© 2005 World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Few people are born into the pro-wrestling industry with as much expectation on them as Shane McMahon did. Son of WWE owner Vince McMahon, Shane didn't need any convincing to carry on the McMahon family legacy and continue to expand the reach of World Wrestling Entertainment.

Involved behind the scenes from a young age, Shane was introduced to the majority of fans in front of the camera during the Attitude era, and entered the ring to face Steve Blackman, The Big Show, Kurt Angle and even his own father at Wrestlemania.

Although Shane McMahon's matches were few, his high risk falls have pro-wrestling fans talking to this very day.

Shane McMahon has been off screen for three years and is currently the Executive Vice President of Global Media, although recently appeared on WWE Raw with father Vince, hinting that he may return to the show as General Manager.

NZPWI Editor Dion McCracken spoke with Shane McMahon on December 10, 2005 as part of a promotional tour for the upcoming WWE SmackDown Road to Wrestlemania show taking place in Wellington on March 4, 2006.

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Dion McCracken: So welcome to New Zealand anyway Shane it’s a…

Shane McMahon: Thank you very much for having me.

pleasure to have you here.

No-one can accuse you of being a trust fund baby can they…

Sure they can.

Well I’m sure they can, but they’d be wrong, wouldn’t they? You were cleaning the Cape Cod Coliseum at eleven, packing boxes in the warehouse at thirteen…

Wow.

In the ring crew at nineteen, stint as a referee… Vince really made you work your way into the industry didn’t he?

He always gave me the choice. But yes, he always instilled a hard work ethic and everything else.

I’m curious how you got that Cape Cod Coliseum information. That’s pretty uh… see that? That’s why you’re the man, right?

Well, just quietly, between me and you.

And thousands of others. [points to video camera]

What’s your first vivid memory of the pro-wrestling industry?

Um… really just, I’d been going to the matches since I’ve been two years old. And my first one was at the Worcester Auditorium, in Worcester, Massachusetts. And I remember I was so excited, because I’d been watching with my dad, you know because my dad was on TV, from when I was, at that age, so I would sit there and I couldn’t really figure it out, I would look over at him, I’d look at the TV, and I’d look over at him – this was told to me by my mother – and I’d say “two da-da’s”.

Hah!

You know, so it was… but I always loved that aspect of it. Really, going to my first match, I was so excited because my dad was going to introduce me to Andre the Giant. And when I met Andre, and we just hit it off, I was always going to be Andre the Giant’s tag team partner, that’s what I always wanted to do, and I said, “Dad” – having no idea as a kid I said– “I’m gonna grow up to be big like Andre and not small like you.”

Hahaha…

So that’s probably my most vivid memory, and my first one.

When did you decide that you wanted to be part of the business?

Pretty much all my life. You know, I just always wanted to be a part of it, I love it, and I’m a huge fan myself. You know, the passion – that’s why we do it. You know… if you’re not passionate about whatever it is that you do, you shouldn’t be doing it.

You’ve been off-screen for a couple of years now, until just recently, and concentrating on your role as Executive VP of Global Media?

Correct.

What does that entail?

Ah, it’s really the overall general direction of the company. I wear a lot of different hats. You have your merchandising and your licensing, and from outside the camera you have television production, again, merchandising, licensing, your live events division, marketing, consumer products. You have so many things wrapped into one, so it’s a pretty big… it’s a pretty big magilla, to make sure that goes the correct way.

Everyone’s working so hard on the road. All the athletes are literally breaking their backs for the company, and they’re in there every single night and touring and it’s a real hard life that way.

With the creative storylines, my sister’s in charge of the creative writing team, she manages that group. But my dad’s the be-all, end-all creative genius. So, that end’s being taken care of, and constantly worked on, we’re going to make sure that the back end is really doing it, and being a public company as well now is extremely time-intensive, and my mom is really handling a lot of that aspect.

Has the internet changed the way that you have to do business?

Absolutely.

How?

