anything for Christian to Vince, he would react negatively saying stuff like, quote “‘Ugh, goddamn, do we have to shoot him? Do we have to see that face?’
Like, damn, Vince. It’s just his face, man.
7. Mick Foley
And speaking of people that Vince McMahon immediately wanted to throw a tarp over and leave on the curb for the binmen, Mrs. Foley’s baby boy, one of the most endearing men to ever lace up a pair of boots.
Mick Foley got over with three separate characters under Vince’s watch, and made significant contributions towards dragging the company out of the wretched New Generation Era.
Which again, makes its insane that it’s one of the most well-known cases of someone needed to be begged, actual begged, to allow someone else to make money for them.
Jim Ross wanted to bring in Foley because I mean, yeah, his work in WCW and Japan say hello, but Vince strongly disliked Cactus Jack, ironic considering that Foley’s best WWE match was wrestling as Cactus Jack.
According to JR on Talk is Jericho, when he suggested hiring Foley, Vince replied “Oh no, JR, we’re not doing that. I’m gonna go along with you on most of these things, but not that one.” Again, luckiest man in the business.
6. Shawn Michaels
And the hits start coming and they don’t stop coming.
Hey look, at least Vince snapped up The Rockers, that much was fantastic sense, likewise splitting them up and running HBK as the New Gen’s best preening dickhead, but when it came down to making Shawn the top guy, Vince had a crazy blind spot and I must not keep making jokes about Shawn’s eye, I must stop doing that.
Bruce Prichard, who at this point is basically our mole in WWE, when talking on Sam Robert’s Wrestling Podcast, described how Vince didn’t think HBK was championship material, which is like me not thinking that Keith Lee is husband material.
According to Prichard, whenever creative would pitch Michaels as a face Vince would respond with lines like, and I quote “‘that little son of a bitch? He’ll never be a babyface in this company!’
Then WrestleMania XI happened, and Vince finally saw the light, finally fuelling up the rocket to Michaels’ eventual coronation at WrestleMania XII.
Of course, considering the state of the roster in 1995, he didn’t really have anyone else other than Bret and Shawn, so the decision was pretty much made for him.
5. The Royal Rumble
Ok, this one’s not a wrestler but I wanted to include it because it is literally the greatest WWE stipulation of all time, it’s a 100% stroke of genius and I cannot believe that Vince initially didn’t like it.
In fact, worse than that, Vince HATED it, so much so that he would ridicule the match innovator Pat Patterson whenever it came up.
Genuinely, it’s the only match that I watched every single year without fail, even when I stopped watching wrestling, and it almost never existed.
In fact, it was only because Dick Ebersol, a tv executive who worked with Vince on Saturday Night’s Main Event, was pressing Vince for a special idea, a one-off wrestling special for tv when Vince turned to pat and said “Alright, tell Dick that stupid idea you’ve got.”
Vince then told Pat to book the first Rumble entirely by himself because he still didn’t believe in it, but then 33 years later, it’s still the best thing on WWE’s calendar, and, ironically, it’s a match that VINCE HAS F**KING WON.
Vince didn’t like the Money in the Bank match concept either when he first heard it, which leads us nicely to…
4. Chris Jericho
Heard of him? Y2J is up there in terms of having one of the most influential and important wrestling careers of all time.
ECW, WCW, WWE, AEW, even New Japan, the guy’s one impact match away from working everywhere. But getting him through the front door at WWE was a struggle.
According to Jim Ross in his book Under The Black Hat, it was a huge negotiation between him and Vince to bring Jericho in, which makes almost no sense when you consider Y2J in the Attitude Era.
Great talker, great worker, handsome, a catchphrase machine, why did Vince not want him, in JR’s own words “his f**king height”. Oh, Vince you silly sausage.
Jericho even wore lifts in his shoes when he first came to work for Mr. McMahon, that’s how Land of the Giants it was.
Even when Jericho had made it, the man himself revealed that it was something of a struggle, for another reason, at the time Vince couldn’t fathom the idea of pushing a Canadian as a babyface.
As yes, the infamously rude and obnoxious Canadians. When has a Canadian ever gotten over? When? When? When I ask you?
3. The Undertaker
So I think Vince might have the worst instincts in the world. Which by the way, at this point in the list, I don’t want people watching this to infer that we think Vince is terrible at his job.
That’s why you surround yourself with good minds, people you trust, people like JR who can convince you to go a certain way, Vince has other strengths, like biting this bit of metal, or walking, key strengths.
But no, Vince was shown Mark Calloway, the man who’d go on to become Marklord the Darklord, and his immediate honest-to-god reaction was, that’s just another tall basketball player with red hair, and didn’t see anything special in him.
Vince legit watched a match that Mean Mark Callous had with Lex Luger in WCW at the Great American Bash in 1990, a match that Taker worked with a dislocated hip specifically because he knew he was going to meet with Vince, and Vince tried to cancel that meeting.
With the man who went on to become the greatest gimmick in the history of the business.
2. Steve Austin
Was there anyone that made Vince millions of dollars that he actually wanted to sign in the first place?
Well, yes, Hulk Hogan and ok fair enough Vince, but literally everyone else other than The Rock seems to have succeeded explicitly DESPITE Vince McMahon.
Steve Austin make SO MUCH money for Vince during the Attitude Era, that even Scrooge McDuck would drown in it.
On Talk Is Jericho, Vince Russo claimed that when Austin came into the company as the Ringmaster, McMahon was dead set against him talking. Steve Austin, one of the greatest talkers of all time, Vince told Russo that the Million Dollar man had to do all of his talking for him.
It’s a perception that’s been verified by Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts, the subject of the infamous Austin 3:16 promo.
When Roberts told Vince that Austin was the next big thing, Vince replied, quote “You kidding me Jake?’ He said, “That guy, he’ll never make it past fifth, sixth match. He’s not a main-eventer.”
In case you didn’t know, that’s Vince talking about one of the most lucrative main eventers in wrestling history. But you know, hindsight’s 20/20, isn’t that right…
1. John Cena
Yes indeed. The man for whom Vince had so much faith in as the top guy in all of wrestling, that he refused to turn him heel and drove away a significant portion of his fanbase.
Vince’s initial reaction to John Cena is f**king hilarious, because oh the road not traveled. According to, who else, Bruce Prichard, Cena has just been signed by the company and was walking around looking like, well, like the prototype did, which is all sorts of hamburger insane.
Vince took one look at the man who’d become the face of his company, turned to Bruce and said, and I quote “get that walking, talking steroid billboard out of our backstage!”
I mean sure, almost a decade earlier the steroid trial had almost brought down the entire company, and sure, John Cena looked like he invented steroids at the time, but just imagine if Vince hadn’t been talked down.
I think a lot of us criticize Vince for his perceived stubbornness and refusal to budge in the face of criticism.
But if this list has taught us nothing else, it’s that, if Vince had ACTUALLY been as stubborn as he’s accused of, then wrestling history would look very different today.
To make sure you stay updated with all the latest wrestling news, add WrestleTalk.com to your Google Discover feed and follow us on Twitter!
Comments.
Loading comments…