Mark Henry Talks Lack Of Black WWE Champions, Problems With JBL, His New WWE Deal, More
Jay Mohr recently sat down with Mark Henry. Here are some highlights from the interview.
Getting the Sexual Chocolate gimmick: "I'm kind of glib. I like to play around a lot. I would always flirt with the girls in the office and everybody just hanging around, sweet talk. They were like, man, you need to do that on TV. That's hilarious. That's how it happened. We drove down the road and I was like talking about Coming to America, the guy D'Lo that I was riding with at the time, he said you should just go ahead and call yourself Sexual Chocolate. And I was like let's do it. Let's tell em and I told them when I got to the TV [taping] that day. First they laughed, they thought I was clowning. And I was like no, I'm going to call myself Sexual Chocolate. And they were like alright."
His new WWE deal: "I signed a three year deal. [I'm going to be in the WWE] for at least three years. I got a raise and everything."
Past issues with JBL: "I used to have issues with Bradshaw. He's a great wrestler, was the champion. He was in the Acolytes with Ron Simmons. When I was young he used to pick on me. Ribbing is a part of wrestling. That's the way they show kind of a fondness for you. They play like, practical jokes on you. They put your wrestling gear in plastic bags and throw it in the back of the shower and turn all the showers on. Empty all your luggage out and put water in your luggage, just stupid stuff. They hazed me and I couldn't hit them. I wanted to fight everybody. [laughter] They were like you got to quit trying to fight everybody. We're trying to be brothers with you. It took a while for me to understand that and John is one of the people I respect the most in the business now."
Lack of black WWE Champions: "[After saying that Rock held the title] I think the Rock would have been that guy, but Hollywood was just?he had to do it [leave].
"You know what, I was champion. Ron Simmons was champion. As far as time, it takes a long time to know what I know. I think the time has just passed. We have to recruit. I've been working with talent development over the last two years now and we're trying to hunt young, handsome, athletic, smart people. I probably should have said smart first because it's a psychology driven business. You have to take people on that emotional ride. If you're not smart enough to pull that crowd in and give them some swerves here or there, you can't do this business. I'm one of the few that's still able to work with anybody. I don't have to talk to you. I'll see you in the ring and it's going to go down. People are going to leave there going man, I got my money's worth. We don't have a lot of that and just to be honest, a lot of the young, black kids that we're recruiting make me feel good. We're trying to recruit them, man and they're playing football. They're playing basketball. They're on Olympic teams for different sports. It's hard to get the cream of the crop."
Not wanting to be a babyface: "Sometimes, like right now, if I have to smile and hug somebody one more time I'm going to throw up. In my heart of hearts, I want to put my foot in somebody's throat and raise my hand and spit at people."
Damien Sandow needing to toughen up: "Damien Sandow, he's a good entertainer. He keeps your attention. He needs to toughen up a little bit. I've told him, man, you're going to get trivialized if you don't toughen up. Sometimes you just got to have an edge. You have to bully people. You have to be a bit stiff."
Working with Sheamus: "Me and Sheamus have a natural chemistry. He's another one of the young guys that's going to carry the business for a long time. Very good, don't mind getting hit, will not cry if you slap the hell out of him."
Getting fined for touching fans: "Now we're not allowed to put our hands on nobody. 70,000 dollar fine if you reach out there in the crowd. You're going to get fined."
You can check out the whole interview here.
Source: Jay Mohr