Well I mean, as you know, if something happens it’s all over the world. It’s a global medium, a global forum, so you can’t have surprises anymore. You know, if you… we used to do something, if we did it exclusively for the in-arena audience, it would stay there. You know, word of mouth or on the telephone or things like that would happen, but now if Batista got a hold of Triple H, once the cameras went off, which sometimes happens, and getting Batista-bombed and really beat the crap out of him, that’s now global. Because all the fans in the arena now are posting on boards and they’re doing their own blogs, and sending certain things out, etc.

© 2005 World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

It was, I think I did more of a cameo. You have to uh… tune in next Friday night, here… to find out who is the new GM… or if there’s going to be a GM, or what’s going to happen.

Let’s say hypothetically…

Hypothetically? Okay.

If you became the RAW GM, would you enjoy that?

Of course. No, I mean there’s nothing like performing, in front of a crowd. And that’s what all the guys, that’s what they feed off of. You know, we have a relationship with the fans. And that’s why we do it.

As long as everyone’s loving, or loving to hate you, that’s really the fun of it. And we feed off each other, you know… the fans know. You’re a fan. I’m sure you’ll be going to the show here in March.

Absolutely.

And there’ll be so many people holding up their signs, it’s a sea of expression. And that’s what we encourage all the time. Everybody knows, I look at WWE as one huge family. Whether it’s people working at the office, or whether it be the superstars, or the fans, we all make it work. And it doesn’t work without those parts.

You’ve jumped in the ring yourself of course, and only had a handful of pay-per-view matches, but…

Right.

…they’re all incredibly memorable. Jumping off the TitanTron against Steve Blackman at SummerSlam 2000, the elbow drop on the Big Show, Backlash 2001, going through the glass at King of the Ring 2001 with Kurt Angle – which is on the Don’t Try This At Home video – two questions…

And you should NOT try that at home. Ever. None of those things.

Two questions: one – are you nuts? And two – what drove you to do those spots?

Um… I don’t know if, I’m not nuts to me.

When I was a kid, I used to, my grandmother lived in North Carolina. And ever since I could climb a tree, I would climb up those huge Carolina pines and I would jump from one to another. So it’s really kind of where my daredevil aspect started, you know, skateboard, motorcross, anything dangerous, I did, I loved to do that, so that’s just how I’m wired, that’s just how I’m built, so… I don’t think… I don’t think I’m crazy.

There’s a huge risk to it. Especially when you’re that high. If you’re, anytime you get above twenty feet. When I dropped the elbow on Big Show at fifty feet… you really have to know what you’re doing. Because you can very easily over-rotate and break your neck and you’re dead. And that’s the reality, that’s why you leave it up to the pros. Stuntmen and things like that… or myself, etc.

What do the guys backstage think about those bumps you took?

They think I’m nuts. [laughs]

Do they?

Yeah.

Well, there you go.

Will we see you back in the ring again sometime?

You never know. If the storyline really calls for it, I’d love to be out there, I love to perform. But I can’t answer that. You know, I’m not too old to do it yet. I’m getting there, but I’m not too old.

How did the Shane-O-Shuffle originate?

I just started, I don’t know, it just happened one day. I was excited and I just started doing it. I used to, I’ve always been a huge fan of Muhammad Ali. So I kind of took it from him. And then in our business, the Rock’s dad, Rocky Johnson, used to do a form of that. The Rocky Shuffle. So I kind of took a hybrid of that and turned it into my own. Just did it one day. It just felt good, just kept it going, you know, it was exciting to do it.

If you take us back to the last WCW Monday Nitro, WWE had just purchased the company off Time Warner, and here you were, the new boss’ son, coming into that last broadcast. How were you received and what are your memories of that night?

Totally shocked the audience, because we didn’t let anybody know that I was there. Totally shocked all the actual WCW talent there as well, when I showed up that day for a meeting earlier. They were just blown away that WWE had purchased WCW. So that was a, it was a very interesting, interesting backstage moment.

But when I went out there in public it was really cool. The fact that, I mean, it’s never been done. Historically, it was an enormous event, to be… it was heading into WrestleMania, and looking at that… you had the TNT, cable network, Time Warner, who had been our rivals for so many years, coupled with USA at that time.

So my dad’s on one show, I’m on another, and that’s just the difference, he’s on one network, and we’re on the competing network, I mean it was, I’m getting goosebumps thinking about it, it was… it’s never been done in the history, I don’t think, of cable television, or anything, period. So it was awesome.

