When you are the most powerful man in the wrestling business, you can expect to get away with a lot of things. And yes, Vince McMahon has got away with lots of things.
From allegations of him supplying steroids to his wrestlers to improper medical practices in the company leading to lawsuits from a number of wrestlers, Vince has seen it all.
But more often than not, nothing has crippled this business magnate. This list takes a look at the five times Vince proved that he could get away with things inside the squared circle.
1. The ‘Kiss my ass’ Club
It is not possible to associate the concept of the ‘Kiss my ass’ club other than it being a vanity project for Vince McMahon. Conceived after the fall of the WCW/ECW alliance as a means for employees to prove their loyalty to him, the club has had multiple members.
William Regal, Jim Ross, Shawn Michaels, Hornswoggle, Mick Foley and even his son Shane (albeit by accident) have all suffered the stench of the Chairman’s butt and while the concept was conceived as a means to portray McMahon as an obnoxious boss, the fact that it has continued to stay relevant TV for over a decade indicates that McMahon might just have some guilty pleasure in it.
2. Vince’s affairs
On one hand it looks perfect – the evil boss uses his power to sleep with gullible Divas, but what makes Vince McMahon’s on-screen affairs with many of his female wrestlers open to suspicion is the sheer volume of them.
Back in the early 2000s, McMahon started an on-screen affair with Trish Stratus, but at least it was part of a solid storyline in which he got his comeuppance at Wrestlemania. However since then, many Raw episodes have seen McMahon engaging with various women wrestlers in questionable manners – and many of them did not even develop into a story line.
Vince has made Sable his on-screen mistress, has kissed Torrie Wilson, Candice Michelle, Stacy Keibler – with no story line development in at least the last three.
Self-indulgence, it seems to me!!
3. Books ‘God’ in a wrestling match
In the mid to late 2000s, McMahon entered into a storyline feud with Shawn Michaels. After getting beaten up by HBK at Wrestlemania, Vince and his ‘demon seed’ – his son Shane, continued the rivalry with Michaels.
At the next Backlash, Vince and Shane put themselves in a tag team match against Shawn Michaels and wait for it – ‘God’. This was done to poke fun at Michaels’ renowned born-again Christian beliefs, but the build up was so lame that the WWE fans felt their intelligence questioned.
4. ‘Vince McMahon is dead’
In 2007,an episode of Raw ended with a forlorn Vince entering into a limousine and the footage of the limo exploding after a few seconds. WWE Creative wanted to create an angle in which Vince was supposedly dead.
This would have been another one of the angles that would have taken the fans for fools, but the angle never materialised.
The next week, the infamous Chris Benoit tragedy occurred and Vince returned to T.V as if nothing happened, burying the angle.
5. The Montreal Screw Job
When the Montreal Screw job happened, WWE employees were outraged. Many refused to show up for work the next week and the entire Hart foundation – with the exception of Owen Hart who had an iron clad contract – which had been one of the cornerstones of the company immediately left the WWE.
Vince was considered as a pariah who had screwed over a man who had given his heart and soul to the company.
This along with the momentum that WCW had in the Monday Night Wars was supposed to put the WWE out of business, but somehow McMahon survived.
One by one, all the wrestlers who boycotted Raw came back to work and with Bret Hart mishandled by the WCW officials, WWE regained the momentum in the ratings war.
