Nita Strauss On How Vince McMahon Was Backstage At WrestleMania, Which WWE Star Marked Out For Her
As noted, Wrestling Inc. President Raj Giri recently talked with Alice Cooper guitarist Nita Strauss. Among other things, Strauss who played SmackDown Live's Shinsuke Nakamura to the ring at WrestleMania 34, talked about the energy of the show, taking instruction from WWE Chairman Vince McMahon, watching the show from the gorilla position, and The Big Show wanting to meet her.
Although Strauss has played larger shows that WrestleMania 34, there is no comparing the energy of a WrestleMania crowd.
"There's nothing like the energy of WrestleMania." Strauss added, "It was so electrifying and so exciting. The energy was so huge."
When asked how she was treated by WWE, Strauss said she came away impressed with how everyone was cool at WWE. 'The Iron Maiden' went on to say that McMahon gave her some instructions for the performance and put her over for her charisma.
"It was absolutely incredible. We walked away saying, 'this is how every organization should treat their people' and I told Alice's people that, 'we should take a cue from these people because just everyone from the carpenters to the techs, all the way up to Vince and Triple H, everybody treated everybody with so much respect. They were so humble and so cool." Strauss continued, "Vince himself was so cool. He walked out onto the stage and gave me some directions during soundcheck, some notes he wanted me to change during the entrance. And when I got back there [after the performance], I was all sweaty and I gave him a big hug. I didn't really think about it at the time, but he gave me a complement. He said, 'you have so much charisma, which Josh [Strauss's boyfriend] told me later, 'for somebody who built their whole business on charisma, that's a big complement.' Everybody was super cool and so easygoing."
Strauss said she was intimidated to meet McMahon at first, and she talked about how being in the gorilla position was "surreal".
"I was intimidated at first. I definitely was, like, when we walked into gorilla and I saw Vince there, like, he has a presence about him. It's like, 'don't mess with me – I'm working' and I'm like, 'urgh.' But then, he came out on the stage and started giving me notes and directions." Strauss recalled, "it was really surreal. We had soundcheck, like I said, around 1 pm, which means we got to the arena around noon. And then, we did soundcheck for about 15 minutes. And then, I went on stage around 10 pm, so I had nine hours to warm up and then cool down, and then warm up and then cool down, and then get excited and then calm down."
Apparently, The Big Show is a big fan of the axe-wielding rocker.
"You know who really stood out was Big Show." Strauss joked, "and yeah, I mean, I guess he stands out anywhere. But I got a text from WWE's music supervisor and he said, 'hey, Big Show wants to meet you and he's in catering. And Big Show and everybody is in there eating, all the wrestlers, current roster, and Shawn Michaels, [Ric] Flair, everybody was there. And, Big Show, right in front of everybody, stood up. He was like, 'oh, my God! I've been wanting to meet you for so long! I follow you on Twitter.' And he gave me a big hug and he wanted to take a picture with me, which was crazy! And he put me over in front of everybody, which he didn't have to do."
Source: Wrestling Inc.