Referee Mike Chioda recalls Vince McMahon shouting through his headset during the 2001 King of the Ring event.
WWE‘s 2001 King of the Ring pay-per-view is remembered for a number of things, with the most brutal being the Street Fight between Shane McMahon and Kurt Angle. Angle had already wrestled two matches on the PPV — something that became evident when he and Shane then faced off, visibly exhausted.
This exhaustion worsened when it took multiple attempts for Angle to send Shane crashing through glass panels. It was at this point that referee Mike Chioda says then-WWE CEO Vince Mahon yelling, via headset, for the match to halt. Instead, Angle and Shane continued the sequence.
“I thought I was getting fired by Vince that night! Vince was screaming in the background Tell Kurt to STOP!” Chioda wrote on X. “@shanemcmahon proved to the WWE universe at KOTR he was ready for professional wrestling!!”
Angle’s first attempt at launching Shane through the glass resulted in Shane falling on his head and the panel remaining intact. With Angle’s second belly-to-belly throw, the material then shattered.
Despite Vince’s request for the match to stop, the Olympic gold medalist proceeded with another glass-break spot. In this case, it took three attempts for Shane to finally go through it.
I Just got off the phone with Kurt where we reminisced about this match and how proud we both are of it and that it has withstood the test of time,” Shane wrote in another X post. “Thank you all for supporting us both over these many years. You guys are the greatest fans in the world.”
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