How Vince McMahon Reacted To Shane’s King Of The Ring Match With Kurt Angle

The Kurt Angle vs Shane McMahon match at King of the Ring was a huge moment in WWF history and it was also a topic of conversation during the Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard podcast about Kurt Angle. Part one of our full recap of the episode can be found here.

Angle actually had three matches that night. A match with Christian that lasted 8 minutes, a contest with Edge that lasted 10 minutes, and he topped it off in a street fight with Shane that lasted 26 mins.

Bruce says that Kurt wrestled the whole match with a broken freakin’ tail bone after Shane McMahon belly to belly suplexed him on the floor in one of the early spots in the match.

Prichard explains that they never intended to buy sugar glass for the glass breaking spot, but they did get the wrong kind of glass. Bruce says that the material they used was not Plexiglass.

They couldn’t use sugar glass because the pyrotechnics throughout the night would have shattered it due to the heat and concussions of the blasts.

Prichard explains that the glass they used was made to break, but they painted the glass with a double coat which caused the glass to be “damn near unbreakable.”

Bruce says the match was difficult to watch backstage. He goes on to say that he was 10 feet from the action and Vince McMahon was right next to him calling the spots and relaying messages to the referee. Prichard says it was one of the most uncomfortable moments he’s ever had in his life being right next to Vince during that match.

The only person McMahon could communicate with was Bruce, therefore he was the only person Vince could take his aggression out on during the match. Prichard says it was scary when they saw Shane bounce off the glass after it didn’t break sending him to the floor on top of his head. But, they couldn’t do much of anything about what was unfolding in front of them during the bout.

Bruce says that he told the referee to stop the glass breaking spot when it didn’t work the first time and the ref relayed the message, but Kurt and Shane obviously didn’t listen. Vince was cursing and yelling at Bruce to have them stop, but the match continued.

Bruce didn’t speak to Vince at all that night after the event. The next day before the Raw tapings started, even though Bruce tried to stay away from Vince, Jim Ross went to Bruce and told him that the boss wanted to talk to him.

Bruce says that JR was asked to leave the meeting leaving just Vince and himself alone in the room. Prichard says that Vince told Bruce, “Hey, I owe you an apology, pal.” Vince continued saying that he never should have yelled at Bruce like that during the Shane/Angle match.

Bruce says that Vince told him, “goddammit Bruce, when I get like that you just need to shut me down. With everything we’ve been through, we have that kind of relationship. You need to tell me ‘Vince, you’re being an a**hole, knock it off!'”.

Bruce thought that sounded more like a rib because he couldn’t imagine how Vince would have reacted if he would have tried to shut McMahon down like that in the heat of the moment. Prichard says they hugged it out and everything was great again, until the next time something went wrong.

Neither Kurt or Shane stayed overnight in a hospital (medical facility), but they did go just to make sure nothing was broken.