Vince McMahon Told Michael Cole He Would Kick His Ass Then Fire Him After Commentary Mishap
WWE Hall Of Famer JBL has spoken about a time Vince McMahon didn’t know whether to kick Michael Cole’s ass or fire him, so threatened to do both.
During a recent Q&A session at Steel City Con, JBL reminisced about his days on the commentary team with Michael Cole on WWE SmackDown. According to the former WWE Champion, there was one incident where they had received mixed messages ahead of the debut of Deuce – one half of former WWE Tag Team Champions Deuce ‘n’ Domino – who was son of Jimmy ‘Superfly’ Snuka.
“We were sitting in the back one time with Vince [McMahon] and Jimmy Snuka’s son [Deuce/James Snuka] and Vince said, ‘Be sure when you say he comes in, that’s Jimmy Snuka’s son.’ Now later we tried to say that but then Vince goes on to say, ‘Last thing you wanna say is he’s Jimmy Snuka’s son because he can’t live up to the fact that Jimmy Snuka was his dad.’
“Now later they tried that because he wasn’t really — didn’t really work out and they tried. But Michael Cole took copious notes. So he’s writing down, ‘Jimmy Snuka’s son.’ I don’t even notice it. Soon as the kid tags in, Michael Cole says, ‘In comes Jimmy Snuka’s son.’ Vince had just told him don’t say ‘Jimmy Snuka’s son.’”
After accidentally going defying the orders of Vince McMahon, Cole was met with a tirade from the irate WWE Chairman while all JBL could do was laugh at the unfortunate announcer.
“Well when he says that, they’ve got the little God camera that can look at us. I start laughing because I realize Cole doesn’t know not to say that, Vince sees me laughing and thinks Cole is making fun of him in front of the whole entire company. Vince’s response was, ‘Michael, I’m gonna come down there and I’m gonna fire you. No, I’m gonna come down there and I’m gonna kick your ass. Not I’m not, no I’m not’ and he’s debating with himself at this point.”
“This is during a live show and he goes, ‘No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I’m gonna kick your ass, then I’m gonna fire you! That’s what I’m gonna do! I’m coming down right now’ and Michael’s just looking at the camera like — and I’m dying laughing and there’s no commentary and then by the time the commercial comes around, there was no commentary in the match.”
“Vince realizes what happened, that Michael did it by mistake. He goes, ‘Haha, I lost it a little bit there, didn’t I? Ha, yeah.’”
H/T to POST Wrestling for the above transcription.