WWE Director Talks Vince McMahon On Commentary And Why He Stopped, Angle With Vince's Limo Exploding
Recently on The Steve Austin Show – Unleashed!, 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin interviewed long-time WWE Director Kerwin Silfies. Silfies talked about why Vince McMahon stopped doing commentary for WWE programming, what he thought of McMahon becoming an in-ring performer, and what his favorite moment has been in his over 30-year career with WWE.
According to Silfies, McMahon was an excellent commentator because no one knew the booking plans better than McMahon.
"Nobody can tell the story that needs to be told better than the man who booked the story, and, so, everything [McMahon] did [on commentary] was pretty perfect. And I think that's why whatever color [commentary] guys were working with him, they did their best work working with him, with the exception of Bobby [Heenan], who, hands down, did his best work working with Gorilla [Monsoon] because he wasn't intimidated by him and he wasn't worried that he would say the wrong thing."
Silfies claimed that McMahon stopped doing commentary because he could not control everything behind-the-scenes when he was on commentary.
"He [has] got an amazing, amazing mind, if you ask me." Silfies continued, "I think he stopped [commentating] because he was frustrated having to sit there [at the commentary desk] and not be able to control other aspects of the show because he had to be doing the commentary and he could make do with someone else doing the commentary easier than he could sit there and watch everybody else, myself included, screw things up because he wasn't able to help."
Silfies thought that McMahon set a good example for staff when he started getting in the ring as a performer as he was willing to do anything he asked others to do. Silfies said he also worried about McMahon's safety.
"Well, first, I thought that it was a great example for everyone that 'I'm not expecting anybody to do things that I won't do myself to the limits of my capabilities' and his are pretty unlimited. And I also thought, 'please don't let him get hurt!'"
Silfies said his favorite WWE moment was blowing up McMahon in the limousine during the "Mr. McMahon Appreciation Night" episode of WWE Monday Night RAW in 2007.
"It was kind of a small moment, but I was very proud of it and it was when we blew up Vince in the limo because it took a lot of work to set that up and there was all kinds of speculation about how we did it and how it was 'Vince got out the other side of the car' and 'there was a fake leg that came out' and all kinds of stuff that was just baloney. But we're not Hollywood. We're the WWE and we do a lot of things really, really well, but we're not Hollywood and we didn't have a five million dollar budget for that stunt and it came out perfect." Silfies added, "people in the arena calling EMTs saying that Vince just got blown up in the parking lot. Now, that's crazy! That's just flat out crazy, but it was that good."
In addition to these topics, Silfies talked about WrestleMania being the easiest event to direct and shared his thoughts on how the product has changed over time. Click here to listen to the entire show.