The Racist Vince McMahon Angle That Never Made Air In WWE
Matt Hardy has recalled the racist angle pitched by Vince McMahon that never made it to TV.
Controversy was never far away from WWE TV during the Ruthless Aggression era of the early 2000s. However, there was one storyline that might have pushed things too far if it had made it on air.
Following the news of John Cena’s upcoming retirement tour, Hardy was asked if he had a favourite memory of working with the 16-time World Champion in a TikTok video posted by Reby Hardy.
The former US Champion recalled doing freestyle raps with a group of wrestlers during long bus rides on European tours, and those sessions always came down to him and Cena.
“Whenever John (Cena) started doing the whole rapper gimmick and it was kind of based off Eminem obviously at that time, and whenever we do European tours, we would have long bus rides.
“Sometimes four, five or six hours and a lot of times, there was a group in the back that would do freestyle raps and it would often come down to myself and John and we’d be like the last two…”
The memory sparked another story for Hardy, who explained that Vince McMahon heard about the raps and then came up with the idea of teaming him with Mark Henry. The disgraced WWE Chairman asked Hardy if he could “act black” and wanted to give him a gimmick where he would claim that his “Mattitude” gimmick was being oppressed.
“Vince (McMahon), at one point, wanted to stick me with Mark Henry. He had an idea, he said, ‘Well, you can rap and act Black, right?’ And he was gonna have me act like Mattitude was something that was oppressed like being a Black person and he had an idea about that, and fortunately, that never materialized.
“I think Mark would’ve shut it down anyway but I was gonna team with Mark Henry and that was an idea Vince had because he heard about our epic freestyle rants on overseas buses.”
@rebyhardy Replying to @Jessica 💜🐢 Wild John Cena Storytime #househardy#johncena#wrestling#wwe#storytime
John Cena Avoids Vince McMahon Question
At the press conference following Money in the Bank, John Cena was asked what Vince McMahon meant to his career. Rather than answer the question, though, Cena called it “uncomfortable” and directed people to look up his past answers to similar questions instead.
H/T to POST Wrestling for the above transcription.