Jimmy Korderas says Vince McMahon was seeing red at the 2005 Royal Rumble, but a freak injury still didn’t stop him from making it backstage on his own accord.
Jimmy Korderas was a recent guest on Stories with Brisco and Bradshaw and the trio recalled the infamous incident that saw Vince McMahon tear both of his quads after coming to the ring to call an audible. The 2005 Royal Rumble match saw John Cena and Batista simultaneously go over the ropes, leading to the wrong finish WWE had planned out. Korderas explained what was supposed to happen, followed sharing the reason that Vince ended up on camera in the first place.
“The finish was they both go over the top, Dave [Bautista] hooks the top rope, John [Cena] hits the floor. [It’s supposed to be] ‘Winner of the Royal Rumble, going on to challenge, Dave Bautista.’ Unfortunately, they both went over, Dave went to hook and missed, they both hit the floor. All four of us went [looked around in confusion, tried to audible]. You, Mr. Brisco, yelled for one of the RAW refs to go over and raise Dave’s hand,” Korderas said, “because that was the finish. Jack [Doane] went over and raised his hand, or Chad [Patton], whoever, and I guess they saw it on replay and you couldn’t have planned it any better. They landed at exactly the same time on the floor. So then you [Brisco] said, ‘go over there and raise John’s hand.’ We’re over there doing the battle back and forth [in trying to declare the winner], and while this is going on, you’re screaming in the ref’s ear ‘go find Eric Bischoff and Teddy Long’, who are the respective General Managers for RAW and SmackDown. So we’re hearing this in our earpiece, screaming ‘Where are they? Somebody find them!’”
Korderas went on to explain that “as legend would have it,” both Bischoff and Long left early, so they weren’t there to go to the ring. Vince McMahon then went to the ring in their place.
“So here he comes storming, he takes off his blazer and he throws it down. You can tell the difference between ‘Mr. McMahon angry’ and ‘Vincent Kennedy McMahon angry’ and he’s pissed,” Korderas said. “Madder than a hornet.”
JBL asked Brisco if Vince was mad at both GMs leaving or the match result, but Brisco said it was “everything” and he took some of the blame himself, joking it was because Bruce Prichard wasn’t standing there to take the brunt of it.
“He hit that curtain and the camera picks him up,” Brisco noted, “he was blood-ass red, wasn’t he Jimmy? He just didn’t have his wits about him that one time.”
Jimmy Korderas continued, noting that no one knew Vince was hurt or what happened, just that there was some general confusion as to why he was still sitting down.
“He comes in and dives under the bottom rope, he goes to stand up and… here he goes down. He’s sitting on his butt, leaning against the ropes and we’re all stunned. I still bug Chad to this day, saying [he] let Mr. McMahon fall. Because he was the one closest to him and he backed up when he saw him going down. But we’re all wondering what the heck is going on here, and [Vince is yelling] ‘come here!’ Basically, he’s telling us that we’ll restart the match and re-do the finish, whatever,” Korderas noted, “but we didn’t know at the time that he’d torn both quads. We were just wondering why he was sitting there, not getting up. It didn’t [register].
“After he did his deal and finished chewing everybody out, he rolls out of the ring and everybody went to go help him. He goes, ‘Everybody get away from me!’ He made it to the back himself, he refused help. So here’s a man with two torn quads getting back there himself, and I don’t know what happened when he did, but I was afraid to go back there.”
“You should’ve been,” Brisco quipped.
“People talk about how tough Vince is? My goodness,” Korderas exclaimed. “I couldn’t imagine having two torn quads and refusing help and making it back there on his own. Amazing.”
“People talk about the stories, the urban legends, the truth about him far exceeds any urban legend there is,” JBL added. “He’s a once-in-a-lifetime individual.”
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