Why Vince McMahon Jumped Off Scaffolding At 74 Before WWE WrestleMania 36
The former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon is known for having no fear.
Vince McMahon is a lot of things to different people, but most people who know Vince or have worked for him in the past would say he was a tough guy.
When Vince competed in WWE matches, he was always willing to do scary bumps through tables, whether it was at St. Valentine’s Day Massacre against Steve Austin or Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania 19. Even when Vince was in his 50s and 60s, he wasn’t afraid to do just about anything to entertain the audience.
An example of Vince McMahon’s willingness to do anything was at WrestleMania 36 in 2020, when there were no fans at the show because of the COVID-19 pandemic. During those two nights, NFL legend Rob Gronkowski won the “coveted” WWE 24/7 Title after going backwards off the platform in the WWE PC onto a bunch of wrestlers.
It was reported at the time that Gronk was a bit hesitant to do the spot, so Vince McMahon, at 74 years old, did the spot and showed Rob how to do it.
During Gronk’s discussion with Stephanie McMahon’s What’s Your Story? podcast, the future NFL Hall of Famer, who sat out one NFL season before coming back in 2020, talked about his WrestleMania 36 moment.
“I already knew I was coming back to football. The football thing went down about a week before this, two weeks before. In the back of my mind, it kind of mindf**ked me that I was going back to football because I felt like, ‘I can’t be too crazy. I can’t get hurt.’
I was kind of hesitant. Your dad came over and jumped right off the scaffold. I was like, ‘Dude, wow, that was impressive.’ He did such a good job. I was like, to myself, ‘I’m a huge pu**y.’”
After Stephanie mentioned that her father, Vince, was likely going for that reaction, Gronk responded.
“He was going for that. Then I was like, ‘I’m jumping.’ No hesitation from there. I did it and won the 24/7 belt.”
Vince McMahon Priced WWE Tickets For Families
The current WWE owners, TKO Group, have priced WWE tickets higher than ever, which has angered many fans who feel like they can’t afford to go to a WWE show anymore. A family of four may have to pay $1000 or more for good seats to any TV event or PLE, yet in the past, it was never that bad.
TKO’s Chief Operating Officer, Mark Shapiro, spoke about WWE ticket prices and made an interesting comment about how Vince McMahon priced tickets when he was running the company for 40 years before TKO took over in 2023.
“WWE is not where the UFC yet is on ticket yield. We have our work to do there.”
“We know we have a lot of room there because Vince McMahon was primarily pricing tickets for families and wasn’t totally focused on maxing the opportunity there. Now that we’ve seen what we can do with UFC, we’re replicating that in terms of ticket yield and holding back and advance sales when it comes to OnLocation on the WWE side and it’s working out really well.”
“There are no shortage of countries…that want to see us bring our show to town.”
Also read: Bryan Danielson shared what he told Vince McMahon when Danielson signed with AEW.