Vince McMahon wasn’t always the Chairman Of The Board on television. In fact, there was a time when the audience wasn’t supposed to know he even owned the company. Vince was just a lowly announcer sitting at ringside and calling the match alongside a heel commentator of his choosing. Yes, back in the day Vince McMahon was a babyface.
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Years before the Mr. McMahon character saw the light of day when “Bret screwed Bret” Jim Cornette sat next to Vince and called matches on a pretty regular basis. Cornette recently recalled how Vince would treat his commentary duties on a recent episode of Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru. It turns out Vince was always preparing for the show because he had a lot more to worry about than just what he was going to say at the announce table every night.
“He does do a lot of preparation in the production meeting and then they have a meeting after the production meeting,” Corney recalled. “But it’s not necessarily preparation specifically to announce but it is preparation for the whole show because he was always the guy running it whether he was the announcer, behind the scenes or whatever.”
“It was fun working with Vince [McMahon], he — you know he wasn’t going to call a lot of wrestling and it was kinda different but at the same time he was a professional at actually just doing TV. Conversely I was being a heel color-guy somewhat and taking up for the heels rather than being a straight color-guy announcer so we could joist with each other, blah blah blah and actually it was fairly easy working with him.”
“I love doing live better than tape because if Vince knows it’s live you’re gonna get everything in one take and you’re gonna get in, you’re gonna get out. If Vince knows it’s on tape and it can be redone, or he can come up with — he will say something and say, ‘I could’ve said that better’ — he’ll come up with an idea. He’ll futz with the g-ddamn thing f–cking Tom Scholz would obsess over a Boston album if it’s on f-cking tape.”
If you use any portion of the quotes in this article please credit Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru with a H/T to Still Real To Us For The Transcription
