The Time Vince McMahon Really Interrupted A Match, Rhyno On The Incident, Vince Rips Agents

As seen last night on RAW, Vince McMahon interrupted a match between R-Truth and Bo Dallas to address Roman Reigns. I noted on last night's live edition of the Wrestling Inc. podcast that the spot seemed to be playing off of a real incident in 2003, when McMahon interrupted a match between Tajiri and Rhyno. I received several emails last night asking for more details about that incident.

At a live event in 2003, Vince McMahon stopped a match between Tajiri and Rhyno while Rhyno had Tajiri in a headlock. This was not planned, and neither Tajiri nor Rhyno knew anything about it. McMahon called the match "boring" and then proceeded to go to the next segment, which was a bikini contest. I asked about the incident in an interview I conducted with Rhyno in 2012.

"Before the match, [Vince] goes 'You can't make any mistakes.' That's when he was going on the loops, right, the house show loop with New York and stuff," Rhyno recalled. "In ECW, if they start chanting 'BORING', you just work out of it and go into something and do whatever. I was told by an agent — and I'm not revealing any names because I don't believe in that — that if you go into a hold and they start chanting boring just to sit on it. So, I snap-mare and we didn't call anything but Tajiri was all about calling stuff.

"So, I think he just got nervous. So, they were chanting boring. So, obviously, they're watching the match, right? So, I go, you want to see boring? [I] locked that reverse chin lock in and did it three times. Anyway, I thought Vince was working because I couldn't really hear him when he was talking. I couldn't really hear because of the way that the speakers are set up.

"Before that show, [Vince] was like 'You can't make a mistake out there.' So, I'm thinking, oh, he wants to get involved in the match or something to see how we'd work on our feet and adlib and stuff like that. [Laughs.] So, I'm like 'What are you going to do? Fire me?' And I'm staring in the middle of the ring and the referee goes 'I think he's serious.' I'm like 'Serious about what? I can't hear him.' So, Vince talks to me and says 'Tajiri's going to drop kick you and go to the back.'"

Rhyno noted that he spoke to Vince after the match, who was pretty blunt about the situation.

"So, I talk to Vince afterwards and he says 'If they're chanting boring, they're bored.' You can't argue with the guy when he comes back with an answer like that. And I understand what the agents told me. So I said, 'Well, one of your agents told me that if they're chanting boring, just sit on the hold. At least I had Tajiri stand up and kicked him.' He's like, 'Well, obviously, that agent wasn't a top guy. Top guys save their money, they don't need to work and they don't become agents.' Nowadays, you've got some guys that have really done some serious money and are agents and stuff. But, there was no arguing.

"So, a lot of people online were upset and all that with how Vince handled that. But, I actually got a really good pay off, too. I think [Vince] felt bad because I did get a really good paycheck for that match. I was like, s–t, I wish he would have came out after the first reverse chin lock. [Laughs.] It was actually a pretty good house, too. But, I got a little bit more I think."

You can listen to Rhyno discussing the incident in the video above.