WWE News: How Vince McMahon reacted when commentator repeatedly made fun of him live on RAW
This week’s episode of Sam Roberts’ Notsam Wrestling podcast featured an in-depth interview with Rob Bartlett about all things WWE in early 1993.
Bartlett, who is best known for being a comedian and radio personality, worked alongside Vince McMahon and “Macho Man” Randy Savage as a commentator on RAW from January-April 1993, despite having limited knowledge about the wrestling business.
On one particular episode (March 15, 1993), Bartlett called the in-ring action with Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan, and he decided to amuse himself by impersonating McMahon, who was absent from commentary that week, for the entire show.
“All the crew went crazy. [They] loved it because no one had ever really made fun of Vince before. They were crying laughing.”
At the time, McMahon did not give any feedback to Bartlett about his commentary, which only Monsoon and Heenan were warned about prior to the broadcast.
The following week, the WWE Chairman jokingly fired Bartlett in a production meeting before getting his own back on the announcer by sending him to the wrong venue for an episode of RAW.
“We’re in a production meeting. Vince is not looking at me, not saying a word. He’s just sitting there making sure everyone’s there. Everyone came in – the whole room is packed. He turned to me and he went, ‘You’re fired!’ Joking, it was just a joke.
“For a second, I was like, ‘You can’t fire me because I’m going to quit.’ But it was really funny, so he got me back by not telling me that they were gonna be in the Mid-Hudson Civic Center, so I showed up at the Manhattan Center.”
Bartlett added that McMahon was so determined to play the prank that he hired a camera crew to film a remote shot of him standing alone in the arena.
You can listen to the full story from the 27:00 mark of the Notsam Wrestling podcast.
