WWE boss Vince McMahon wanted to beat the 's***' out of Bob Costas

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WWE chieftain Vince McMahon wanted to beat the “s***” out of sportscaster Bob Costas during a high octane HBO interview more than two decades ago.

But a new book claims the wrestling impresario decided against it because Costas is a little guy.

Jim Miller’s book Tinderbox: HBO’s Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers details the encounter and says both men remember it well.

Costas was grilling McMahon on the XFL’s declining popularity and viewership. The famed broadcaster also fired a few broadsides at McMahon over elements of the WWE he didn’t like.

“It was live, and obviously since it’s HBO, there were no commercials,” Costas said. “I knew it was good television in the moment, but I wasn’t trying to hype it. Sometimes things can become sensational, but they start from a legitimate place. And the legitimate place was that the XFL was trying to find a place in mainstream sports, on a mainstream network. It started out with great interest.”

Costas added: “I think they got a rating of 10 for the first game, but by the end, they were getting the lowest ratings of any program in prime time in the history of network television.”

For his part, the buff McMahon needled Costas about his height.

“Once we were doing the interview, he kept interrupting me and interrupting me, and bringing up topics that had nothing to do with what we were supposed to be talking about,” McMahon recalls in the book. “He kept trying to do the ‘I gotcha’ kind of thing. It was clear he didn’t want to hear any of my answers.

“The other problem was that Bob is so freaking pompous. The entire time he acted like he was above me and was just using me to show how great he was. I was sitting there really pissed off and started thinking, I wish he wasn’t 5-feet high and 140 pounds. If he was 6’5″ and 295, he would deserve to get the s*** beat out of him. I could have really given them some great television.”

Instead, the 5-foot-7 Costas recalled McMahon storming off the set.

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“He stormed off and you could hear the doors slamming behind him,” Costas recounted. “It takes some strength, by the way, to slam the doors of the studio. Those doors aren’t like the door to your kitchen. I could hear them slam.”

According to Costas, the next day McMahon called him offering to do a rematch.

“The following day the phone rings, and it’s McMahon. ‘Bob, let’s make it two out of three. You took last night. I want a rematch.’ I said, ‘Great.’ We did another one a year later that was less heated, was still a good exchange, but it wasn’t as memorable as the first one.”

bhunter@postmedia.com