10 Things Deleted From WWE History
5. The "Death" Of Vince McMahon
WWE attempted to kill Vince McMahon off at the end of a June 2007 episode of Raw. The show concluded with the Chairman casually strolling out to his limousine, which burst into a ball of flames almost as soon as he'd sat down inside. Minutes later, WWE.com published an article putting it over as a legitimate incident, claiming that Vince was "presumed dead," though savvy fans realised it was part of an angle.
The storyline was reportedly set to feature a staged funeral, Mr. Kennedy's reveal as Vince's illegitimate son, and a power struggle angle between Shane, Stephanie, and their newfound sibling, but it was scrapped two weeks later. The Chris Benoit tragedy forced their hand, and Vince appeared at the start of the June 25th episode of Raw, acknowledging that his "death" was all part of a storyline.
McMahon returned to television from August 6th onward, and the company wisely left the angle buried in the past, rarely bringing it up outside the immediate aftermath. Persisting with it would've been tasteless following Benoit's passing, but you could make the argument that WWE should never have attempted such an outlandish storyline in the first place.