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Anybody who is familiar with Pat McAfee’s WrestleMania 35 drama with Michael Cole will know that Vince McMahon is very strict about the presentation of WWE Superstars and personalities when they are in front of the camera.
Shortly before McAfee made his first WWE main-roster appearance as a member of the WrestleMania 35 kickoff show, he was yelled at backstage by Cole after he decided to wear tuxedo shorts at WWE’s biggest show of the year.
McAfee has since explained that he was specifically told not to wear jorts, which he previously wore on NXT kickoff shows, and Cole thought he might have ruined his chances of impressing Vince McMahon if he went against the company’s orders.
Fortunately, this story had a positive outcome – Vince McMahon approved McAfee’s shorts after seeing a picture of Lebron James wearing a similar outfit – while it also highlighted just how much attention the WWE Chairman pays to people’s on-screen appearance.
Although Vince McMahon decided to let McAfee keep that particular outfit, the same cannot be said for some other WWE talents over the years.
In this article, let’s take a look at five times that Vince McMahon changed someone’s look before they appeared on WWE television.
#5 Vince McMahon changed Keith Lee’s appearance
Keith Lee cemented his status as one of the most successful Superstars in NXT history when he defeated Adam Cole at the 2020 Great American Bash to become the first person to hold the NXT Championship and NXT North American Championship.
Within six weeks, Lee had relinquished the North American Championship and lost the NXT Championship to Karrion Kross, allowing him to leave NXT and move to Vince McMahon’s Monday Night RAW roster.
It had been speculated for a long time that Vince McMahon was a big fan of Lee, so it was no surprise that he made an instant impact by facing Randy Orton on RAW before defeating The Viper six days later at the Payback pay-per-view.
Unfortunately, while this was still a huge moment for Lee, the social media feedback to his official switch to RAW largely revolved around the changes that were made to his music and attire.
It was first reported by Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp that Lee’s entrance theme was altered because WWE wants to stop using music that was created by CFO$.
As for his ring gear, Lee switched from trunks and no shirt in NXT to shorts and a tight vest on RAW. Then, as Sportskeeda’s Gary Cassidy noted above, he kept the tight vest in his next two matches but began wearing trunks again.
The Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer said Vince McMahon made the decision to change Lee’s ring gear because he did not want the former NXT Champion to perform shirtless.
#4 Vince McMahon changed John Cena’s appearance
John Cena claimed before his debut match against Kurt Angle on a June 2002 episode of SmackDown that he possessed “ruthless aggression” – a quality that Vince McMahon wanted WWE Superstars to have at that time.
As Cena recalled in a 2014 interview on WWE’s website, Vince McMahon instructed him to get rid of his blonde hair just hours before he made his first on-screen WWE appearance.
“He [Vince McMahon] turned around and with a disgusted look on his face, he said, ‘Cut his hair,’ and I was whisked away from Vince like an assembly line. That was the first time I met Vince McMahon and he was disgusted to look at me. They shipped me out and I immediately got a haircut, which was not dyed blonde, but equally as horrible.”
Cena previously performed under a different name – The Prototype – alongside future Superstars including Batista, Brock Lesnar, Randy Orton and Shelton Benjamin in WWE’s Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) developmental system.
The 16-time WWE World Champion has gone on to change his appearance for various different movie roles in recent years, but he has never brought back the Prototype hairstyle that Vince McMahon disliked so much.
#3 Vince McMahon changed Lance Archer’s appearance
After a five-month stint in WWE’s Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW) developmental territory, Lance Archer (then known as Vance Archer) began performing for Vince McMahon’s revamped ECW brand in November 2009.
Archer, who now works for AEW, said on Chris Jericho’s Talk Is Jericho podcast in 2020 that he was waiting around with his opponent, Logan Jones, as well as Vince McMahon and John Laurinaitis, before his ECW debut.
Following a private conversation with Vince McMahon, Laurinaitis approached Archer and told him that he needed to cut his long hair and braided goatee.
“And all of a sudden, Johnny’s like, ‘Kid, come here.’ ‘What’s up, Johnny?’ ‘We’re cutting your hair.’ I was like, ‘Alright, on TV tonight?’ And he goes, ‘Yeah.’ I was like, ‘Alright.’ They literally took me to the hairdresser and she chopped my hair and they told them to shave my face and leave the jacket and all these different things.” [H/T 411mania]
Archer said he reluctantly went along with the haircut because he had heard horror stories about people, including Frankie Kazarian, who were let go from WWE after refusing to cut their hair.
#2 Vince McMahon changed Michael Hayes’ appearance
In 1995, Michael Hayes retired from in-ring competition and began working as an interviewer for WWE, as well as a commentator on WWE Superstars alongside Vince McMahon.
Speaking on his Something to Wrestle With podcast in 2020, WWE director Bruce Prichard recalled that both he and Vince McMahon immediately thought that Hayes needed a haircut if he was going to appear on television.
"We had the [commentary] tryout, put him in the booth. Vince was like, 'Let's do this thing. Just one thing, Michael, we got to talk about the hair.' He was like, 'Whatever you need, boss.' It just so happened, we had a hairstylist upstairs." [H/T Sportskeeda's Anirban Banerjee]
Prichard said Hayes was worried about getting his long hair and beard cut, and he even managed to convince Vince McMahon to let him keep his moustache.
Vince McMahon has also been known to change Superstars’ names in recent years, with several people having their names shortened after moving from NXT to RAW and SmackDown.
Back in 1995, Hayes was already an established name in the wrestling business, but Vince McMahon decided to give him a new name – Dok Hendrix – as well as a new look.
#1 Vince McMahon changed Jim Ross’ appearance
Granted, this was not a permanent change, but Vince McMahon still made a significant alteration to Jim Ross’ look before his debut WWE appearance at WrestleMania IX.
Speaking on his Grilling JR podcast in 2020, Ross recalled how Vince McMahon approached him about the idea of wearing a toga at the Roman-themed event.
“He [Vince McMahon] asked me, he said, ‘I wanna ask you something. I know you’re a serious broadcaster and I like that. But this is kind of… this here’s the Palace, so I need you to wear a toga.’” [H/T 411mania]
Ross added that Vince McMahon was so keen for his announcers to wear togas that he was prepared to delay his new commentator’s debut if he did not like the outfit.
“‘But if you’re not comfortable wearing a toga, we’ll move your debut to King of the Ring or wherever or one of the syndicated shows.’ Are you kidding me? I said, ‘Vince, I’m fine wearing a toga.’ I never wore a toga in my life.”
The WWE Hall of Famer revealed that fellow commentator Bobby Heenan tried to convince him not to wear anything under the toga, but he decided against it.
