One of the defining moves of Shane Helms’ time in WWE as The Hurricane was the chokeslam, something that he sought permission to use.
During his time with WWE, The Undertaker, Kane and Big Show were all wrestlers who also used the chokeslam as well. Helms ended up being just another person using the move, but in an interview with Chris Van Vliet, Helms said the order to use the move came from Vince McMahon. Although the order came from McMahon, Helms felt it was necessary to ask all three of those wrestlers for permission to use the move as a finisher.
As it turns out, none of the three wrestlers cared too much about it and didn’t mind Helms using the move.
“The edict came from Vince. He wanted a finish to a cruiserweight title match with Tajiri. I believe Tajiri was the champion. The match was Tajiri, Billy Kidman and me. One of them was the champion and I walked out as champion. The finish was chokeslam from Hurricane and it came from Vince. I never hit it before. I just came from a time where you don’t steal people’s finishers, especially that’s on the show. If it’s something from like Mexico, then it’s a little more open. You don’t go do that [to someone from the same show]. I think that’s something that’s hurting the business. It’s not something that’s going to kill it, but it’s definitely something that’s hurting it. If you’re creative enough, you should be able to figure something out. Out of respect, I wanted to go to the Undertaker. I asked him about it. He didn’t give a sh*t. I went to Kane, same thing. Big Show wasn’t there that day, but when I caught up with him. I explained my situation and he didn’t care. Every one of those guys were super cool about it,” Helms said.
Even if any of the wrestlers had a problem with it, Helms knew he would have to go to McMahon to resolve any potential issues. In fact, Undertaker showed his sense of humor to Helms, telling him to do the chokeslam better than Big Show.
“If Undertaker wouldn’t have been cool with it, I would have had to go to Vince. Undertaker was cool. He even joked about it, saying, ‘Just do it better than Big Show,’” Helms said.
Years ago, Helms told Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp about the time he tried to do the double chokeslam to both Triple H and Stone Cold Steve Austin. You can check out that story at this link.
Helms’ interview with Chris Van Vliet can be seen in the video at the top of the page.
