Freddie Prinze Jr. Explains How London's WWE Crowds Pissed Off Vince McMahon

While Vince McMahon is known for being quite a quirky individual, such as with his famous hatred for sneezing, if there's one trait that seems to define him, it's a need to always be in control. McMahon may have suggested multiple times that he always listened to what the "WWE Universe" wanted from WWE programming, but more often than not, the information available suggested otherwise. Many former WWE employees have said that McMahon often booked characters and storylines because he wanted to see them, whether the audience did or not. To that end, it's no surprise that the former WWE CEO took issue with certain disruptive behavior from fans in London, England, according to former WWE writer/producer Freddie Prinze Jr.

As discussed by Prinze on "Wrestling with Freddie," London crowds had a habit of booing the faces and cheering the heels, as a sort of act of rebellion. "I honestly think London was the audience that made cheering heels acceptable and cool," Prinze explained. "I feel like they started that before AEW did, before WWE fans in America were starting to get hip to heels. In London, they were just like, 'Look, we get these f***ers once a year and we're cheering for whoever we want to. ... I saw it firsthand when Jeff Hardy and Undertaker went at it over there when I was at the company, however long ago it was. I was like, 'Man, they're just cheering for whoever they want.' It pissed Vince off. He didn't like that."

While McMahon being upset over London's defiance makes sense, it's worth noting that Prinze is a bit off-base in his overall assessment of wrestling fans, as U.S. cities like New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia were regularly cheering heels and booing faces long before Prinze ever worked for WWE. Beyond that, Canadian cities like Toronto and Calgary also had a rep for going against the grain of WWE's stated character alignments, such as with Bret Hart in 1997.