Former WCW Announcer Disagrees With Shane McMahon Story On How WWE - WCW Takeover Was Revealed

By Marc Middleton

As noted, this week's new episode of "Table For 3" on the WWE Network featured Shane McMahon, Bruce Prichard and John Laurinaitis. Above is a preview clip of the three talking about when WWE took over WCW in 2001. At the time, Laurinaitis was working as a head booker for WCW while Prichard worked behind-the-scenes for WWE, seen as Vince McMahon's "right-hand man" at one point. Prichard and Shane talked about the day they made the trip to WCW Nitro, where Laurinaitis and the lawyers were pretty much the only ones in charge.

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Prichard recalled how Vince had went back & forth over WWE owning WCW in the period of time leading up to the takeover.

"Because we went from, 'Stop thinking about it, I don't need anymore ideas, we're not going to do it.' To, 'We're back in the running, we might do it.' To, 'Well guys, we're the proud owner of WCW.' And we didn't know what that meant at that time, during that week, and I don't think they had even announced or told anybody with WCW," Prichard recalled.

Shane asked Laurinaitis, "You guys had no idea it [the deal] closed?"

Laurinaitis answered, "No, we had no idea. Nope."

"I was volunteered," Shane recalled. "So were you [Prichard]. My dad says, 'Alright, get on a plane, go down there and take care of this.' I was like, 'Alright, thanks.' It's like, really? OK. Talk about going into hostile waters. When we got there, we landed. Me, you [Prichard] and Jerry [WWE Hall of Famer Gerald Brisco]."

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Laurinaitis laughed and added, "With a brigade of security."

Shane continued, "We come in and we said, alright... we asked you [Laurinaitis] to have everyone in one certain area, so it was a huge room. And then I was like, alright, here we go. And I remember walking in the dressing room. A lot of the guys I knew obviously, through my different iterations of being through WWE, and something along the lines of, I said, 'Those that want to be onboard, we're very open arms and welcome, those that don't, OK. We completely understand your position and you don't want to be involved with that, and we respect that as well, but as of right now, just to let you guys all know that WWE has purchased WCW.' That was the first time I heard it, because everyone was like, 'Wam!' And I looked around that room, faces... you know? Some were awestruck, some were shocked, some were angry, like, you can see it. I was like, 'I don't know if we're getting out of here, you know?' I'm feeling it."

"There was maybe, myself and the lawyers that knew. That was about it. We were told, just to keep it quiet until you guys came," Laurinaitis added.

That's where the preview clip stops.

Former WCW ring announcer David Penzer re-tweeted the clip and disagreed with the story that Shane recalled.

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Penzer wrote, "This is inaccurate. There was an announcement made online the WCW website, a few days before Nitro, that WWE had purchased the company. We had no details of our future when Shane addressed us but we did know that the company had been sold."

One fan knocked WWE for lying but Penzer made it clear that he was not trying to throw them "under the bus."

Penzer added, "I was not trying to throw WWE under the bus. It was a long time ago and memories fade."

Another fan wrote, "WWE also announced it too on their website prior to Panama City. Why would they say this? The cat was out of the bag I think near the middle or the end of the prior week?"

Penzer responded, "Memories fade after 20 years. I'm sure it was not that they concocted a story all these years later. Shane did have said talent meeting so, if that's the way he remembers it, no worries, just telling my memories."

Another fan chimed in and wrote, "Exactly, people shouldn't jump on this so much, it's pretty common for people to misremember stuff, I'm sure he believes he's telling the truth, but he should probably have just looked it up a bit before talking on the subject"

Penzer responded and made it clear that he didn't think there was any malice in the story that was told. He wrote, "I made clear after the tweet went out that I didn't think there was any purposeful malice on WWE's part, just faded memories."

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Another fan tweeted the screenshot of the website announcement from that day in 2001 and Penzer responded.

"Wow! This took me aback," Penzer tweeted. "I remember turning on the computer 18 years ago and this is how I found out my world was about to change. Since then, I've seen it in my head when describing it but to see it again has the memories flooding back."

You can see the related tweets and the clip below:

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