10 Times WWE's PG Era Went Too Far

5. Vince McMahon Drops The 'F' Bomb

Paige Natalya
WWE.com

This is more f*cking like it: "the f*ck word," as Vince McMahon so weirdly called it in his famous interview with Bob Costas in 2001.

He defended his more risqué product for its total lack of the f*ck word, before uttering it years later when the product was PG. The man will simply always Vince.

Here, he uttered the f*ck word to Shane McMahon in the only vaguely compelling part of his astonishingly wonky, called-on-the-fly return storyline. To quote Bob Holly, whole thing sucked: they retconned the stakes, they reneged on the stipulation, and Shane and the Undertaker fought as equals (!) in a piss-poor glorified MMA sparring session. The aftermath wasn't half bad - Shane's babyface authority figure was mostly passive, and it rid us for a time of ubiquitous heat segments on TV - and the f*ck word bit was ace, too.

Vince got right in Shane's face, rolling back the years to rediscover the old, terrifying menace - how many years exactly does not bear thinking about, given how authentic the performance was - and whispered the threat of a "f*cking beating" to his own flesh and blood.

It's a shame that whole thing did in fact suck; at its core, the core witnessed so intimately here, this conflict was loaded with potential.

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Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!