There have been plenty of stories that have come out over the years about Vince McMahon and other bookers and owners, and some of those stories are beyond belief.
One that comes to mind involved Ole Anderson. When he wouldn’t let a wrestler off when his grandmother died, and he recounted it in his book Inside Out: How Corporate America Destroyed Professional Wrestling: Special thanks to prowrestlingstories.com for the excerpt.
“When one of the guys wanted time off because his grandmother had died, I started to grill him. ‘What are you going to do – resurrect her from the dead?’
“He stammered. He didn’t know how to respond.
“‘If you wanna work, then let’s get to work,’ I suggested.
“As I walked away, the guy pulled a gun out of his bag and aimed it at the back of my head. I didn’t know about it until Stan Hansen and some of the guys told me about it later. I asked Stan, ‘Why didn’t somebody warn me?’
“He just grinned and said, ‘We wanted to see if he would actually shoot you…’”
https://t.co/ytuWI1d4CZ pic.twitter.com/ygyKr4yXeK
— AdFreeShows.com (@adfreeshows) December 23, 2022
Fired for not knocking?
As bad as Vince McMahon reportedly was, we’ve never heard a story like this about him, but there is a curious one that seems to back the reports where people walked on egg shells backstage at WWE.
Wrestlingnews.co reported on Jimmy Jacobs appearing on Insiders podcast and he shared a story from his days as a WWE writer.
“Vince is a legend. Anything I say, it’s with a certain amount of respect and love, and it’s only from the perspective and the experience I had there. So none of it is meant to disparage him because it’s his company. It’s his sandbox. You’re playing it. That’s what you have to understand when you’re there. You go, ‘Why isn’t this different? Because it’s not your show. That was my motto. That was my mantra. It’s not my show. If it was my show, this is how I would do it. It’s not my show, so we’re gonna do this.
“When I first got there, I thought that Vince was going to be a dude, a billionaire, but a dude. Like when I first got there, I was like, why is everybody so scared of Vince? Everybody, like, just treat him like a human, guys. What are you talking about? Then I learned almost immediately I was like, oh, yeah, and I started becoming scared of Vince. One of my first, maybe my first month there, my closest friend on the team, on the writing team, almost got fired because he came into Vince’s office without knocking. Vince had said,’ Fix up this promo and come back to me.’ So he fixes the promo and he comes back to him. He doesn’t knock, and Vince wanted to fire him. Dave and Ed, great bosses, great dudes, they saved him. The guys name was Ryan Callahan. Saved his job. He just, have to go on the home team. Can’t go on the road and be in front of Vince. He’s got to bring him to the home team. Ryan, Callahan, not Ward, Ryan was an incredible writer, and he’s there now. He’s one of the lead writers of SmackDown. He’s brilliant guy. You start to realize that you’re one weird interaction with Vince away from being in the doghouse or being fired. Then you just start to behave in a way to try to not get fired. Then your ideas become ideas in an effort to not get fired. Pretty soon you have a whole bunch of people that are playing to not lose instead of playing to win.”
These stories are one of the reasons we love professional wrestling so much. They really bring to life the type of characters the thrive in front and behind the scenes.
What’s your favorite story from wrestling? Let us know in the comments below.
SUBSCRIBE NOW: Get The Overtimer’s Hottest Stories, Breaking News and Special Features in your email, CLICK HERE!
