JJ Dillion: Vince McMahon Expected To Go To Prison In The 1990s
The Steroid Trial threw WWE’s existence into doubt
The early-mid 90s were not good for WWE. Diminishing popularity was one thing, but the steroid and ringboy scandals that rocked the company severely damaged public perception towards Titan Towers, and in the case of the steroid trial, could have seen Vince McMahon serve jail time.
Whilst fighting the trial, McMahon left the day-to-day operations of WWE in the hands of Pat Patterson, Jerry Jarrett and JJ Dillon, with the latter telling WWE Hall of Famers JBL and Jerry Brisco how WWE would have looked had McMahon gone down.
“Vince was convinced that when the government invests that much in going after somebody, that they’re going to get their pound of flesh,” revealed Dillon. “He was convinced they were going to get him on something, and that he was going to do some time. He really was.”
One rumour at the time was that Dillon and Jarrett were set to completely take over the company if Vince served jail time.
“Yeah [it is true],” said Dillon. “It was seven days a week thing. I’d be in the office all week. . . and Friday afternoon [Pat Patterson] would say to Vince, ‘Well what are you doing tomorrow?’ And Vince would say, ‘If you don’t have anything to do then give me a call.’ Well, Saturday morning Pat would call Vince, and [Vince] would say, ‘Why don’t you come over to the house?’ [Patterson and Vince would meet] and brainstorm, because they were booking three towns a night and doing three TVs. So, Pat said to Vince that he wanted to include me, and that’s how that started.”
Credit: Stories with Brisco and Bradshaw
H/T: Wrestling Inc.
