Axl Rose’s feud with Vince Neil started when the Mötley Crüe frontman sucker-punched former Guns N’ Roses guitarist, Izzy Stradlin in 1989; right after GN’R had received the MTV Music Award for Best Group Video and Best Heavy Metal Video awards for ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine.’
After that incident, Rose reportedly yelled after Neil and threatened to kill him for punching Stradlin. Then, as Neil’s punch and Axl’s threats made the headlines, things seemed to settle down after a while, and the two parties preferred not to engage with one another.
However, fans hadn’t forgotten about the feud in 1991, as a GN’R fan asked Axl whatever became of the Neil controversy while Bob Coburn was interviewing the GN’R frontman. Rose said:
“Whatever became of that? Well, Vince Neil made his challenge and it was a publicity stunt, you know. And he was pretty much a puppet, who doesn’t really know how he got where he got. But, you know, there’s other people behind him that kinda put him up to something.”
He continued by revealing how he’d issued an ultimatum for Neil:
“And the situation I have with Vince Neil is not about a pay-per-view, it’s not about a publicity stunt. So I issued him a challenge, I sent him a challenge, that, you know, wherever he wanted to fight to the death in another country, I’d pay for the round trip in a coffin. And I haven’t heard from him since.”
Rose then further detailed his claims regarding how he felt Neil was a ‘puppet:’
“But the real thing is pretty much with the people that are behind him, and they know who they are. And if they’ve got a problem, the offer stands with them too.”
Then, host Bob Coburn asked whether Vince really had sucker-punched Izzy at the awards show. Axl addressed:
“Yeah. Yeah, that happened. That happened, you know, and then he [Vince] ran past me. And I didn’t know who he was, cuz he’d just had his cheeks done, and I couldn’t tell who he was. It was pretty weird. We don’t need to talk about that situation anymore. I mean, they’re doing their own thing, we’re doing ours.”
It remains unclear whether Rose and Neil ever made up, but considering the lack of comments on the matter and how the two figures preferred to stay away from one another’s spotlight, it might be safe to say that they haven’t made peace.
