10 Crazy Things You’ll Find On WWE Network (If You Search Deep Enough)
3. Vince McMahon Casually Drops The N Bomb
Though it wasn't much reflected in TV ratings and pay-per-view buys on a significant level, anecdotally, you may read that several fans point towards CM Punk's Pipebomb promo as their re-entry point into the world of pro wrestling.
They will have missed Vince McMahon casually dropping the 'N' bomb on pay-per-view.
He is such a strange paradox of a man. His admiration of Martin Luther King Jr. seems earnest enough - praising a recognised hero figure some 50+ years after his death is hardly an effective, cynical PR exercise, but then, he also dropped an 'N' bomb in front of Booker T as a joke. This is the same Booker T who had endured very real racism as part of an infamous 2003 storyline that both evidenced - and inexplicably reinforced - the company's institutional culture.
At Survivor Series 2005, McMahon caught up with John Cena backstage who had, it should be pointed out, more or less dropped the rapping elements of his promo style, and asked him "what's good in the hood". "Keep it up, ma *****," he says, which is revealed to be a joke when the camera pans to an annoyed, mystified Booker. The audio feed does not capture any laughter from the live crowd. This obviously isn't timestamped 'Vince McMahon calls John Cena the 'N' word. You'll find it under the chapter 'Mr. McMahon wishes Eric Bischoff good luck'. WWE responded years later to the furore to TMZ in its customarily quite funny way:
"[This was] an outlandish and satirical skit involving fictional characters, similar to that of many scripted television shows and movies."
Translated: Oh for f*ck's sake, everybody else does it!