Rhino Recalls Stephanie McMahon Finding Him Drunk Backstage At WWE
During his appearance on the latest episode of the Talk'n Shop Podcast, Rhino spoke about working with Stephanie McMahon and wanting to get to know how the business of wrestling works. He also revealed a conversation he had about Stephanie McMahon with AEW Star Chris Jericho about how their feud would be highlighted more given the involvement of a McMahon.
"So I was working with Jericho and Jericho came to me, and I still learned so much from talking to Jericho for five minutes, how could you not?," Rhino said. "And he goes, 'it's great that we have Stephanie in this angle because they are going to give the angle the time it needs, right? She'll definitely make sure, you know?' So I'm like, that's pretty cool, you get involved with certain people and you get that time because you know how it is.
"The cool thing about it is, if we were doing pre tapes, you're always waiting for the sound guy, the light guys, so we would talk about how like when she was a kid, she'd have to work at the office and stuff too and it was really cool, and we had that friendship, working relationship type deal. I was always curious about how the company ran when I was a kid watching it and how she was friends with Andre. And that was one person I always wanted to meet, Andre."
Rhino also spoke about the time Stephanie caught him drunk during a WWE show. The former SmackDown Tag Team Champion revealed that McMahon didn't say anything about the incident to anyone, showing their relationship had been established.
"I cut a promo, it was a live event, I came back and she said, 'don't mention ECW', this was after that, the whole invasion," Rhino said. "She's like, 'we're trying to get away from that'. And I'm like, 'cool'. So I wrestled Kane. Afterward, she knew I wasn't drinking before, so Nunzio brought some. Nunzio wasn't drinking and I almost finished a fifth, and I didn't drink at the time, I'm just wasted. And they're like, 'why did you drink?' Anyways, we're leaving and I'm riding with Christian and we got a late flight, it was an afternoon show. I don't know why I'm throwing waters in my bag, probably because I'm like, 'waters!'
"I couldn't take them on the plane, so I'm just throwing them in my bag and I'm staggering. She (Steph) comes up and she's like, 'Rhino, are you okay'. She wanted to make sure I wasn't all pilled up, you could smell the alcohol. And I'm like, 'what a buzzkill'. Anyway, I think it's because we developed that friendship that she didn't, you know, they didn't say anything to me. And I'm like, 'just grabbing a few waters, waiting on Christian. He's driving'. I wanted to make sure she knew he was driving. But yeah it was cool, Hunter always liked me because he liked my work."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Talk'n Shop with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.