The unforgettable Street Fight between Shane McMahon and Kurt Angle at the 2001 King of the Ring is often highlighted as one of the wildest and most punishing matches of the Attitude Era. Veteran referee Mike Chioda, who officiated the bout, recently opened up about the chaos behind the curtain, which included Vince McMahon screaming at him through the headset to call off the contest and Linda McMahon personally thanking him for what he did during the match.

One of the most talked about moments came on the entrance stage, when Kurt Angle attempted to suplex Shane McMahon through the glass panels that were supposed to be made of breakable sugar glass. When the glass refused to shatter on the first tries, the spot became dangerously real, with chaos erupting both inside the arena and backstage.

During his appearance on the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast, Chioda recalled how heated things got. He explained that Vince McMahon was livid through the earpiece as Angle tried multiple times to send Shane crashing through the glass.

“I knew Shane’s a tough cookie. Man, he’s always been a tough kid… I was getting screamed at by Vince, like Vince was screaming in the background, cussing, Jerry Briscoe, everybody was cussing. But I wasn’t going to stop the match, that’s for sure, you know. And they’re like, don’t throw him through the glass. And I’m screaming at Kurt, don’t do it again. Don’t do it again. And later on, he goes, I said, ‘Kurt, I was screaming in your ear.’ He goes, ‘Was it on this side?’ I said, ‘Yeah, it was on the right side.’ He goes, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’m kind of deaf.’”

Chioda also shared that he had to step in at another key point, literally holding a piece of wood in place so Angle and McMahon could safely pull off a top rope spot. That effort caught the attention of Shane’s mother, Linda McMahon.

“I remember Linda coming up, because I held that board up top when he gives Shane the Angle Slam off the top rope. Had this little piece of board and was slipping off the rope with both of them up there. And I’m over there holding it like this as much as I can, just to get this, just so they can get that spot off. And I remember Linda pointing that out to me, and I was like, she goes, ‘Great job, Mike.’ You know, she was like, ‘Thank you for holding that board, because I seen that.’ She was, ‘You didn’t hold that board. They were collapsing.’”

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