The BEST Wrestling Moment Every Year (1989 - 2026)

29. 1998 | Bedpan

You could argue that the Mr. McMahon character peaked before he became the cartoonishly evil character most people remember him as. The Mr. McMahon that embarked on a propaganda campaign in the spring of 1998 was phenomenal. It made far more sense for a disingenuous Vince to pretend that he was a paragon of virtue in a new, lawless world, intent on serving his own interests, growing mad with power all the while. 

The saccharine videos celebrating the history and “values” of the Stooges; McMahon’s indignant voiceovers when recapping Steve Austin’s latest successful bid to outsmart him; McMahon’s own failed attempts to turn Austin into a corporate role model: the feud was better before the WWF truly exploded in popularity. 

Before the slapstick comedy and pants-pissing shenanigans that occurred when Vince became a very broad and very transparent baddie, the early sophistication of Austin Vs. McMahon was, despite unfolding across the first half of 1998, closer to 1997 in its substance. All that said: when Austin smashed a hospitalised McMahon over the head with a bedpan, it produced one of the funniest sound effects in the history of comedy. It was as funny as the Hans Moleman football to the groin. Austin hammering away at the cast on Vince’s busted leg, like he was trying to somehow break it for a second time, was equally brilliant. Nobody has ever seemed like they were in as much agony as Mr. McMahon in that moment, and nobody deserved it more. 

Tyson and Austin had heart, but bedpan to the head had a bedpan to the head!