Vince McMahon was understandably shocked when he learned that his promotion paid $30,000 on worms for a segment with The Boogeyman.
The Boogeyman debuted on WWE TV in 2005 and used live earthworms as part of his character, often eating the worms or putting them in the mouths of opponents.
While speaking on the Wrestling Perspective Podcast, MLW CEO and former WWE creative team member Court Bauer recalled a segment between The Boogeyman and JBL which called for a lot of worms.
“We had these worms fall from the ceiling in the arena. JBL’s rolling around in them because, of course, the heel’s terrified of the worms, and Vince is laughing, going, ‘Oh, that’s great.’ It’s raining worms in the arena and he turns to us and goes, ‘How much were those worms? That’s a lot of worms.”
After learning that the segment set him back $30,000, McMahon wasn’t pleased with how much had been spent.
“‘Well sir, that was $30,000’, and Vince’s jaw drops. He was like, ‘$30,000 for worms?.’ ‘Well they were out of normal worms so we had to go organic’, and (Vince) just looked shocked.”
“He’s like, I can’t believe we just blew $30,000. There’s John Layfield rolling in the worms and he’s crying and everyone’s laughing but, it’s like, he was shocked and I think that assistant was fired soon thereafter but the show went on.”
The JBL-Boogeyman storyline would culminate with The Boogeyman getting a victory over the former WWE Champion at the 2006 Royal Rumble pay-per-view event.