Vince McMahon stepped back in the ring for an impromptu match against Pat McAfee at WrestleMania 38 this past Sunday, his first official WWE match since the infamous WrestleMania XXVI bout against Bret Hart in 2010. McMahon won in just under four minutes, thanks in large part to interference from Austin Theory, and together the pair started attacking the former NFL punter before “Stone Cold” Steve Austin stomped down to the ring. He hit Theory with a Stunner, then baited McMahon in with beer before attempting to hit one of his own.
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The only problem was McMahon horribly botched the move, stumbling backward as Austin tried to grab his head and awkwardly throwing himself to the ground when Austin finally hit the move. WWE’s production has since tried to make the moment look a little better but it still wound up being one of the lowlights of what was overall a solid WrestleMania. However, Austin was visibly laughing after the botch and seemed to be in good spirits about the show, while Fightful Select reported on Thursday that McMahon had a good laugh about it in the days that followed.
“The line we were given is that McMahon recognized it was a terrible performance and sell of the Stunner, but chalked it up to ‘as long as people were laughing and entertained, it’s okay,’” Sean Ross Sapp wrote.
McAfee reflected on his WrestleMania matches during The Pat McAfee Show this week. He also addressed some funny interactions backstage with WWE producers.
“I was walking to gorilla which is obviously the last stop before you go out, and four different producers were like, ‘when you go out there, the bottom of the entrance is like a star, make sure you get to the middle because it is sharp on the side there,’” McAfee said. “I was like ‘okay, yeah.’ They’re like ‘well, AJ literally just ran his face into the side of it. He’s bleeding right now.’ I was like ‘what?’ I was like ‘AJ Styles is bleeding right now?’ ‘Match hasn’t started and he’s bleeding, so we need you not to do that too. Okay, thank you so much.’ And I was like ‘you got it.’
“Then the next producer came ‘hey, when you go out there, there’s a slant. Make sure you get all the way to the middle.’ I’m like, ‘oh yeah, why’s that?’ Like, now I’m gassing. ‘Well AJ Styles just ran his face into it, so we need that not to happen.’ ‘Okay, thank you so much. You saved my life.’ So then I’m walking four more steps, another producer ‘hey, on your entrance, I don’t know if you’ve heard or not.’ ‘Yep, got it. Face thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah,’” he added.
