Shane Helms Reveals How His Singles Match and Win Over The Rock in 2003 Came About

– Speaking with Jeffrey Harris for the 411 Wrestling Interviews Podcast, former WWE Cruiserweight champion and current WWE producer Shane Helms talked about his match with The Rock back in 2003, when Helms was able to pick up a singles win over The Rock on a March 10, 2003 edition of Monday Night Raw. The match happened during The Rock’s feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin heading into WrestleMania 19. Below are some highlights of Helms discussing how his match with The Rock wasn’t really planned ahead of time and came about.

Shane Helms on if beating The Rock in a one-on-one match was the highlight of his career: “It was definitely in the conversation for my career highlights for sure. I think that that match with me is what really set him on the path to being a superstar *Laughs* . And I gave him that rub. I think that’s what helped give him that push. That was always going to be the one — we had one promo in Toronto. I’ve always had a great relationship with the city of Toronto. It was only going to be that one promo backstage. That’s all it was ever going to be, but it went so well, and everybody loved it. And it was just one of those things where, when I was there with it, all the boys in the locker room were like patting me on the back telling me how great that was. Even Kevin Dunn went out of his way to come and talk to me and tell me how good that went, and Kevin’s such a busy guy. He’s got a lot more things on his plate to do than that.”

Helms on how his singles match with The Rock came about: “So, I did well, and then later on that night in a battle royal — and I forget what the stipulation for the battle royal was, but it was a point where I had eliminated somebody and then he [The Rock] came over to get me, and I started firing back on him. And you could just feel the crowd get energized by that. And I felt good about that moment, but like I said, I thought that was going to be it. And then apparently, creative and Vince McMahon just picked up on it, and they decided to roll with it. So, that turned into a couple more promos. A couple more promos turned into a match. It was a very organic thing that happened that wasn’t really planned ahead.”

Just for further background details, the battle royal Helms is referring to took place on the February 24, 2003 edition of Raw. It was a battle royal to determine the No. 1 contender for then WWE World Heavyweight champion Triple H. Booker T ultimately tossed out The Rock when they were the last two men in order to win the match and secure a world title shot against Triple H at WrestleMania 19. The Hurricane was also in the match and was eliminated by The Rock, and the two had a match on Raw two weeks later.

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Introduction (0:00)
On his experience at Starrcast (0:44)
On coming on board WWE as a producer, what his job as a producer entails (1:20)
On getting heat for trying to get AJ Styles signed by WWE in 2002 and Style’s rise to the top of WWE (5:19)
On AEW Double or Nothing and AEW being competition to WWE (7:21)
On the origin and development of the Hurricane character and making the gimmick work (9:34)
On working with Kane and becoming tag team champions with him (12:44)
On his win over the Rock on Raw and whether it’s a career highlight (13:40)
On turning heel on Smackdown, whether he preferred Hurricane or heel Shane Helms (15:30)
On his heat with Shawn Michaels and when they resolved their issues (16:48)
On how fatherhood has changed him (19:58)
On the WWE Performance Center providing a new avenue to be brought up in wrestling and WWE (20:42)
On Ricochet’s potential (22:14)
On Jon Moxley’s criticism about WWE’s creative process and scripted promos vs. unscripted promos (22:51)
On if there’s anything he wanted to do with the Hurricane character that he didn’t get a chance to do (26:56)
On the possibility of another run as the Hurricane (28:11)
On his surprise 2018 Royal Rumble appearance (29:25)
Where to find him on social media (30:50)

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