Paul London addresses segment where he got in trouble for smiling at Vince McMahon
During an interview with Chris Van Vliet, former WWE star Paul London was asked about the time he smiled during the Vince McMahon limousine explosion segment in 2007. London confirmed that Vince was not happy with him…
“Yeah, it’s funny, it’s cute how sensitive millionaires are. If you think about it, the money, the power, the image, the persona, all of this becomes a big smoke screen. That becomes an illusion that you use as leverage to create some sort of fear, or try to keep everyone on their heels so they’re easier to move around. I don’t know, whatever you want to call it, but extremely sensitive, like very easy to hurt their feelings.”
“We were in Hershey, Pennsylvania. We were coming off of a house show, and I had been pulled into the office right as I got there. I still had my bags, and, you know, I was already in trouble for another before-mentioned hillbilly backyard wrestler from North Carolina, who sabotaged me by putting out online that I had leaked a magazine reveal to a fan. I had revealed Ashley being on Playboy; I had revealed that online, so that had been put out there that I talked to a fan. So I was getting reprimanded for that. I was like, you know who did this. You know who’s behind this. ‘I know, we still have to talk to you.’ Why? If you know who did it. So I was already in trouble for that.
Then they called everybody over that they didn’t have any plans for. Just okay, the rest of you, this was going to be going on here. Okay, we have this segment going on the ring now. Vince is going to be acting very queer, okay, very odd, unusual, very, very queer. They kept saying queer, I don’t know why, okay, I think they mean odd. That has to be what they mean, right? ‘He’s gonna come back here and we’re gonna line you all up, and he’s gonna just walk along acting very queer, very odd and just very bizarre and very queer.’ I was like, Okay, I get it. Now, if he looks at you, just play off of it.
The best part of that segment is watching everybody else in that thing, their faces. That’s my favorite kind of part of that scene, because they were really trying. I’m like, What are y’all doing? So that was the only description. They filmed the limousine explosion the night before. Didn’t tell any of us that was what was happening. Didn’t tell us anything other than he was bizarre, odd and queer. So every take he looked in my face. I’m sitting here thinking, whatever is up this guy’s ass is making him so bizarre.
I did that every time. We did it nine times, every time he [looked at me]. All right, thanks, everybody. And then it was that Oompa Loompa that used to walk Khali to the ring, who was in the office, and I’m not talking about Davari, because I love Davari, but the non-athletic Oompa Loompa guy who used to walk Khali out to the ring, he’s like, ‘Hold on, sir. Do you think anyone’s gonna notice this’? He pulls out like a stencil and points out my smile. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Mekaneck from He-Man or a periscope in a submarine. His head, literally, he power walked over to me. ‘Why were you smiling?!’ Because you’re like, acting bizarre, and I don’t know? Don’t kill the messenger. I don’t get that.”
(Thanks to ChrisVanVliet.com for the quotes)