Eric Bischoff has revealed Vince McMahon‘s reaction to him kissing his wife onscreen.
When Bischoff was the General Manager of Raw back in 2003, he ended up embroiled in a feud with Shane McMahon that was set to come to a head at that year’s SummerSlam.
On the final episode of the show before the Biggest Party of the Summer, Easy E ramped up the personal nature of the feud immeasurably.
While Shane was in the ring, a live feed was shown of Linda McMahon at home. Bischoff then appeared at her door and ended up kissing Shane’s mother in front of the world, much to Shane’s horror.
On the latest edition of 83 Weeks, Bischoff looked back on the lead-up to the segment, saying it was Bruce Prichard who first informed him of the plan.
“I’m pretty sure Bruce [Prichard] is the one that [told me about it]. And I think he told me over the phone, because I had to fly to Connecticut to do it. It was in Vince [McMahon] and Linda’s home. It wasn’t a fake office, it was Linda’s office in their home.
“I remember when Bruce told me, he didn’t give me the details. He said, ‘We need you to come to Stanford. We’re going to shoot a scene with you. It’s going to be at Vince’s house.’ That’s all I knew going into the scene. It wasn’t until I got there — you know, Vince is running around, he had two big dogs I think. Maybe one, but they were huge dogs, and he was cooking eggs in his kitchen.
“And I showed up, and it was surreal. And it wasn’t until I got there that I found out exactly what I would be doing. And I thought, ‘Oh, well, this is different, but let’s give it a shot!’ It was awkward, for sure.”
Despite the awkwardness of the scene, for Bischoff it was just like any other segment to shoot.
“It was really no different than any other shoot. Once Vince got done eating, cooking his brunch and we were ready to go, we just blocked the shot out. You know, walked through it. I made sure I knew where my marks were and the timing of everything. Obviously, the dialogue that goes with it, that was the easy part.
“It was just blocking it and just, the sheer awkwardness of you know, grabbing any woman, especially Vince’s wife, and going through there. It was probably the same thing with Stephanie [McMahon]. When I ended up making out with Stephanie, it just was very, very freaking awkward.
Eric Bischoff reveals Vince McMahon’s reaction
Bischoff says Vince was watching in another room, but when he saw him next he had “a big grin on his face.”
“Vince wasn’t in the room. I think he was watching on a monitor in another room outside the office. I think it was one take. We didn’t have to do it over and over and over again. Fortunately, we nailed it in one take, which was the end.
“Vince thanked me, he was excited about it. He had a big grin on his face. He was happy with the scene. And as long as Vince was happy with it, I was happy with it. Once the awkwardness of thinking about doing it was over, it was just like any other scene.”
The WWE Hall of Famer also detailed McMahon’s directions, saying the scene was to be “forceful.”
“We walked through, you know, me grabbing and holding her. Vince wanted it to look very forceful. He didn’t want it to appear like it was a purely romantic scene. He wanted me to force myself on Linda because — and the reason for the scene was to piss off Shane [McMahon], and to take Shane’s hatred of me to another level.
“What better way than to sexually accost his mother? I mean, that would get anybody hot, right? People can relate to that, I guess. But, again, once we blocked everything out and took Vince’s notes, he wanted to make sure I put her arm behind your back and forced her; that was it. We blocked it. We shot it. I went home.”
Shane got his revenge on Eric Bischoff at SummerSlam, defeating him with a Leap of Faith from the turnbuckle onto Bischoff when he was lying on an announce table and getting the pinfall victory.
H/T to 411Mania.com for the above transcription.