Vincent Kennedy McMahon is a very interesting individual. The man is responsible for building the WWE into a worldwide empire, and he currently stands as the most infamous and successful wrestling promoter of all time, an accolade that is highly unlikely to be surpassed by anyone in the future.
McMahon put professional wrestling firmly into cultural relevancy. And while he definitely had help in the form of massive superstars and talented co-workers, there is no denying that without Vince, pro wrestling would be nowhere as popular as it is today.
Some people have hailed him as a complete genius, while some have called him a lunatic. These are hardly mutually exclusive traits as he is definitely a marketing genius, but he does have some odds eccentricities, as pointed out by the people who have worked for him over the years.
For example, McMahon detests sneezing as it is involuntary and he cannot control it. He also keeps a dinosaur skull in his corporate office and has a love for snow cones. He also wrestled an Olympic gold medalist while being 38,000 thousand feet up in the air, and the contest lasted for over four hours.
Kurt Angle And Vince McMahon Wrestled For Four Hours
Yes. Vince McMahon wrestled Kurt Freaking Angle throughout the duration of a plane ride. According to Kurt Angle in his autobiography, on a plane ride back from London, McMahon got into a contest with perhaps the best legitimate amateur wrestler in the history of the company. During a RAW taping in 2002, as a part of the entertainment, Vince took down Angle during a segment. And during the aforementioned plane ride, the boss ended up grappling with him for real.
As narrated by Angle in his autobiography, "It's True! It's True!", before this incident, he held great respect for Vince McMahon but he was not particularly close to the boss as some of the other superstars, even feeling a bit intimidated at times. However, that all changed during the ride back home as McMahon was in a playful mood during the whole flight, and after talking with various people, he took a seat on the armrest of Angle’s chair and the two began to talk.
McMahon mentioned that he too wrestled in college, as his father had sent him to a military high school in Virginia, and that he was a runner-up in the state championship. After the pleasant conversation came to an end, McMahon got up from the armrest and walked off, but not before reminding Angle one final time that he was the only one who took him down in the ring.
The parting words stirred up the competitive spirit within Angle and the Olympian decided to engage with a bit of horseplay with his boss. As McMahon walked away, Angle tackled him from behind and knocked him down. He quickly established a dominant wrestling position and pinned his boss right against the aisle.
The nearby employees began cheering at the spectacle before them as McMahon struggled to escape from under Angle. The commotion ended up waking the Undertaker and he took it upon himself to end the little skirmish between Angle and the boss, not knowing that the competition was for giggles. Undertaker proceeded to yank Angle off of McMahon and ended up choking him out, putting the gold medalist to sleep for a few minutes.
The Match Continued After Undertaker's Interference
Kurt Angle was not out for long, and he woke up a few minutes later to see McMahon grinning at him. Thereafter, the thirty-second wrestling match escalated to a four-hour long competition as McMahon, not satisfied at being pinned, proceeded to attack Angle throughout the rest of the ride. Angle noted that McMahon was incredibly strong, even at the age of 55, and taking him down was no simple task as the "genetic jackhammer" fought off Angle and made him work for every takedown and pin.
Towards the end of the flight, McMahon tackled Angle as soon as the flight landed and ended up knocking Angle into his wife, Linda McMahon, who then fell to the ground. Thankfully, she was enjoying the competition as much as her husband and after one final wrestling match, the ride came to an end peacefully and the WWE employees got off the plane without further incident.
Kurt Angle reflected that after the shoot match, he was a lot closer with McMahon and the little fear he held in regards to the boss was gone. He also mentioned that no other boss in the world would be willing to engage in a wrestling match with an employee during a flight back home; no one except Vincent Kennedy McMahon.