Jonathan Coachman says Vince McMahon ended his run as a WWE backstage interviewer after being unhappy with a single camera shot.
Speaking on the Boots To Boots podcast, Coachman said interviewing was his plan when he joined WWE, but McMahon did not like bigger people, and Coachman is 6’3 1/2″ and weighs 240 to 270 pounds. He said the camera shot was the entire reason it ended.
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Coachman described the segment. He was doing the splits during a planned tag team fight scene and was supposed to stay put until the fight started. The cameraman snap zoomed out, leaving him in the shot. When Coachman got to the gorilla position, McMahon asked what he was doing. The next week, Coachman said, McMahon walked up to him in the gym and said, “We need to talk, pal.”
McMahon did not take him off television. Coachman said McMahon trusted him, pointing to Diva Search and every season of Tough Enough, and believed he could talk. McMahon’s condition, as Coachman recalls it, was that he had to be willing to take a beating if he wanted to work as an in-ring character. Coachman had not planned to wrestle, but he embraced the role.
Coachman has been vocal about WWE since leaving. In August he said WWE creative needs a complete overhaul. Another McMahon story surfaced this week when Rey Mysterio said he planned to debut in 2002 without his mask until word came that McMahon wanted it back.
