Mark Henry On Vince McMahon’s Prank, Fake WWE Retirement Speech
During a recent appearance on the “Insight with Chris Van Vliet” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Mark Henry reflected on his in-ring career, his famous salmon jacket for his fake retirement speech, a potential retirement match, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On being pranked by Vince McMahon: “When I looked at Scott Armstrong. And he said, It’s not me. And he had fear in his eyes. And you can smell fear and you can see it, and he was deadly afraid. And I asked for the microphone. And I started talking and they turned the microphone off. And I said, Okay, I get it. And like that was one of the maddest times, that was the maddest that I had ever been at that point. And I’m just glad that they had, you know, got in the limo and drove off because the conversation that we’re having right now may not have happened because I’d have whooped all their ass. And I don’t know if I could have controlled myself as mad as I was back then. I felt disrespected, I feel trivialized. Out of all the work that I did. Like all of the sacrificing. And you people say Oh, you got paid a lot of money. You know what, man, I didn’t get paid enough money to dummy down my pride and my respect as a man. Ain’t no price for that. And when that happened, I felt like okay, I’m expendable, I’m useless to them. They don’t respect me. That’s kind of feeling that it was. And you know, I got a lot of counsel after that, about how I felt as a man, because like, it was troubling. But being that I am a man and that I was able to say my piece to Vince and everybody involved, like, just know who I am, because that won’t ever happen again. If it does, like us talking will not be an option. And I quit. And you know what, man, I probably owe my wife more of an apology and thank you, because she was the one that got me to come back to wrestling. And go and talk to them again, because I didn’t have any interest in coming back and then none of that, none of the things after would have happened if that was the case.”
On why McMahon did it: “Vince just thought it was funny. He said that he thought it was funny. And they wanted to get to the cars and get to the airport. And that was gonna give them time to get out of there without any traffic. Not thinking how’s Mark gonna feel after this?”
On why he wore the salmon jacket for his fake retirement speech: “Because I was feeling salmon that day. Like, I saw that jacket and I was like, that is my retirement jacket. There was blues and greens and different colors, but that one like, that’s the one, it chose me when I saw it. I was like chef’s kiss. [Where is the jacket now?] That jacket now is being shipped to me. I put it on loan with WWE so they can do the exhibits at WrestleMania, and their different things but now it’s coming back to me. I’m going to set up my own exhibit.”
His thoughts on an official retirement match: “You know what, I’ve thought about it, and every time I think about it, I think who? Who would be the person? And I guess you could put up a poll someday and say, Who would you like to see Mark Henry have his last match against? You better do it fast, because every day I wake up, I’m thinking I might have to just go put that to bed. [Would you be open to doing it in AEW?] You know what, I have to think about it and I have to start training and see how my body feels, I haven’t took a bump in years. I’d be open though, to a conversation.”
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