Nowadays, Shane McMahon is one of the many names WWE calls on when they need a name from the past to come in and create hooking stories for a casual audience. However, Shane McMahon was once in need of training and that is when Dr. Tom Prichard was called upon
On the fourth episode of his podcast, Dr. Tom Prichard discuss his training Shane McMahon to be a wrestler, his WrestleMania 15 match against X-Pac, and the role that Randy Savage played in Shane McMahon's formative years.
The following highlights were passed along to Fightful by The TMPT Empire.
Randy Savage helping train a young Shane McMahon:
"Randy coming from a wrestling family too, Randy had the fundamentals and basics down and he definitely was old school obviously. He got trained by one of the greatest even it was just before the matches."
"I believe that Shane was a pretty popular guy with all the boys because he did have respect and he was enthusiastic and he did have that fire in his eyes, so it wouldn't be hard for someone like Macho Man to want to do it and want to go out and help somebody like Shane because he legitimately liked Shane and he liked Vince."
Preparing Shane For His Match with X-Pac At WrestleMania 15:
"The basics and fundamentals never go out of style and that is a great way to warm up and a great way to keep yourself sharp and Shane had no problem doing that. We would work on things like the coast-to-coast and I got to hold the trash can so he could smash me in the face with the trash can but he was always a professional. He always knew that he was going to do it at the right time in the match and he knew that people wanted spectacular moves (and they do) so you have to set the table for it first and then you go to the top turnbuckle and jump on to the table. You can't do that in the first two minutes of a match but you can, it just wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. So Shane understood that we were going to lock up and we were going to do some pulling around, takeovers and wrestling first before he wanted to do his high spots"
Shane’s level of preparation:
"Cardio shape is completely different than ring shape and that's what he was after. Getting in ring shape and just so he wouldn't blow up I'm sure with X-Pac or anybody else he got in the ring with because he was training with us for most of the time he was active back then. When he was off the road, he would come over to the studio and we would get into the ring after workouts too. The same thing applied for whenever Shane wanted to workout, we were going to workout we were going to get into the ring."
Was Shane more athletic than Vince?:
"I don't know that I was surprised. Shane always gave off this vibe that he had a little more skill and even when he was doing the bumps and doing his rolling and when he did back bumps. Just in the way he moved and his body language, when he walked in the ring, when he locked up it wasn't surprising. It felt pretty natural and it felt like he had that natural ability."
"A lot of people say that Shane takes after his Mom's personality more-so than his Dad so maybe that has something to do with it. The one thing that I really don't believe anyone can think or manipulate is passion and Shane had passion. He still does to this day. He is a straight-up guy and so anytime he got in the ring you knew that it was going to be a great workout and we were going to try something new."
Creating Shane’s memorable spots:
"Something either he came up with or something I came up with to put into the match. Right now, I know it was the coast-to-coast, the elbow from the top rope (top turnbuckle) and I remember was it Big Show or whoever he took the bump off the stage with, we went as high as we could in the studio with that and were like "oh my gosh" I hope everything comes out okay and it did. But those were his ideas and that is where he was at. He wanted to make sure that he went out there and gave everyone who came more than what they paid for."
Shane McMahon has not been seen since the October 4th episode of Friday Night SmackDown where he lost a Ladder Match to Kevin Owens and was subsequently fired.
