Paul London Recalls First Time Meeting Vince McMahon, Screwing Up Handshake With Him

Paul London’s first televised match in WWE was a WWE Championship bout against Brock Lesnar, a bout that London recently looked back on. London signed with WWE back in mid-2003 and debuted on WWE television at the October 9th episode of Smackdown. He faced Lesnar for the title and lost in exactly one minute. After the match, Lesnar attacked London until Brian Kendrick (then Spanky) came down to make the save.

London looked back at his WWE start in his appearance on Insight With Chris Van Vliet. London recalled his first time meeting Vince McMahon before he’d signed with WWE, and then going on to face Lesnar a year-plus later. You can see the highlights below:

On His First WWE TV Segment Being With Vince McMahon:

“But that was not the first time I met Vince McMahon. So I was also a professional plant. Because I was a plant in WCW, after the Perry Saturn match, I was also a plant for SmackDown. This is leading up to WrestleMania 18. So Undertaker is a heel, Flair is a babyface. They stumble into the crowd. Flair goes to punch Undertaker, Taker moves, he decks a fan, I’m the fan. So he decks me. It’s a live SmackDown. We go upstairs, we’re coming back in like, two minutes. ‘Okay, you’re gonna say that man punched me.’ I’m like, Flair, right? ‘Don’t say his name.’ The f**k kind of a fan am I who deosn’t know his name?! I’m wearing a Stone Cold shirt. I want the wheeling, jet stealing, limo driving… that dude, the money dude, yeah, he hit me. ‘No, say that man [Undertaker] hit me.’ Okay. So at the end of that night in San Antonio, all the local guys are waiting to say, ‘Oh, thank you.’ We’re all waiting. So Vince is power walking. He’s got shoulder pads in his suit, and I’m last So Vince is walking, everyone is like ‘Oh, thank you sir. Remember me and hire me and change my life forever. Thank you sir.’

“I went in for an aggressive handshake, and this is what I did. I went in for an aggressive handshake on Vince McMahon. I caught these two [fingers], but I had committed to it. I was already committed. He wiped my handshake off and power walked off. I was like, ‘I’m f**ked. Never working here. I’m done. I’m done.’ I just clipped his two fingers. He didn’t say anything to me. So when I got to Hartford, I think that’s where they said I was from. This is before the dress code, and I had gotten called up to do house shows after two months, and out of the blue. I got to the TV taping, I expected to have a dark match with Brian teaming against whoever. I remember Arn Anderson came up to me. He’s like, ‘You ready kid? Your big day today.’ Oh, really, what’s going on? He’s like, ‘You might want to go get some better clothes, you got this thing with Vince.’ Oh my God. So I ran across the street. I don’t know if it was Brooks Brothers or something, I don’t know, but I spent money on slacks and basically what you see in that shot. I wasn’t gonna remind him I’m the guy who grabbed two fingers a couple of years ago. But he was cool, he seemed to like it. It seemed fine.”

On His First WWE TV Match Being Against Brock Lesnar For The WWE Ttitle:

“I think that stemmed out of that thing where he had decimated Brian [Kendrick]. He took that crazy F5 into the ring post bump, which is still, I have no idea how he did that. He even took a weird back bump from the floor up against the turnbuckles. Brian did an amazing job, incredible worker. But then he did the thing with Zach Gowen, where he bled him out like a stuck pig. Then it was me. But the same thing happened where I’m in the ring with Brock going over it. Arn is the agent. I love Arn Anderson. I actually have one of his trading cards, I carry it with me everywhere. But he’s like, oh, ‘What can you do, kid? Gotta make this guy look like a son of a bitch.’ I’m like, I think he’s doing a pretty good job on his own. He doesn’t have a neck. He’s shaped like Ram Man. And I’m like, ‘Well, if he clotheslines me right off the bat, I can do a 360.’ So I wouldn’t say Brock took a liking to me, but we were always cool, always cool after that. I mean, he wouldn’t say hi to anybody a lot of times, but he was always cool to me.”