The WCW purchase led on shortly after to the roster split – is the roster split going to be going on forever and ever, or do you think there’ll be a merged brand again or…?

Potentially. You know, the idea was – which has worked, even though from a fan’s standpoint, you always want to see your stars, of course, in one nice little package. But there’s so many emerging stars that we had to give a forum to, to get out there and do stuff.

You know, if you go back in the day, there’s only a couple of slots, on RAW or SmackDown for that matter. And if you have the same guys competing for that, then they’re only your top five, or top ten, whereas with the roster split, hopefully now you can have twenty. Which then, we can do more touring, things like that.

You know, coming here to New Zealand, will be SmackDown. First time, actually, as a company we’ve been here to New Zealand. That wouldn’t be possible if there was just one roster all the time. You have to be able to split it up and do that, so it’s just really trying to share more with everybody else.

Does it still blow you away when you come to a far off land like New Zealand, and realise the global reach of the company your father built up?

Oh yeah. And that’s what we continue to do. We continue to build the whole thing. You know, my dad took it from his dad. His dad took it from his father. And so, my sister and I continue in that tradition. And it’s just, that gets back to what we were talking about earlier, without the passion for it, you shouldn’t be doing it.

But yeah, I’m really… I feel it’s my responsibility as well, to continue to make it as widely distributed as possible. You know, because I think we have the greatest product in the world.

It’s so easily translatable, it’s protagonist versus the antagonist, going back to the very beginning of storytelling, it’s really that simple. And there’s one-two-three, and there’s a decisive winner, so it’s very easy to follow in any language. One of our secrets is, you should be able to hit the mute button and still be able to follow the story. And if you can do that, in anything – boxing is another thing, Formula One racing is similar that way, you get it – if you can do that you’re onto something.

Has fatherhood changed you?

Sure.

How?

Absolutely.

Oh for the better. My son’s name is Declan, which I’m sure you know that, from your exclusive and very thorough research. [laughs]

Yeah, I miss him, I’ve been away a lot, travel takes you away. I’m sure all the guys that will sit in this chair or who you’ll ever interview will tell you that the fame life is very hard, because you do make a lot of sacrifices to tour the world, and promote the product, but yeah my son, and my wife Marisa… that’s it for me. That is the nucleus of my life.

My wife’s actually about to give birth to our first child…

Oh, congratulations!

Thank you. In three days so –

In three days???

Yeah.

What are you doing here?

Well hopefully she’s not in labour at the moment.

You got your pager?

Uh… sure.

Hahahah…

So, what’s some parenting advice from Shane McMahon?

Enjoy it, number one. And also, make sure you spend a lot of time with your wife. Because there’s that point, where she’s worked very, very hard, which is for a guy, you know, you can’t fathom, you see her growing and getting ready, but you know that takes such a toll on a woman’s body. That’s why I think women are the most amazing creatures walking. Because they really can do it all. It just depends on what they choose to do. And we’re kind of like humble servants, and that’s really what it’s all about.

But for the parenting, just enjoy. And take care of her, and take care of your child, and just hold them and love them and that’s the best thing you could possibly do.

Finally, what are you most proud of contributing to the WWE?

My son. Ah, no. [laughs]

There’s been a lot of things, a lot of milestones, but I don’t know if I can pick one in particular.

I think every day, making it grow, is my biggest contribution, and continuing on the McMahon legacy that way. And not just for the McMahon family, but for everybody. You know, we’re approaching about five hundred employees now and that’s outside of the WWE superstars. Both the talent roster as well as all the employees, rely on us to keep the ship running. And that’s a responsibility that is quite large, but also it’s one that we want. We’re proud of it, that’s why I keep getting back to the fan aspect, and the family aspect of everything. I do look at it as one big family.

Shane, thanks very much for joining us today, and enjoy the rest of your time in New Zealand.

Thank you very much, and congratulations to you, I know it’s a little in advance, but that is absolutely awesome, it will blow your mind.

Well hopefully it’s still in advance, or I might get home and be in a bit of trouble.

Hahahah…

Thank you, take care.