5 Most Infamous Illegitimate Son Wrestling Storylines

Perhaps the most well remembered storyline between a father and apparent son has to be the the ill-fated “Vince’s Son” angle from 2007.

Following the aborted “Who Killed Vince?” storyline earlier that year – which had to be immediately abandoned after the real-life double-murder suicide involving Chris Benoit and his family – McMahon and co. wanted a replacement “whodunit” angle to run with on Raw.

The solution came in the form of the illegitimate son storyline, whereby it was revealed that Vince McMahon had a mystery off-spring with a claim to Vince’s fortune. The storyline itself would eventually culminate in Hornswoggle being revealed as Vince’s dirty little secret and the entire angle would quickly degenerate into a comedic tool for WWE's resident D-Generate, Triple H, who would humiliate the boss at every turn.

John “Bradshaw” Layfield would eventually intervene with evidence of his own, disproving the McMahon connection and revealing that Hornswoggle was in fact the son of Finlay and NOT Vince McMahon after all; thus making the entire storyline completely pointless. What’s even more frustrating is that the original “illegitimate son” storyline was apparently part of an overall masterpiece, interwoven into the “Who killed Vince?” plot prior to the Benoit incident.

It’s since been claimed that Linda McMahon was originally tapped as the culprit behind Vince’s demise and would go to kayfabe jail for the apparent murder of her husband following the limousine explosion. It would then come to light that McMahon (in his will) had left the company to his illegitimate son – to be revealed as Mr Kennedy – who would then run roughshod over the WWE.

Mr Kennedy would then enter into a feud with Triple H, culminating in a battle for control of the company at WrestleMania. Kennedy would lose the bout, Triple H and Stephanie would regain the company in the name of the McMahon family and normality would be restored. All in all, an angle that's unquestionably a million percent better than Hornswoggle being Vince’s son.

Worse still, the plan was apparently to still have Kennedy as the illegitimate son in the condensed version of the overall angle following the Benoit tragedy; however, Kennedy himself got busted for steroid use a month before the reveal, leading to him being dropped from the angle and putting to rest the snake bitten storyline once and for all.