10 Times Vince McMahon Allowed Smoking On WWE TV

10. Terri Runnels

There’s one exception to Vince’s stringent rules on smoking and that’s cigars. For the right performer he allows them on occasion when it largely benefits their gimmick. Or at least he did back when the WWF was nearing the anything-goes wild Attitude Era.

The first to come upon this exception being Terri Runnels as the sensual and glamourous Marlena when she started to manage/direct one of the strangest superstars to ever grace WWF screens: Goldust – Terri’s real life husband at the time.

When she pitched Vince the Marlena idea she told him she wanted to either incorporate a glass of wine or a cigar as a central part of the character and he decided that the cigar would make more sense. Terri was a huge fan of cigars so this worked well for her.

Originally the cigar wasn’t lit at all. But after telling him "that looked stupid” she got the go ahead to smoke the cigars at ringside during the matches and as Terri put it "the rest was history.”