Mark Henry On How AEW Can Improve

Appearing on Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette, AEW's Mark Henry talked about what he'd bring to the table for the promotion. He reiterated his goals of helping AEW's community outreach, fine tuning certain aspects and what he'd bring to the table as far as coaching.

"I want the wrestlers around to understand that I'm not going to come from a place of 'you're going to do it and you're going to do it my way,"' Henry said. "I'm not that guy. You know who I am. My point of contention is there are guys that are over, like your husband (Jon Moxley). I'm not going to tell him what to do. If he has a question for me, I'm going to answer it, give my opinion and I'm going to give him an example of how it would work. Cause that's what my experience has done, it's given me a broader world of where to go and how to get there. That's what I want to teach all these guys. and it comes from studying.

"So there's going to be a new culture added to what they already have of young people watching 1950's, 1960's, 70's, 80's and 90's wrestling till you're sick of it. Then watch it again. And you'll find things that will fit you. Everybody knows how to wrestle, but when and where you do stuff is what makes you great. And they've (AEW) only been around for two years. How do you expect them to know everything?"

Paquette asked Henry what he felt needed to be fine tuned the most within AEW. He pointed to the promotion's social media, counterbalancing AEW's onscreen image with doing stuff in the community and cutting down on repetition in matches.

"We've got to work on the social media aspect," Henry said. "What's going out, what's being portrayed that you really want to be, set an example of people seeing it. As you know, AEW is more brash and has got a more adult feel to it at times. You've got people putting the birds out and all kind of stuff. But at the same time, you've got to counterbalance that. You've got to do stuff in the communities where you do live events. And in this community where we're giving back to the city, we're trying to be an example rather than a problem.

"Wrestling wise I want everybody to watch the matches before them, because there's a repetition thing. Somebody will do a tope, and then the next match will have two topes, and then the next match will have three topes. Stop trying to outdo what you saw before, find something else to do rather than that. Repetition is kind of a pet peeve of mine. I feel like you're not watching the product if you go out and do something and somebody else just did the same thing. I love the Bucks doing the superkicks. Why are there three matches on the card where somebody does a superkick before them? If that was me, I'd be upset about it."

Onscreen Henry's main role will be as an analyst for AEW's upcoming Friday night show Rampage. Henry talked about how he was preparing for the role and how much he enjoys doing commentary.

"I've been watching wrestling and I've been talking over the commentators," Henry said. "Saying what I would say and putting the emphasis on what I would put the emphasis on. I'd ask the question to the person 'why do you think that is?' And then I'll tell you and not leave it up to that person for interpretation. 'The reason he did that is because he scouted him out. He saw what he did last week.' You have to process that stuff pretty quickly.

"I've always had fun doing commentary. I used to sit with Booker T and we would do commentary in the back and we were way better than what was going on on TV. Because we were clowning. There's going to be an element of fun and clowning with me out there. I'm going to tell you right now. If somebody does something poor, I'm going to be like 'what would his mama think about that?' We're going to have some fun.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription