Vince McMahon is one in a million.
Vince McMahon is known for yelling at his broadcasters through the headset. This is such a known trope that CM Punk, during his brief time on commentary in 2010, simply muted Vince McMahon while he was on commentary.
Michael Cole has been employed by WWE since 1997. In that time, he has been a play-by-play broadcaster for the vast majority of his employment with WWE.
While it's impossible to know just how many times Michael Cole has been on the receiving end of a Vince McMahon tongue-lashing while he was calling a live WWE television program, John Bradshaw Layfield, who has worked with Michael caught several different points in his career, reflected on a story where Vince McMahon threatened to fire and assault Michael Cole for not listening to him and referring to Deuce of Deuce and Domino as Jimmy Snuka’s son.
During the Q&A at Steel City Con, John Bradshaw Layfield tells the story.
"So Jerry Lawler always said, Vince never yelled at him on the headset. Vince has never yelled at me. I think it's because I was in the ring for him so long. Same with Jerry. Now as far as the play-by-play, guys, that's different. In fact, I'll tell you a funny story. We were sitting in the back one time with Vince and Jimmy Snuka's son was debuting and Vince said, 'Be sure you say when he comes in that's Jimmy Snuka's son.' Now later we tried to say that but Vince goes on to say, 'The last thing you want to say is he's Jimmy Snuka's son because he can't live up to the fact that Jimmy Snuka was his dad.'
"Later they tried that because he didn't really work out. They tried. But Michael Cole took copious notes. So he's writing down, 'Jimmy Snuka's son.' I don't even notice it. As soon as the kid tags in Michael Cole says, 'in comes Jimmy Snuka's son.' Vince had just told him don't say Jimmy Snuka's son. We'll when he says that, they've got the little God cam where they can look at us. I start laughing because I realized Cole doesn't know not to say that. Vince sees me laughing and thinks Cole is making fun of him in front of the entire company. Vince's response was, 'Michael, I'm gonna come down there and I'm gonna fire you. No, I'm gonna come down there and I'm gonna kick your ass — No, I'm not.' He's debating with himself at this point and he goes, 'No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm gonna kick your ass and then I'm going to fire you. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm coming down right now.'"
JBL carried on, "Michael's just looking at the camera like, and I'm dying laughing and there's no commentary. Then by the time the commercial comes around, there's no commentary to match. Vince realizes what happened that Michael did it by mistake. He goes, 'Haha, I lost it a little bit there didn't I? Ha!'
Furthermore, JBL recalled Titus O'Neil throwing up on Michael Cole and Vince McMahon adamantly telling his broadcaster not to acknowledge the fact that he was just vomited upon.
“We had so many different times on commentary where they would do stuff to Michael Cole but they wouldn't do it to me and I'd be in on it. Finlay hit him with the shillelagh — I mean, they abused Michael Cole for years. Titus O'Neil threw up on him one time. Titus was supposed to drink this pea soup and spit the pea soup out on Michael Cole. Well, he thought he was supposed to drink it and actually throw up. So he drinks it and throws up on Cole. Titus actually threw up on him on live television and Michael is out there with puke all over him and he says, I feel like I'm in a freaking frat party back in college. Vince goes, don't acknowledge it. Don't say anything about it. Michael is like, I'm covered in puke. You had a guy puke on me and you don't want me to talk about it?!”
Michael Cole has been a broadcaster for years and has done all of this with partial hearing loss as he recently explained while speaking to Pat McAfee. Learn more here.
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