Current Smackdown Live commissioner Shane McMahon was a recent guest on The Steve Austin Show. During the podcast, Stone Cold & Shane discussed how displeased Vince McMahon was with Stone Cold walking out of the company in 2002. Shane’s King Of The Ring match with WWE Hall Of Famer Kurt Angle was talked about as well as Shane always wanting to get into the business & much more.
Here are the highlights: (transcripts by WrestlingINC)
Shane Always Wanting To Get Into The Business:
“Well, Vince knew that’s exactly what I wanted to do. The requirements were I had to graduate college; Boston University, I graduated from there. I got a B.S. in Mass Communications/Public Relations. Bachelors of Science. I was like, ‘okay, let me just field this’ knowing full well I wanted to get completely into the business.”
Shane Discusses His Upbringing Saying Vince Was Strict, Experiencing Corporal Punishment:
“He was extremely hard on me. You know Vince, I mean, he was strict. He was a great dad, always there. Oh my gosh, yes, [Vince laid down the law when Shane messed up]. Oh, without question [he experienced corporal punishment]. Old school, I grew up old school that way, old school. Thank you, old school. Listen, if my dad didn’t step in like he did, I probably wouldn’t be here or I’d be locked away or somewhere else. I’m saying I was just a high spirited guy. You know me, I’m high energy, I’ve got to have an outlet for that energy and if it’s channeled in the wrong way, you just do dumb things.”
Shane On Having ADD/ADHD Growing Up:
“I had diagnosed and yeah, they tried to [prescribe him medication] when I was a kid, but when we grew up, they just thought we were disciplinary problems. Now, there’s medicine for it. They tried me on the medicine, Ritalin. Back then, it was very experimental and it didn’t work with me. Yeah, [it made Shane more hyper]. It wound me up and I was very irritable. Not a good thing, so it was tough.”
Austin Walking Out & How Vince McMahon Was Hurt By It: (Shane Talking To Steve Austin)
“You were the guy that was drawing the houses and everything was built around You. So when you have that much equity at stake and you have your number one player in there and that’s the one who draws money all of a sudden say, ‘I’m out,’ well, it’s very devastating, obviously, to everyone else underneath and everyone felt it, just like, ‘wow’, so you specifically, you let a lot of people down.”
“Vince was hurt professionally and personally because you guys had been building a good relationship. If you guys did have a disagreement, you’d settle it quickly and talk about it. But at the end of the day when it got down to ‘alright, this is the vision we’re going with when I said we’d paint the room blue, well, you didn’t want to paint the room blue at that time, so you took your paint and went somewhere else.’ So that was a big blow personally as well because, again, it’s the machine and we all put effort into building ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, and the company, and everything else around it and when that cog leaves, it’s like, ‘oh wow! Jeez, that didn’t feel good!’ It didn’t make any of us feel good. You let us down, man.”
Shane On The King Of The Ring 2001 Match vs. Kurt Angle & How His Father Became Infuriated During A Particular Spot In The Match:
“It’s safety glass, yeah, by the third time, I said, ‘you Olympic wuss’ or something along those lines. ‘I can’t believe you can’t even throw me through it.'””I wasn’t concussed or anything, so I was straight up. I mean, I was hurting. Kurt was calling for a suplex and I called it off. It was in the middle aisle. It was just cement. He says, ‘no suplex, suplex.’ I was like, ‘no, Kurt.’ He says, ‘go, go’ and he did something to me and I didn’t have much of a choice. I’m like, ‘alright, suplex.’ So as we did it, he hit and he went, ‘oh my God!’ He cracked his tailbone.”
Shane On Vince Becoming Angry With Both Him & Kurt During The Match:
“Vince almost came out about three times during that match. He was going to call it off. I had no idea, Chioda was the ref, Chioda was usually always my ref because we go back in the day, like I said and it takes three, not just two. It takes three. In the IFB, I guess Vince is talking, saying something. Chioda’s talking to me, but I think he’s just saying gibberish because, again, I got whacked in the head a couple of times. So anyways, Vince thinks that I’m shooing him off, that I’m disobeying an order, that I’m ignoring the order from Chioda, but I never got the order because I would never disobey him. So gorilla was silent, Vince was going ballistic. I mean, throwing stuff.”
“[Vince] was fuming and he said something very nice to me. He put the match over and that’ll stay private and he said, ‘but don’t you ever blanking do that ever again.’ He was so hot. We were supposed to ride together, but he got his own car. I was like, ‘wow, I had heat’ because he was nervous, so it was two things: being a father and seeing your son go through a train wreck and waiving him off, which really made him hot, in front of everybody, because he was giving the order in front of everybody, so he thought I was disobeying on top of all that and everyone around knows I was disobeying.”
“Kurt and I come back through and it was one of the first-ever standing ovations because that wasn’t given back in the day and I’m not saying that to brag. I’m saying it because of how appreciative I was and how appreciate the fans were that we put ourselves through that. And it was like, ‘oh my God, that was awesome.’ We get through gorilla, it’s like a morgue. I was like, ‘I don’t know what’s going on here.’ So Kurt and I keep going. I mean, it was silent. My dad was nowhere to be seen, he was so fuming. As we get through the back, there was a whole line of guys, all the boys were applauding, as I turn around the corner on my way to the trainer’s room before we go to the hospital, and then, here comes Marissa, just eyes bawling. She has no idea because I didn’t tell her anything. That’s the one I got huge heat for.”
