Francine: Vince McMahon Never Saw My ECW Work Before Hiring Me

On the one year anniversary episode 52 of his Triple Threat Podcast, Shane Douglas was joined by his former “head-cheerleader” and valet, Francine.  Francine and The Franchise reminisced about the glory days of ECW and their pairing which lasted from July 1996 all the way though Shane’s ECW departure in 1999. However, when discussing her brief WWE-ECW run in 2006 for the first time ever with Douglas, “The Queen of Extreme” revealed a strong desire to not just merely compete in swimsuit competitions as she attempted to express to management her desire to work. In the following excerpt, Francine recalls having a conversation with Vince McMahon regarding the lack of creative direction for her while working for WWE.  The full episode can be downloaded at this link.

On asking for her release shortly after joining WWE:

“I can tell you something, when I was hired and I was in line to get a draw one evening and he (Vince McMahon) pulled me from line because earlier in the night I was talking to Johnny Ace in his office and I was crying and I was begging for my release. Johnny said they weren’t giving me my release and I was like Johnny please {because} you are not using me and I am not happy so he must have went to Vince. He pulled me from line and we start walking and he says, “You are a beautiful girl and beautiful girls are a dime a dozen, I have no idea what you can do.” I looked at Vince and I am not lying when I say this but I looked at Vince and I said, “Didn’t you buy our tape library?” He just looked at me as to say I didn’t watch it or I don’t watch it and I am then like well okay he has his crew that watch stuff and they report back and I was told that Shane McMahon was the big ECW (I don’t want to say mark) but fan and he loved ECW and that was Shane’s thing. He told his Dad who to hire and I know Tommy had a part in it too but for Vince to tell me, someone that he has hired that he has never saw my work? He didn’t know what I could do? I am thinking to myself just how on earth can I be standing under contract in this building right now? Period. It blew my mind.”

“I kept saying that I am willing to work but they had me doing bikini contests and I said I just want to work, I just want to work. I was told that I could do what I did for Paul (Heyman) so let me do what I did for Paul.”

WWE not using the ECW Originals under contract:

“I didn’t get it because everyone of us was willing to work just as hard as we did for Paul and everyone was just dumbfounded. We would literally just sit in catering and stare at each other and say that we wonder when we are getting released. That is what we said every week. It was brutal.”

“It’s traumatizing because you are thinking what am I doing wrong? Why aren’t they using me? I was never too {political} and I don’t politic behind the scenes and I never had to and you know as well as I do that Paul was so one-one-one and open and you could call him and he was easy to talk to and he was there for us. Vince was just totally different and not really approachable.”

For this and every other episode of The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling and The Triple Threat Podcast featuring “The Franchise” Shane Douglas please subscribe to them on iTunes, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Podomatic, and Player FM. Also follow them on Twitter @TwoManPowerTrip