AEW star MVP recently shared a vivid story illustrating the high-pressure, unpredictable nature of working live television under Vince McMahon, recounting an instance where the finish to an NXT main event match against Cody Rhodes was changed seconds before going off the air, much to McMahon’s amusement.
Speaking on the “Marking Out with MVP and Dwayne Swayze” podcast, MVP detailed a night during the original live NXT series where he was set to defeat Cody Rhodes. Their match time had already been drastically altered multiple times throughout the day, eventually expanding from a planned 12-15 minutes to three full segments (approximately 24 minutes of in-ring time) just moments before MVP’s entrance, a change Cody Rhodes, already in the ring, was unaware of.
“Cody’s out there mentally prepared for the 10-12, whatever we had. He has no idea,” MVP explained. He communicated the new break spots to Rhodes via the referee. As they worked the lengthy match, with MVP set for the win, the situation changed abruptly. “MVP is supposed to beat Cody… I grabbed Cody, I put my leg over the back of his neck. I grabbed his his hand for the to hit the playmaker, and the referee says, ‘Vince says Cody’s up. Vince says Cody’s up.’ Oh no, we’re seconds to going off the air live.”
With no time to react other than in the moment, MVP improvised. “Cody’s underneath my leg. I’m about to hit my finishing move. This match is over, and from underneath my leg. I [hear] ‘What the [fuck]?’ And I just said ‘Cody reverses, Crossroads’. … He knew how to go, Okay, do the reversal, and so he did. Came through the reversal boom, hit the Crossroads. 1-2-3, Cody wins.”
The reaction backstage from Vince McMahon was memorable for MVP. “We come back through the curtain. Vince takes off the headset and he’s laughing. It’s just a game. That sh*t was funny as hell to him. He thought it was hysterical,” MVP recalled. “But if we had f**ked that up, he would not have been laughing. It wouldn’t have been funny at all.” MVP admitted he was “pissed off” and said some “slick sh*t to Vince” afterward, but McMahon just found it amusing. MVP uses this story as an example of why wrestlers on live TV must “learn how to do it on the fly.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Marking Out with MVP & Dwayne Swayze with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
