It is no secret that one of former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon’s favorite past times running WWE shows was getting irritated over the headset with commentators during matches. And former WWE announcer Todd Grisham was one of the many that bore the brunt of Vince’s anger. Appearing on “Insight with Chris Van Vliet,” Grisham admitted that McMahon used to yell at him “all the time” while he was doing commentary. But the biggest blow occurred over something that didn’t seem like a big deal.
“I said that John Morrison, who was a heel at the time, loved poetry,” Grisham said. “Now, normally I wouldn’t say that, but there was a new WWE Magazine. They had just transformed it from a results based, boring magazine…to more of a Maxim style, lifestyle magazine, ‘Get to know superstars better.’ So they were like ‘Any time you can incorporate stuff from the magazine, do it. It helps sell the magazine. It helps sell their story. It synchs everything up.’ Great.
“So they did a whole thing on John Morrison, his finisher was called Starship Pain. He wrote a poem called Starship Pain. So he’s in the ring, and I go ‘John Morrison, Starship Pain. He’s a big fan of poetry and wrote a poem about the finisher Starship Pain.’ And Vince goes insane in my ear. ‘Did you just say our number one hero is an effing poet?! You stupid eff! What the f**k?! Shut up! Just shut up! Don’t say anything else! Jim Ross…Jim, you call the rest of this fight! I don’t want to hear another effing word out of you!'”
Grisham revealed that he spent the rest of the match in silence while Ross did call the action. It was only once it was over that McMahon gave Grisham the all clear to speak again, allowing Gresham to promote an upcoming match heading into commercial.
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit “Insight with Chris Van Vliet” and provide an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription
