Vince McMahon on Stone Cold Podcast

[goodhelmet]

Let's keep this in one thread.

[Timbo Slice]

Obviously, this was going to be full of softballs, but at the same time, it was at least entertaining. Anyone looking for Austin to dig in deep and get the tough answers out of Vince was going to be sorely mistaken in the first place.

[Timbo Slice]

That being said, Vince dropping the "I own this thing. We're going on for 15 more minutes." line was legitimately incredible.

[Coffey]

This show was surreal to me. I think I've said that like a dozen times in the last hour. Vince McMahon sitting there with Steve Austin letting all the insider terms fly, calling Undertaker by his real name, saying Cesaro didn't have any charisma, saying the wrestlers of today aren't as ambitious as the ones of past eras...there was a helluva lot of stuff in that hour. I was legit shocked that CM Punk was mentioned at all. Then Vince apologized for Punk getting fired on his wedding day. Just crazy.

 

If WWE Network had more stuff like that, I would certainly watch it more.

 

I said this on Twitter but this last week of pro-wrestling has been crazy & surreal...and none of it involved any actual wrestling. Instead it was podcasts, social media, people replying to audio comments, etc. It's a weird time to be a wrestling fan.

[Matt D]

Honestly he went deeper than I expected. The strangest bits were Vince saying he didn't know the answer when it came to Cesaro and the silence from Austin after the Savage question. The Brock is Jake's python analogy was weird too.

 

And the whole streak question. You get that Vince really loves the bug eyed fan though.

 

I kind of liked his territory killing answer.

[bradhindsight]

I don't think he was fed softballs - the Savage question, Punk topic, what happened to Shane, etc. I thought Austin was pretty solid in pressing further when he thought something was there, otherwise he was going to move to the next thing. Took Vince a couple minutes to really warm up, and I liked how sincere he came across (right off the bat) about the termination papers showing up on Punk's wedding day.

[bradhindsight]

I kind of liked his territory killing answer.

 

I was pretty impressed that 69 year old Vince McMahon was rattling off conversations and incidents he had with Verne Gagne and Bill Watts way back in the day. Loved his bit about only challenging Watts once and that Crockett didn't know the business.

[Beast]

Feel pretty discouraged about continuing to watch as often as I do if that's how Vince feels about Cesaro. Ridiculous.

[goodhelmet]

The only thing Austin danced around while trying to make his point on was saying that it was too scripted. He mentioned young guys walking around with paper in their hands and then didn't really go back and harp on it.

 

The best Austin question and facial expression was asking Vince if Randy Savage was going into the Hall of Fame and giving him a look like he didn't belive him when Vince said yes.

[Matt D]

We talk about the death if the territories a lot and we never talk about the idea that yeah, most of the territories had more capital than Vince but didn't use it defensively.

 

Is that bs or not? You get the impression he convinced himself it's not at least.

[Fando]

So hopefully Austin will talk about his reasons why he didn't bring up the fact an ex-superstar blew a hole through the Wellness Policy on a future podcast.

[Matt D]

Oh. Also, shy Vince~

[goodhelmet]

Feel pretty discouraged about continuing to watch as often as I do if that's how Vince feels about Cesaro. Ridiculous.

Austin whiffed on this one giving Vince the easy way out. He ALWAYS puts Cesaro over on his podcast but Austin didn't really put over how over Cesaro was doing the Swing and after winning the Battle Royal and how it was creative's fault for not pushing him as a babyface. I think he let Vince off the hook on this one with bad phrasing and not making a strong argument out of the gate.

[C.S.]

That was incredible and worth $9.99 all by itself. I can't agree with whoever said that Austin was throwing Vince softballs. Austin asked Vince just about every question anyone would have wanted to ask him. I can nitpick and wish he had gone more in-depth about Savage or challenged the nonsense about Brock being the only one who could end the streak because there was no one else left (what about Bryan a year or two down the road?). Vince was off his rocker when he said Cesaro doesn't have charisma, mic skills ("maybe because he's Swiss" is as groan-inducing as that infamous Vince Russo interview about Mexican and Japanese wrestlers not being able to get over in America) or the "it factor." Just mind-boggling. All in all, this was an amazing piece of television with a long list of newsworthy items and quotes.

