10 Lamest Swerves In WWE History
8. Vince McMahon's Death
In 2007, WWE decided it’d be a good idea to kill off Vince McMahon’s on-air character.
The company Chairman was walking to the parking lot at the end of an episode of Raw, but his limousine erupted into a ball of flames seconds after he’d entered it. It was supposed to be WWE’s version of “who shot J.R?”, and it left the announcers and viewers absolutely flabbergasted as Raw went off the air.
The death came out of nowhere, and caught the audience by surprise in the worst possible way. What’s worse is that WWE tried to play it off as legitimate to investors and business partners, and the company’s stock prices even dropped because some gullible shareholders thought Vince had really perished.
The original plan was for Vince to return in the summer having staged his own death, but the worst possible thing happened just 13 days after Vince’s limo explosion. After the Chris Benoit tragedy occurred, WWE were forced to abandon the storyline there and then. The Chairman opened Raw the next evening, breaking kayfabe to acknowledge the end of his death angle, before segueing into a Benoit tribute show.
It was an ill-conceived swerve from the start, made even worse by the Benoit situation.