Vince McMahon's 5 Biggest Career-Defining Matches with WWE
No one has contributed more to the success of World Wrestling Entertainment than its owner, Vince McMahon.
The architect of sports entertainment as we know it, it was his grand vision that gave us WrestleMania, and his business acumen has helped WWE become the biggest and most successful professional wrestling promotion in the history of North America.
He has also never been afraid to lace up a pair of boots and get his hands dirty inside the squared circle when the time comes.
Since his first official match in 1998, McMahon has delivered some of the most iconic matches in WWE history. They are typically chaotic and violent, the perfect conclusions to epic storylines. They also routinely feature him getting his ass kicked, much to the delight of fans everywhere who would love to do the same thing to their own bosses.
From Street Fights to steel cage matches, the CEO of the company has proven the age-old saying accurate: He will not ask his employees to do something he would not do himself.
On April 3 at WrestleMania 32, McMahon figures to play a key role in the Hell in a Cell match between his son Shane and The Undertaker, even potentially taking a bump or two on the grand stage.
As wrestling fans everywhere prepare to celebrate the extravaganza and the boss' potential involvement in it, let's take this stroll down memory lane by looking at five matches that have come to define the "Mr. McMahon" character over the last 20 years.
No Holds Barred Match: Bret Hart vs. Vince McMahon (WrestleMania XXVI)
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The Mr. McMahon character was born at the 1997 Survivor Series in Montreal, when he screwed Bret Hart out of the WWE Championship in the most controversial moment in professional wrestling history. The relationship between employer and star was fractured for 13 years, with the two men coming together only for Hart's Hall of Fame induction in 2006 and a home video release a year earlier.
In 2010, The Hitman returned to WWE, and it was only a matter of time before a WrestleMania XXVI match was set up between him and McMahon.
A No Holds Barred match, it saw the Hart family prove that blood is thicker than money as they came together to punish, pummel, torture and systematically destroy McMahon before Bret trapped him in the Sharpshooter and forced a submission.
It was a glorious conclusion to the rivalry for Hart, who exorcised the demons from his past and did so on the grandest stage in professional wrestling one last time.
McMahon's willingness to take the unadulterated beating that he did in order to pay off the story is a prime example of why he is such a great villain. As much as he may dominate television, as domineering as he may be presented, he always takes his comeuppance.
There are countless heels on the roster who could learn a thing or two from their boss.
No Holds Barred Match: Shawn Michaels vs. Vince McMahon (WrestleMania 22)
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In the years that preceded Bret Hart's merciless beating of McMahon, the CEO of WWE revisited Montreal with another of the men involved on that fateful November night in 1997, Shawn Michaels.
After making Michaels' life a living hell in the months that preceded WrestleMania 22, McMahon battled him in a No Holds Barred match in Chicago.
Needless to say, The Chairman of the Board again found himself enduring another whooping, this time courtesy of The Heartbreak Kid.
He was whipped with his own belt, blasted with a steel chair and driven through a table with a flying elbow. That does not mean that McMahon did not get a few of his own shots in. Having employed the services of The Spirit Squad and benefited from the interference of son Shane, he improbably took control.
His arrogance led to a Michaels comeback, though, and a night of pain, punishment and defeat courtesy of the man whose "boyhood dream" he had called on commentary some 10 years earlier.
The match won the Match of the Year award from Pro Wrestling Illustrated, its theatricality and intensity overcoming the fact that there was not much in the way of actual wrestling to be had. Those two things have fueled many of McMahon's matches and helped to cover up the fact that he is, in fact, an untrained wrestler.
Street Fight: Hulk Hogan vs. Vince McMahon (WrestleMania XIX)
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Who created WrestleMania?
It was the question at the heart of the WrestleMania XIX epic between McMahon and Hulk Hogan in 2003, with both men taking credit for the extravaganza that began much more modestly way back in 1985 in Madison Square Garden before exploding into living rooms with the glitz, grandeur and attitude that fans have come to know today.
They would battle in Seattle for sports-entertainment supremacy, not to mention the ever-important bragging rights.
The match was like many of McMahon's Street Fights. Weapon use, high spots and blood were used to mask the fact that he really had no idea what he was doing between the ropes, at least from a traditional wrestling standpoint.
The fans ate it all up. That a master of crowd psychology, Hogan, shared the ring with him only helped the quality of the bout.
There is one spot in particular that will forever define that match and live in the annals of WWE's greatest camera shots ever.
With Hogan incapacitated inside the squared circle, McMahon poked his head up from ringside, looking over the ring apron at his fallen opponent. His face was the proverbial crimson mask, and on it was the most twisted and demented smile ever seen in a WWE ring.
It was as if the devil himself was rising from hell, his sights set on the greatest hero wrestling fans had ever known.
As deranged as it was, there was a beauty in that shot. It perfectly encapsulated everything fans hated about the McMahon character and, at the same time, was a representation of its greatness.
Hogan would win the match, with McMahon's selflessness as a wrestler again on display, but it was the boss who left the most lasting impression in that classic bout.
Street Fight: Shane McMahon vs. Vince McMahon (WrestleMania X-7)
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When people look at professional wrestling and label it "a male soap opera," they are likely referring to the McMahon family drama that took hold of the sport in the late 1990s and has never let go.
In late 2000, Vince's treatment of wife Linda was deplorable. Not only did he demand a divorce, but he placed his estranged and distraught wife in a mental hospital, where he visited and made out with mistress Trish Stratus right in front of her.
His actions fueled the return of his son Shane, who was infuriated with the way his father had treated his mother. If that was not bad enough, the prodigal son traveled to Panama City, Florida, and bought WCW right out from underneath his dad.
With sister Stephanie supporting her father, the build to WrestleMania X-7 really was a family affair. It was on that stage that Vince and Shane would bring their issues to a satisfying conclusion.
There were so many loose ends surrounding the match that it easily could have been a mess of massive proportions. Instead, WWE Creative brought everything together in a nice, neat little package, and the performers delivered one of the finest examples of pure sports entertainment that anyone had ever witnessed.
First, the aforementioned Stratus repaid her "sugar daddy" for the humiliation she suffered at his hand, slapping him and brawling up the entrance with Stephanie. From there, Linda rose from her chair and revealed that her "vegetative state" was an act. She blasted her husband with a low blow, and special referee Mick Foley joined in as well, payback for being fired months earlier.
Finally, Shane climbed the ropes and launched himself off with a Van Terminator, crashing his feet into a trashcan and his father's face before scoring the win.
Here was this one character, Mr. McMahon, who made the lives of so many miserable for so long. On one night, at his grandest creation, he suffered the consequences of his actions. It was simple storytelling that no longer seems to exist in today's WWE.
Steel Cage Match: Steve Austin vs. Vince McMahon (St. Valentine's Day Massacre)
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When one mentions the name "Mr. McMahon," the first words any self-respecting wrestling fan should mention is "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. The two are linked, the rivalry between oppressive boss and anti-authority rebel the driving force in WWE's victory over WCW in the Monday Night Wars.
For as many hours as they spent at each other's throats throughout 1998 and early in '99, they had never had an actual one-on-one wrestling match. Sure, their "match" in April of '98 won Raw the ratings war for the first time in two years, but it was not a real match. It was bait-and-switch material that instead introduced Dude Love as the latest challenger to The Texas Rattlesnake.
In February of '99, at the St. Valentine's Day Massacre pay-per-view, Austin and McMahon would finally clash in a match that prevented all outside interference and left the two to settle their differences.
Austin pummeled McMahon and sent him off the top of the cage and through the announce table. The boss cracked his tailbone on the edge of it but continued to work, proving both his toughness and his dedication to the story he was telling.
He bled buckets and endured further punishment, all while the base of his body was in tremendous pain.
Paul "Big Show" Wight would debut on that night and attempt to help McMahon win, but it was all for naught. Austin scored the victory and would go on to WrestleMania to challenge The Rock for the WWE title.
There are many ways that fans can remember Vince McMahon, for better or worse, but this writer will forever choose to remember him as the guy who sailed off the cage and into the announce table, putting his body on the line for the sake of entertaining the fans. He did not have to do that. He could have stayed safe in the confines of his luxurious office in Stamford, Connecticut.
But he did not. He put himself at risk, suffered injury and continued to fight, because that is the type of man he is, the type of performer he is and the businessman that he has continually proved to be.
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