Many of you may recall that Vince McMahon appeared on the “On The Record” show with Bob Costas back in 2001 and things got extremely hostile between the two men as Costas was talking about the XFL’s decline in viewership.
Now, a new book from Jim Miller, “Tinderbox: HBO’s Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers,” has new information on the exchange, with both McMahon and Costas looking back at their conversation. In the book, McMahon admitted that Costas deserved to “get the sh*t beat out of him”.
McMahon said,
“Once we were doing the interview, he kept interrupting me and interrupting me, and bringing up topics that had nothing to do with what we were supposed to be talking about. He kept trying to do the ‘I gotcha’ kind of thing. It was clear he didn’t want to hear any of my answers.
“The other problem was that Bob is so freaking pompous. The entire time he acted like he was above me and was just using me to show how great he was. I was sitting there really pissed off and started thinking, I wish he wasn’t 5-feet high and 140 pounds. If he was 6-5 and 295, he would deserve to get the s–t beat out of him. I could have really given them some great television.”
Costas also revealed that McMahon was slamming the doors as he exited the studio. He said,
“He stormed off and you could hear the doors slamming behind him. It takes some strength, by the way, to slam the doors of the studio. Those doors aren’t like the door to your kitchen. I could hear them slam.”
“The following day the phone rings, and it’s McMahon. ‘Bob, let’s make it two out of three. You took last night. I want a rematch.’ I said, ‘Great.’ We did another one a year later that was less heated, was still a good exchange, but it wasn’t as memorable as the first one.”
