Vince McMahon told a wild story on “The Pat McAfee Show” on Thursday that he might have once been the target of a hit.

When McMahon acquired WWE (previously WWF and WWWF) from his father, the wrestling business was broken up into territories. McMahon went for the jugular, expanding nationally, poaching top performers from all over the country and then competing with promoters who had previously stayed out of each other’s business in their own regions.

McMahon relayed a story to McAfee that was told to him by Jim Ross, who came up in the business through the territories before ultimately working for McMahon as an announcer and front office executive in WWE.

McMahon said that Ross once told him that he was with Bill Watts — who operated the Mid-South promotion, where J.R. ascended in the business — and several other NWA territory promoters at a conference where they were wondering what to do “about this kid,” the young McMahon, who was “invading” their turf.

“I don’t know how many rivers I’m supposed to be at the bottom of,” McMahon said. “Death threats are what they are. I always felt like if you can knock off the president of the United States, I’m easy to get to. I’ve never had a bodyguard or any of that stuff.

“In those days it was like, from their standpoint, when you invaded their territory, it was like … there were so many people who threatened me, that I told one of them, ‘If you want to take credit for it, you better get me quick.'”

McMahon dismissed these rival promoters as having too large of egos to cooperate with each other to vanquish him as a threat.

He then continued with his story, and explained it in a way where Ross was in a bathroom stall, doing his business, when four promoters walked into the men’s room.

“They were talking about how they were going to off me,” McMahon said. “‘This guy knows this guy, I know a guy who can do this, this guy [carried out a hit], it was really impressive.’ They all know people, so they’re all talking about who was going to off me.

“So imagine Jim Ross, he doesn’t give a s–t about Vince McMahon [as he wasn’t working for WWE yet at the time]. He’s thinking about himself. He’s on the throne. He hears this and thinks he’s gonna be an accessory to murder. He takes one foot, puts it on the seat. Takes the other one, puts it on the seat, so now they can’t see his feet below the stall. And, of course Mother Nature is calling at the same time.”

McMahon said that Ross didn’t tell the story until five years after he went to work for WWE.

Ross has previously told this story himself.

Earlier in the interview, McMahon told McAfee — a “SmackDown” announcer whom McMahon offered a match at WrestleMania — that his father would have “never” sold him the business if the old man had known that his son was going to bust up the regional monopolies of the territory.