 

Edited to add: Yeah, bad booking after WrestleMania completely fucked Cesaro. I do wish Austin had harped on that point more.

[goodhelmet]

So hopefully Austin will talk about his reasons why he didn't bring up the fact an ex-superstar blew a hole through the Wellness Policy on a future podcast.

As someone who probably wouldn't have passed a wellness test when wrestling, do you really think Austin was going to go down that road?

[MoS]

For those of us who live in the foreign lands with no access to the Network and want to listen to this, but do not want to use torrents, any idea where this might be available?

[Bix]

We talk about the death if the territories a lot and we never talk about the idea that yeah, most of the territories had more capital than Vince but didn't use it defensively.

 

Is that bs or not? You get the impression he convinced himself it's not at least.

There's some truth to it. He wasn't super rich personally at the time. Fritz made great money, then became ridiculously rich investing it in real estate, and never really put it into his promotion. And so on.

 

But Vince bought the biggest promotion in North America that had the biggest cities with money from the promotion's old accounts. He was playing from a position of strength that nobody else could touch.

[bradhindsight]

 

Feel pretty discouraged about continuing to watch as often as I do if that's how Vince feels about Cesaro. Ridiculous.

Austin whiffed on this one giving Vince the easy way out. He ALWAYS puts Cesaro over on his podcast but Austin didn't really put over how over Cesaro was doing the Swing and after winning the Battle Royal and how it was creative's fault for not pushing him as a babyface. I think he let Vince off the hook on this one with bad phrasing and not making a strong argument out of the gate.

 

 

Agreed - he mentioned pairing him up with a heel Heyman to force fans to boo him, but as you said - this was a little choppy (bad phrasing is spot on). Not mentioning the Swing was glaring.

[Matt D]

It's a hell of an argumentative shield. He bought up the talent. They could have stopped him.

[goodhelmet]

It's a hell of an argumentative shield. He bought up the talent. They could have stopped him.

Use quotes bro. This topic is moving too fast.

[Fando]

 

So hopefully Austin will talk about his reasons why he didn't bring up the fact an ex-superstar blew a hole through the Wellness Policy on a future podcast.

As someone who probably wouldn't have passed a wellness test when wrestling, do you really think Austin was going to go down that road?

 

Nah but I'm not gonna get all misty cuz Randy Savage's name was brought up instead either.

[bradhindsight]

or challenged the nonsense about Brock being the only one who could end the streak because there was no one else left (what about Bryan a year or two down the road?).

 

Yeah but I thought Vince made it clear Undertaker was done and he had to work off what was best for 2014 given what they had. It did seem like he was stretching that someone like Brock needed this rub and that now he could always make this claim. That would be applicable for any wrestler.

[goodhelmet]

 

 

 

So hopefully Austin will talk about his reasons why he didn't bring up the fact an ex-superstar blew a hole through the Wellness Policy on a future podcast.

As someone who probably wouldn't have passed a wellness test when wrestling, do you really think Austin was going to go down that road?

Nah but I'm not gonna get all misty cuz Randy Savage's name was brought up instead either.

i don't think anyone here got misty eyed about Savage but Austin's reaction was priceless. Anyway what else would you have asked him about?

[Coffey]

Anyway what else would you have asked him about?

 

 

Commentary micro-management. That's something I would have asked since I think it hurts the on-air product a lot.

[C.S.]

 

or challenged the nonsense about Brock being the only one who could end the streak because there was no one else left (what about Bryan a year or two down the road?).

 

Yeah but I thought Vince made it clear Undertaker was done and he had to work off what was best for 2014 given what they had. It did seem like he was stretching that someone like Brock needed this rub and that now he could always make this claim. That would be applicable for any wrestler.

 

 

That's possible, since Bryan wasn't on the table this year because they needed him for the HHH match and the main event, but Vince wasn't very clear in his wording.