Monday’s episode of WWE Raw opened with Chairman Vince McMahon getting handcuffed and taken to jail for assault after a failed attempt to accuse Roman Reigns of assaulting him. It’s a long story. All you really need to know is that Mr. McMahon got arrested — believably enough for the NYPD to receive a “flurry of calls” — and had his mugshot sent to WWE and broadcast on television. You can see it at the top of the page. It’s a masterpiece, right? According to a former WWE writer, Stephanie McMahon was once supposed to have a very similar shot.
In a blog entry on The Eck Factor, Kevin Eck shares the alleged origin of the mugshot gag, saying it was originally intended for Stephanie during that whole “Brie Bella gets fired and everyone ends up arrested” period in the summer of 2014. Everyone loved the idea save for one man, and the idea was vetoed. Quick, guess which man!
However, when the creative team ran the angle by Triple H, he didn’t care for any of it, and he especially hated the mug shot idea.
His reasoning was that the faux mug shot of his wife would exist forever in cyberspace, and therefore if someone did a Google search on Stephanie and the photo popped up, people might think she had actually been arrested, which could be detrimental to her career as WWE’s chief brand officer.
You can read the full story here.
Nobody’s more worried about Google than Triple H, whether it’s Chyna’s porn career, curb stomping or his family’s arrest records. I guess Vince has done enough crazy stuff on TV that he’s impervious to Googling.
Here’s the Stephanie arrest mentioned in the post, in case you missed, or are brave enough to revisit an era of professionally misaligned Bella Twins:
