Mixed Stories On Vince’s Reaction
After the infamous WWE Curtain Call incident took place, Vince went from being okay with it, to pissed off. So what happened??
Nash on Russo’s podcast would say that after they came through the curtain, Vince was clearly unhappy:
“By the time we got through the curtain I turned to say something to Vince and Vince turned his back to me. I remember looking at Shawn and saying, ‘Well it looks like Smith & Wolinsky’s is out. This ain’t gonna happen’. From there it took on a life of its own”
Shawn Michaels, on the other hand, would say that Vince was originally okay with the incident after it happened. The fallout didn’t happen until later. From the Kliq roundtable he said:
“I remember Vince came up to me after and said, “Did that mean a lot to you?” I said, “Yes it did.” “Then it meant a lot to me.” And he was fine. It was fine that night”
So why two separate reactions from Vince? Shawn was sticking around with the company and Nash was leaving for the competitor. Even if Vince wasn’t mad about the incident, he at least had to act like it for the talent in his dressing room.
Why They Ended Up Getting In Trouble
As we know now, the incident took on a life of its own and the four stars involved received a ton of backlash for ‘exposing the business’. As we have documented in the stories prior, Vince was apparently aware that it was going to take place, so why was he so upset?
According to Shawn Michaels, some of the guys backstage got into Vince’s ear and made it into a big deal:
“It was not a big deal until it became a big deal. It didn’t become a big deal to us until it became a big deal to Vince”
Shawn says that after the incident Vince was getting a number of phone calls about what happened from older wrestlers who weren’t happy:
“What happened was the same thing that happened a lot of times — [Mr. McMahon] on the ride to wherever, getting phone calls. Honestly, it was big to the old timers in the locker room before it was big anywhere else”
After it spread like wildfire of the group ‘exposing the business’, Vince was forced to punish them:
“A lot of the traditional guys did not like that. [Mr. McMahon] had to put the hammer down”
According to HBK, it sounds like Vince was only upset because of the backlash that the incident received from the locker room.
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