Paul London Recounts Getting Reprimanded For Smiling During Vince McMahon Exploding Limo Segment

Paul London recently looked back on the “Vince McMahon exploding limo” segment and recounted how he got in trouble for smiling during it. The segment remains one of WWE’s most infamous moments, having taken place at the end of the June 11th, 2007 episode of Raw. McMahon had expressed on TV that he felt like a “dark cloud” was following him. After cutting a promo in the ring, he went to the back and made a strange walk down the back where most of the WWE roster was standing. He eventually made his way outside and got in his limo, which promptly exploded when the door shut.

The segment was surreal for a number of reasons, including London having a strangely enthusiastic smile on his face. London spoke on Insight With Chris Van Vliet about the segment and why he had the smile on his face. He noted that he got reprimanded afterward over it. You can see the highlights below:

On Angering McMahon By Smiling In the Segment:

“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.”

On the Segment:

“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.”

On Getting Reprimanded:

“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.”