New Details on the Vince McMahon-Kevin Owens Headbutt Angle

According to The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, here are the latest details on the Vince McMahon/Kevin Owens “did Vince blade or didn’t he” story following the headbutt angle on Smackdown. The internal story is that there was no blade involved nor was blood planned, but that’s also the company line for the blood in the WrestleMania and Brock Lesnar matches. As far as those involved in setting up the angle know, there was no talk before the angle about blood or how to shoot if there was blood. Meltzer also notes that nobody was talking about blood beforehand but that if Vince wanted blood, he just as easily couldn’t have told anyone ahead of time

Owens didn’t lay in the headbutt that hard unless McMahon told him to, because nobody is going to head-butt a 72-year-old man that hard without being told to do so. Meltzer also notes that when watching the angle back, that you can see a line going down on Vince’s forehead in the close-ups, and when Owens delivered the headbutt, the cut opened right on that line. As far as the close-up shots, the story there is that they were instructed to shoot close-ups to get Vince’s face as he would sell the beating, but nobody knew it was going to have blood.

On TV, the idea of minimal blood is looked at as acceptable, but the blood wasn’t that minimal and they still shot close-ups of it, because if Vince wants a close-up, there’s going to be a close-up. Those who have been skeptical of the story note that if McMahon bladed before the angle, that he wouldn’t tell anyone and that there was more blood than one would usually get from a head-butt.