Steve Blackman Looks Back At Shane McMahon Falling Off Titantron At WWE SummerSlam 2000, Thinks It Was Shane’s Idea
While recounting the moment, Steve Blackman shared advice that was given to him about how to make things go smoothly.
Blackman looks back at the highlight moment.
There have been multiple occasions throughout Shane McMahon’s in-ring career when he has either fallen or jumped off a structure such as a titantron or Hell in a Cell.
One of those moments happened at WWE’s SummerSlam event in 2000. Blackman and McMahon clashed over the Hardcore Championship. The conclusion of the bout saw Blackman and McMahon scaling the Titantron and Blackman knocking McMahon off with kendo stick shots.
Blackman thinks it was Shane’s idea to fall off the structure. He then recounted advice from Vince McMahon about how to properly execute the ending of the bout so it would not change Shane’s trajectory as he fell.
“That was pretty much the plan I think. I don’t remember much being discussed differently than what we did. Most people don’t realize, it was rare that I’d go out there and talk about the match and stuff in the ring before we go out and do an appearance… I didn’t really walk through much with people. That one there was a rare one when we went out there to go up to the titantron, and we actually climbed up, and that’s high, and the worst thing was there was nothing on the floor, from the titantron until you’re seven feet, eight feet away. Then there was a mat the size of a bed way out here and I’m like, ‘He’s gonna land on that backwards from up there? What if he falls straight down?’ And this one guy goes — this stunt coordinator, he’s like, ‘If he just steps back and falls this way, he’ll land out there.’ I’m like, ‘You’re kidding me, right?’ I said, ‘Well, that’s insane to me.’ So, they said, ‘Okay, we’ll do it.’ He didn’t drop, but, he said, okay, he’ll do that and I said, ‘Alright.’ So we get up there the next day, I hit him with my stick and he drops. Well, I’m supposed to drop an elbow on him, and I’m like, I have two feet to land there. How am I gonna drop an elbow on this guy from 50 or 60 feet? Whatever we were. I shimmy down. I might have still been 25 feet up. So I shimmy down halfway and jump from there and landed but what happened is overnight, somebody encased the mat with three-quarter-inch plywood around it. So if you have a limb sticking out, it’s just gonna snap off. So I had to land right there, drop an elbow on him and try not to completely pancake him, and so I landed there, hit him with the elbow and pulled it off but — it may have been during the match… Our runners would grab props anywhere and sometimes they were real street signs. I’d be like, ‘Guys, where are you grabbing this stuff? This is a real street sign.’ ‘Well, don’t ask Steve.’ So he gets out there — he hit me with a street sign one time. If you watch that match, it felt like it ripped the nose off my face. That metal thing just went peeling right down my face. I thought, holy hell. Then Test and Albert interfered. You know, we had a good match. Everybody was getting beat on in that one.
Well, it had to be him (Shane McMahon’s idea to fall off the structure). I don’t think it was his dad. It had to be Shane, and I’ll never forget we were out there going over it and talking about it and I’m like, ‘I’ll crack him, crack him, crack him.’ But the worst part was I was so sweaty from the match for 15 minutes, that trying to hold on to those bars, I was just drenched in sweat. I kept worrying about slipping and dropping, so that’s why I stopped where I did, held the bar and then cracked him because I just kept sweating so bad, and we were out there, I’ll never forget, Vince (McMahon) is like, ‘You need to get that stick out of the way. If you crack him and your stick’s here and he drops, he’s gonna (flip).’ I said, ‘You know what? You’re right. So it’s good you thought of that.’ I had to crack him, make sure I got the stick out of the way so he didn’t land on it and flip, or something like that. It hits me, because you think of crazy little things like that that you wouldn’t most of the time.”
Elsewhere on the Shane McMahon front, he confirmed that he met with All Elite Wrestling President Tony Khan in the summer of 2024. To read his comments, click here.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Insight with Chris Van Vliet with an H/T to Fightful for the transcriptions.