Zach Gowen Details Process Of Piecing Together His Match With Vince McMahon At WWE Vengeance 2003

Zach Gowen reflects on his match against Vince McMahon at WWE Vengeance 2003. 

Zach Gowen had a major run in WWE in the summer of 2003. The run culminated with a singles match against Vince McMahon on a WWE pay-per-view, Vengeance. Gowen, with his match against McMahon at the July 2003 event, joined the likes of Steve Austin and Hulk Hogan as part of the select group of individuals that have based McMahon one-on-one on pay-per-view. 

Speaking about the match with Chris Van Vliet on the Insight podcast, Gowen detailed the process of getting the match put together and working with Bruce Prichard, Pat Patterson, and longtime WWE referee, Mike Chioda. 

“Vince did not carry me through that match at all. Listen, I’m not going to speak ill of the man because I love Vince McMahon. He saved my life literally, and, he put me in that position and gave me that platform, which launched me into the rest of my life, you know, but we did that, and it might have been one of the first ones to do that style of match,” Gowen reflected. “It’s the way that Logan Paul does his matches now. So it’s move for move figured out 2, 3, 4 weeks beforehand. They fly me to New York. I’m in a warehouse with the ring. It’s me it’s Vince, and this is like three weeks before a match in the agents. So you got Bruce Prichard there and you got Pat Patterson’s there and there were all this huddled around Mike Chioda, is there the referee? We just talked about, ‘Alright, well what can we do? You know? What can you do Vince? Zach, what can you do here? Well, I can do that. Okay cool.’ Then we piece it together move for move for move for move. The day before the pay-per-view they fly me to Denver early. They rent a local community college gymnasium. They set up a ring, me and Vince again go over it the day before move for move with the agents there and in the referee.”

Elsewhere on this podcast, Gowen revealed that Brock Lesnar was once scheduled to F5 him off of the SmackDown fist. Learn more here. 

Thanks to Chris Van Vliet’s team for sending the above quote.