Vince McMahon's Assassination Conspiracy | Tales From Backstage

Or not, obviously.

The stunt was, for wrestling, visually very impressive. Money had been spent on blowing a car up, that much was clear. It fooled the aforementioned future President Donald Trump, who responded to the news by calling, distressed, to check on the condition of his wealthy pal. He was of course fine, but this was about fiction, not facts. There could be no reasonable doubt that in the world of WWE, the McMahon character was actually done for this time. The company had to confirm as much to Wall Street when the stock price dropped. The mystery element was one of several narrative cliffhangers though, and there was suddenly the realistic possibility that Vince had accomplished most of his many missions with one singularly impressive moment. For 13 days, amidst some tributes paid in quite poor taste working on the assumption he was shoot dead, everything in the world of WWE was centred around what had happened, how it might have occurred, and ultimately who was responsible. High drama for a Sports Entertainment show that needed an injection of this sort of excitement.

Exactly two weeks later though, a very alive Vince McMahon opened a Raw that was promoted as the night his kayfabe funeral was to occur. No funny faces, no sardonic tributes, no fake services. Only the real and subsequently harrowing news that Chris, Nancy & Daniel Benoit were all dead. There were lots of remarks about tempting fate in an industry already plagued with an abhorrent death rate, and the reckoning would come for the market leader and industry as a whole on that front in the aftermath of Nancy and Daniel's horrific murders at Chris' hands, but as WWE tried and failed to roll with the punches, the one certainty was that the RIP Mr McMahon storyline could not continue.

According to multiple sources who were with the company at the time in retrospective reflections (including but not limited to then-WWE creative team member Chris "Big Dick Johnson" DeJoseph), several segments were filmed for airing during the June 24th Raw, including funeral segments featuring the likes of "Johnson" and Michael Hayes crying uncontrollably by McMahon's coffin. All the other McMahons were due to be there, with Linda ultimately facing arrest on suspicion of being the one behind the murderer. Even Rod - McMahon's never-featured brother - was booked to appear. Unfamiliar territory then, but the payoff was at least to be on familiar ground. The grand reveal was supposed to feature Mr Kennedy being revealed to be McMahon's illegitimate son - a thought bubble that at very least lingered in the ether from the moment the Green Bay bigmouth took the Kennedy name on anyway. Everybody clocked the "coincidence" from the earliest days, and it felt like less of a one the more Kennedy got over. He won the Money In The Bank contract at WrestleMania 23 and used his mic time the next night to promise a cash-in at WrestleMania the following year, but disaster struck when an injury misdiagnosis moved the company to take the title shot away and give it to Edge before discovering a several month layoff was reduced to weeks. This did at least mean Kennedy was available and in the mix for the exploding limo follow-up, but when that got scrapped, so too did the illigitmate son payoff. That aforementioned 'Show Of Shows' main event he'd manifested was to also have control-of-the-company stakes attached, with Kennedy trying to use his ill-gotten-gains to take the lot from Triple H and/or Shane McMahon, but with the boss now very much once again not dead, WWE went comedic with it and turned the whodunit into a whodonehim and revealed that a prior dalliance had resulted in the birth of McMahon's new progeny - Hornswoggle.

The less said about that putrid saga the better, but as it bled into 2008, so too did McMahon's desire to have one last crack at doing himself in. At the not-so-thrilling conclusion of the calamitous McMahon's Million Dollar Mania, the smiling-and-waving Chairman, post-cash giveaway, was hit by a piece of the stage as it not-so-randomly collapsed on him. Was he once again being targeted? The revenge of Mr Kennedy once and for all? Anything? Literally absolutely anything? Who knows. Not only did WWE drop this last storyline attempt on his life, but also even the prospect of speculation when, in January 2009, he was back without a scratch.

Those 1980s promoters weren't just insane for hatching a conspiratorial scheme to have the man main done in. They were mad to think $700 would be enough. McMahon went into seven figures more than once trying and failing to get it done. But as the world would eventually come to learn, all that money couldn't get him into - and keep him out of - trouble forever.

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