Hornswoggle found out he was Vince McMahon’s illegitimate son a few short hours before the world did.
WWE is known for having some outlandish storylines throughout its history, and the “Vince McMahon’s illegitimate child” one arguably ranks near the top. Ken Kennedy (…Kennedy) was originally tapped to be Vince’s son, but the storyline was rewritten due to Kennedy’s Wellness Policy suspension.
The September 10, 2007 episode of RAW featured the payoff of a weeks-long tease about the identity of Vince’s son. Hornswoggle was finally revealed as Vince’s son, but he said he only learned about the angle hours before the show aired.
Hornswoggle (aka Swoggle, Dylan Postl) spoke with Steve Fall for WrestlingNews.co about the storyline and said he’s not sure if WWE always had a backup, but he wasn’t clued in until the day of the taping.
“Kennedy got in trouble?” Hornswoggle said in response to being asked how he got picked. “I have no idea. Literally, I have zero clue. I was told that day [about the angle] at 3:45 in the afternoon. They might have known the backup, but I didn’t know until 3:45 that afternoon.”
Asked how much of a boost being in such a high-profile storyline was, Hornswoggle said
“Stephanie McMahon, the next week, she talked to me and said, ‘I hope you’re ready because this is going to be the biggest part of your career.’ And I was like, ‘Let’s go! Here we go, I’m ready. Let’s do this.’ I was on — the 15th anniversary of RAW, I was on four segments, including the opening and the closing camera shots, and then I did a pose-down with Hulk Hogan on that show. I did a backstage segment, it’s insane that a kid from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, that this happens to. It’s awesome.”
Hornswoggle said he still has a lot of respect for Kennedy (aka Ken Anderson), who went to bat for him early in his career.
“I owe a lot to him,” Hornswoggle said. “He trained me in professional wrestling, he put his name out there to get me a job with WWE. We’ve always been very, very close.”
Hornswoggle would go on to feud with his “father” for the next several months. Finlay would eventually be revealed as Hornswoggle’s true father, and the feud would be phased out after a Belfast Brawl match with JBL at WrestleMania XXIV.
A few years ago, former WWE writer Brian Gewirtz shared details about an unused storyline that would have shown how much disdain ‘Mr. McMahon’ had for his ‘son’. According to the pitch, Mr. McMahon would have stuffed Hornswoggle into a pillowcase and thrown him off of a bridge.
Read more about the “Hornswoggle Dilemma” here.
