Shane Helms Talks Shane McMahon Showing Up At WCW Monday Nitro, Backstage Buff Bagwell Incident
On episode 262 of Talk Is Jericho, WWE Superstar and Fozzy lead singer Chris Jericho spoke with professional wrestling veteran Shane Helms. 'Hurricane' discussed Shane McMahon showing up at WCW Monday Nitro in March of 2001 and the Buff Bagwell incident.
On the subject of Shane McMahon showing up at Nitro, Helms recalled that McMahon walked in on a talent meeting backstage and went out of his way to make Bagwell and Lex Luger uncomfortable.
"We got to TV and it was Panama, Panama City, Florida and [there] was a sign on one of the doors that said, like, either 'WWE' or 'McMahons' or something, but we still didn't believe it because they were so weird down there trying to work the boys. But we had a talent meeting, one of those good talent meetings and Shane McMahon walked into the room and that was the 'oh s–t'. It was silence and a little bit of 'oh', but that was the paradigm shift in the [professional wrestling] business right there. The war was over."
Helms added, "he came in. He made some kind of weird comment toward Buff and Lex. It wasn't even weird. It was just Shane. You know Shane. 'Lex. Buff. How are you doing?' Very [Vincesque], almost as if he's his son. Almost. And we all caught onto that. That wasn't very subtle at all. And then Shane gave a very good speech, that they bought WCW and they were going to carry it forward. It's going to be it's own thing and we're like, 'okay, whatever'. Nobody knew, no matter what anybody says, nobody in that room knew what their future held after that night."
Also, the former 'Sugar' Shane talked about his altercation with Bagwell when WWE officials attempted to acclimate its newly absorbed WCW talents following WWE's purchase of WCW. While the WCW talents all agreed to keep the skirmish a secret out of fear of job security, Bagwell told his mother and she would contact WWE talent relations on the matter.
"Apparently, Bagwell's mama called and told Johnny [Laurinaitis] what had happened. How f–king ridiculous is that anyway? And now that we're talking about it, I'm sure I'm going to hear about it again, but I've seen him at a bunch of shows and we kind of laugh about it. [It is] still odd that his version of the story, he still sticks with that. And that's odd to me, but still, that was 2001. That was 15 years ago."
Click here to check out the podcast. If you use any of the quotes that appear in this article, please credit Talk Is Jericho with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Source: Talk Is Jericho