Val Venis Talks Vince McMahon Creating His WWE Gimmick

Val Venis spoke with Wrestling Inc.'s Andy Malnoske over WrestleMania weekend at WrestleCon in Manhattan. Venis talked about his time in WWE where he wrestled from 1998 until 2009. During his run, Venis was a two-time Intercontinental Champion, World Tag Team Champion, and European Champion.

In regards to his character, Venis noted Vince McMahon was the one to initially come up with the idea, but it took awhile to tweak the details of the gimmick.

"I think it was successful because it was clearly something that was new, innovative, envelope pushing, it was controversial," Venis said. "Vince McMahon came up with the name 'Val Venis' and the general idea of the character.

"Of course, the towel, the 'hello, ladies,' and the jokes, they all came about as we were developing the character after producing a couple of vignettes that would introduce the character. It was in development from day one and continued to evolve. It took a long time to really develop into the towel-wearing, 'hello ladies' character that ultimately it blew up into."

Venis was then asked if he had any crazy stories on the road that he could tell the camera. The former champion remember a lot of women asking for his autograph around that time.

"I cannot even begin to tell you how many ladies would just out in public – you could be in the middle of McDonalds – that would pull there shirts down and say, 'sign right there,'" Venis recalled.

You can check out the full interview in the video above or on today's episode of our WINCLY podcast in the player below. Subscribe to Wrestling Inc. Audio on iTunes or Google Play. Listen to the show via Spotify here or through TuneIn here.