Majin Tween on WNS: Why I Thought Vince McMahon Actually Died In The 2007 Limo Explosion

Hello, WNS Universe! (Is that what you're called? We need a gimmick name for you guys. I'll work on it.)

I am Majin Tween from humanRaCcoOn, and tonight we're gonna dive into a burning limousine!

Wait, that sounds dangerous. How about we just talk about one instead?

When I tell people I thought Vince McMahon actually died during his limo explosion in 2007, I tend to get some strange looks... well, actually. I get strange vibes from the other side of an instant message. Finding someone who watches wrestling in real life who you can actually have a functioning conversation with in this day and age is like finding a unicorn that knows how to file their own taxes.

I assure you, I may be mean but I'm no mark. I'm not some gullible idiot who believes everything they're shown on television: I'm a gullible idiot who believes everything they're told by other idiots at school.

So here's the deal. I'm sure if you're reading this, you know the whole backstory of the Vince McMahon Limo Explosion. It lives in infamy at this point. But when that went down, I didn't have regular access to cable. I was mainly watching SmackDown on UPN or the WB or CW or MyNetworkTV or whatever station they were on that month, and then I'd watch the TNA IMPACT reruns on Saturday at my grandparent's house on the weekend.

My exposure to whatever happened on RAW was limited to the 80+ recaps of it that aired on SmackDown, visiting the website on the weekends/at school and seeing posts about it on MySpace--- via mobile, because I'd use my PSP's horribly slow internet browser to do everything. I also leeched off the neighbor's wifi, because stealing is cool.

Anyway. While I was in school pretending to learn, this kid came up to me and goes "hey, you watch wrestling, right?" I was like "hell yeah I do." Then he gave me one million dollars.

Okay, that part didn't happen. But what did happen is he said "...did you hear about Vince McMahon?"

Now, if you ask a question like that today, it has a totally different connotation. You just hear women crying and CM Punk writing strongly worded tweets. But back then, that could have meant anything. So when he said "...Vince McMahon is dead!", I was legitimately taken aback.

He told me, and I quote, "Yeah. It was after RAW went off the air. He got into his limo and there was an explosion! Vince McMahon is dead!"

I couldn't believe it. Was Vince McMahon a good person? God no. In fact, he's one of the outwardly worst human beings I've ever witnessed in any avenue of life... but I cannot put into words how much I respect him. He's created an entire Willy Wonka style universe where nobody tells him he's wrong and he can just throw money at whatever bizarre whim thought he has. Do you understand how badly I want that for myself? Sure, he just retired... but he had like a solid half century of getting to be the absolute biggest carny in the world. It's beautiful.

But I thought he was DEAD. Gone. Deceased. I didn't know that they aired the thing in a skit on TV, because I didn't see it. All I knew were the RAW facts: Vince McMahon is friggin' dead.

I'm not kidding when I tell you people that from Tuesday morning until Friday night, I believed it. I was even kinda depressed over it. You think of the late 2000s as this technologically driven time, but I was severely out of touch with society. If you want some backstory on why that is, check out my Tragic Anime Backstory on humanRaCcoOn. I'm sorry if my backstory is complicated, but we can't all be boring and lore-less like Jonathan Gresham.

So fast forward to WWE Friday Night SmackDown! (it's TV that's changing Friday Nights, maggle!) and I witnessed a show that opened with a memorial to Vince McMahon. I saw the crowd laughing and holding up totally disrespectful signs, and I was confused. Could the world really be that heartless?

Obviously, the answer was yes, but I was young and didn't know that everyone on this God-forsaken rock was a bastard. I was naive! But then, they did it: they showed the footage of Vince walking to his limo, before fading to black and going "that was the last footage shown of Vince McMahon before his tragic accident."

They didn't show the explosion. But I immediately was like, "...okay, wait a minute. Something's not right here."

So I was at my grandparent's house for that, which was my access to computer-based internet. That's when I fired up YouTube and went to hunt down Vince McMahon's limo explosion clip. Keep in mind, this was 2007. YouTube wasn't the glorious haven of WWE clips that it is today. There wasn't necessarily a guarantee I'd even find the clip: but I did... and I watched it.

It was in that moment I felt a rush, an adrenaline rush. (Now you have that TNA theme song stuck in your head. Remember when WWE used it for a Brian Kendrick / Paul London video package? Now you do.) I can't explain why, but for some reason when pro wrestling really ropes me in and hits me with that carny nonsense? I love it. I love it when pro wrestling bamboozles me. And because of the bizarre circumstances of how I heard about this incident, pro wrestling bamboozled me with one of the most obviously fake storylines in the history of the entire company.

In fact, it wasn't until shortly after that the Chris Benoit murder/suicide situation went down, and Vince was on live television admitting that it was all a storyline and he lied. I actually got to see that show live because it was like Spring Break or something, so I was at my grandparent's house the whole week. It just weirdly all lined up for me to get to see this entire story, from start to finish, unfold... in fact, it was like right after this that we got cable set up at my house and I was able to watch Raw regularly again. So this was a bizarre transitional period for my own little personal lore and story. You're riveted and fascinated, I assure you. If you weren't, would you still be reading this? (Yes, you would. To leave a negative comment and to tell me to stop writing. Looking forward to it!)

So, that's really the whole story here. Because of bizarre circumstance, I thought Vince McMahon had legitimately died that fateful night. Now, we've had so much Vince McMahon that the WWE itself decided we didn't need any more. It's like we got two eras of Vince. He really is just like Shawn Michaels in that respect.

I'm stretching... which he should have done before that Royal Rumble appearance where he tore his knees or whatever. I could totally open Google right now and figure out what exactly he injured during that, but I'm trying to keep this feeling loosey-goosey. If this comes off too professional, I lose my edge. And the last time we lost our Edge, we had to wait like ten years for him to come back! I ain't got that kinda time, man. I'm almost 30.

Thanks for reading my diatribe of late night WNS nonsense. I'm not Ted, but thanks for listening to me talk.

If you dig my vaguely-acceptable writing and want to see what else I do, head on over to my Y2K-style multimedia webzine humanRaCcoOn.

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— Majin Tween Jul 23, 2022 11:24PM