[2001-04-01-WWE-Wrestlemania X-SEVEN] Vince McMahon vs Shane McMahon (Street Fight)

[GSR]

Vince McMahon is in his dressing room along with Stephanie, Linda and Trish Stratus, Vince wanting to make sure Linda is fully medicated as he doesn’t want her to become over-excited with it being Wrestlemania.  He’s interrupted by Michael Cole who is after some thoughts on the “shocking development” of his son Shane buying WCW.  McMahon tells him that if he wants shocking, tonight he’ll get it.  Even going as far as to guarantee it.

We get a recap of the McMahon family troubles; Vince telling Linda that he wants a divorce, him grossly making out with Trish right in front of her, Shane attacking his father before challenging him to a match at Wrestlemania and finally Shane buying WCW from under Vince’s nose.

Shane gives a special shout-out to some of his new friends, some of the” young stars of WCW.”  It looks like they got the worst seats in the house, right at the back of the arena, the camera unable to find them amongst the masses!  Belatedly it does and they all appear to be bored rotten.  I see Johnny Ace, Hugh Morrus, Stacey Keibler, Shawn Stasiak, Mark Jindrak, Mike Sanders and possibly Lance Storm and Chavo Guerrero Jr.  At least Stacey waves when she realises the camera is on them.  Mick Foley, the special guest referee, is introduced by Shane.  Vince slaps his son hard before unloading with some awful looking punches.  Shane explodes out the corner with a spear, his punches every bit as bad as his dad’s.  Stephanie is in the ring between them and when her words to Shane have no effect, she slaps him.  The new boss of WCW has already got some swelling under his right eye so someone laid something in on him.  Baseball slide dropkick as the action spills to the outside.  Flying lariat off the barricade, Steph practically in tears at what she’s witnessing.   Shane collects a Kendo stick from under the ring.  The obvious question being what is a Kendo stick doing under there?  He does his Muhammad Ali impression which doesn’t look as ridiculous then as it does now.  After blasting Vince in the head with a monitor he falls onto the Spanish announcer’s table.  Shane climbs to the top turnbuckles and Steph is begging him not to jump.  When he does, she pulls her father out the way and Shane crashes through it.  With Shane down, Trish pushes a sedated Linda to ringside, following Vince’s earlier orders to wait until Shane looks completely done for.  Trish goes over to check on Vince to make sure he’s okay, only to slap him, payback for everything he has done to her in the previous weeks.  Steph slaps Trish, who in return charges Steph into the apron.  The women end up going at it in the ring, Mick Foley happy to stand back and let them do so.  As soon as Steph looks to be getting the better of things, then he steps in to separate them.  She doesn’t appreciate his interference so slaps him.  Has anyone not been slapped yet?  Foley stalks after Steph who takes flight to the dressing room, Trish in hot pursuit.  Vince notices that Linda is now at ringside and goes to say something to her when he’s stopped in his tracks by Foley, warning him “don’t even think about it.”  Mick tries to wheel her out of harms way when he’s blasted over the back and head with a steel chair.  Vince rolls Linda into the ring and then sits her in a chair so she can witness what he’s about to do to their son.  He throws Shane inside followed by multiple garbage cans.  After wearing two of them out on him he lifts a third over his head, at which point Linda gets up from the chair and the place erupts.  An absolutely outrageous pop for her.  She kicks Vince in the family jewels and Mick Foley has recovered to dish out some punishment for the attack on him, beating Vince down into the corner.  Shane wedges a garbage can in front of his father and hits a coast to coast dropkick, blasting that thing into his face.  He makes the cover, hooking the leg and this one’s over.  The WCW guys are shown applauding the victory, only slightly more enthusiastically than when we saw them earlier!

When you see these two throwing punches you can only imagine how bad it would’ve been had they tried to do a straight up wrestling match.  A pure soap driven story, entertaining fare, but all smoke and mirrors.  The pop Linda got for just getting to her feet was unbelievable.

[cactus]

Soap opera pro-wrestling at it's absolutely best. Vince is brilliant at being a batshit crazy sadist. We only get a few minutes of Vince and Shane brawling before Trish brings out a sedated Linda and the crazy overbooking begins. Vince calls Linda a bitch, and takes out the guest referee Mick Foley. Vince decides he wants to beat Shane in front of Linda. The monster pop Linda gets when she rises up from her chair is incredible. Who knew a street fight between two non-wrestlers could be so enthralling? 
★★★★½

[soup23]

The action here was probably better than I expected as Shane’s strikes were merely pretty bad compared to his absolutely awful offerings later. The rest is storytelling perfection.