After more than two decades in the wrestling business, former World Heavyweight Champion Mark Henry is going into the WWE Hall of Fame as the final member of the Class of 2018.
Henry rose to prominence on an international level long before he ever stepped in a wrestling ring. A powerlifter from the small town of Silsbee, Texas, Henry dominated high school competitions before transitioning to Olympic weightlifting. Henry competed in the 1992 Olympics as a 21-year-old, and again in Atlanta in 1996.
Henry’s WWE career began with an embarrassing miscommunication. After revealing in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that he was a wrestling fan, Henry was eventually contacted by WWE Chairman Vince McMahon, who wanted to bring Henry to WWE headquarters. Henry promptly hung up on his future boss, thinking he was the victim of a prank.
“I thought it was one of my buddies playing a joke on me and I hung up on him,” Henry said.
Henry got back in touch, though, and came to WWE full-time after his second Olympic appearance. Henry opened his WWE career with a feud against Jerry Lawler, but endured a rough transition to the wrestling business and had trouble fitting in.
“Everybody that messed with me, I wanted to fight. I had to learn how to exist in the locker room.”
After training in Canada at the home of WWE legend Bret Hart, along with a developmental stint in Kentucky, Henry returned to WWE as a new man. Henry joined The Nation of Domination and worked alongside fellow legends Ron Simmons and The Rock before transforming himself into “Sexual Chocolate,” one of the most memorable characters of the WWE’s risqué “Attitude Era.”
Henry temporarily left the ring in 2001 to return to weightlifting and won the inaugural Arnold Strongman Classic against some of the top strongmen in the world, proving himself worthy of the title “The World’s Strongest Man.”
A decade later, after 15 years in the business, Henry captured the World Heavyweight Championship in 2011, becoming the fifth African-American to hold the title. He will enter the Hall as a two-time World Champion, having also held the ECW World Heavyweight Championship in 2008.
Henry will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame on April 6th, 2018, two days before WrestleMania 34. The ceremony will air at 8:00 p.m. ET on the WWE Network. Henry joins a class that includes Goldberg, The Dudley Boyz, Ivory, Jeff Jarrett, Hillbilly Jim, Kid Rock, and Warrior Award recipient Jarrius Robertson.
Henry reflected on his incredible career in an exclusive interview with FTW.
When did you get the call that you were going into the Hall of Fame?
It was a little while back. I was in Los Angeles with the powers that be… it was just an overwhelming feeling, you know? My face got hot. A couple of tears fell, and you felt like, instantly, all of the pain and torment that you put your body through, the sacrifices that you made – they were worth it. It paid it all off.
Let’s go back to the very beginning. When did you become a wrestling fan?
I was a wrestling fan around ’82. My grandmother was a big, big wrestling fan and she asked me if I wanted to go to Beaumont with her to watch a show. And I was able to get the permission from my mom – which, once my grandmother asked me, it didn’t matter what my mom said anyway.
I went with her on a Greyhound bus to Beaumont, Texas, to watch wrestling, and it just so happened that that night Andre The Giant was wrestling. And it just took my breath away. To be a little kid, you see somebody get beat up and then all of a sudden they start standing up and throwing everybody around… and it was a battle royal that Andre was in. And he threw at least 10 people out of this battle royal. They all tried to jump on him and beat him up, and they got him down to one knee – then he stood up and threw everybody down to the floor.
I was hooked. I was like ‘man, I want to see this every week!’
Was it a dream of yours at that time to one day become a wrestler, or did that come later?
No, not at all. I had no clue that you could even do that. I saw it, but I was under the impression that, you know, wrestlers were somehow just born that way. I don’t know what I thought, but I wasn’t exposed to wrestling like The Rock was, where he was just born into it, and he had the birthright to become a wrestler if he felt like that was something that he wanted to do.
When did WWE come into the picture?
After the ’92 Olympics, I did 10,000 interviews. And leading up into the Olympics in ’92, once I made the Olympic team, won the Olympic trials and was the youngest competitor in the heavyweight division to ever go, I did so many interviews. I think it was Oprah where she asked [in ’96] ‘what does the World’s Strongest Man do in his spare time?’
I said ‘I watch wrestling.’ That’s my [thing]. I play video games and I watch wrestling. And the WWE powers that be saw that and said ‘man, we need to bring this guy in.’ That was the beginning of the developmental system, because they never really went outside of the existing realm of wrestling to find talent.
How did your first conversation with Vince McMahon go?\
Well the first conversation I had, I thought it was one of my buddies playing a joke on me and I hung up on him. And my manager at the time called me back and said ‘hey, I just had Vince McMahon call you and he said you hung up!’ And I was like ‘that was Vince McMahon for real!?’
I felt so dumb. Here he is, one of the most influential people in the wrestling industry calls you and you hang up on him thinking it was a joke.
Eventually I called back and I said ‘hey, I hope you understand, I thought it was somebody playing a joke on me.’ And he said ‘don’t worry about it, I’m glad I could get you back on the phone.’ He was like ‘I want you to come to Connecticut and see how we do things up here.’
I said ‘am I going to get to meet The Undertaker?’ You know, I was such a fan, I just wanted to meet everybody. That was really my primary thing for going down there because I wanted to see the stars. I wanted to see the superstars.
What was the transition like going from weightlifting to learning to be a professional wrestler?
It was a hard transition for me because, at that time, I was an anaerobic athlete. For those that don’t know the difference between what type of athlete you are, anaerobic athletes are ones that do the heavy exertion and then have ample time to rest and let the body catch up or recuperate. And then you give another short burst of energy. You do repetitions with plenty of rest. But an aerobic activity, it’s constant, there’s no rest.
You have to be able to learn to increase your endurance and work constantly. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15, 20… we’ve had guys wrestle an hour and a half, almost. So it was a difficult adjustment for me at first, but I finally started to be able to get it.
Who are some of the people in the locker room or in the company who showed you the ropes early on?
They hired Dr. Tom Pritchard to coach me. He was the first person that really was training me. I enjoyed it, but I was taking Dr. Tom for granted. My training was not going as well as it should have, and then around that time they brought Dwayne Johnson down and we started training together. Then I started to see what it was like. He was so fluid and it came to him so easy because he wrestled as a kid with his cousins. He was like ‘man, you’ve just got to do it every day.’
We lived in Connecticut together for about a year, and then we ended up going to the Memphis wrestling territory with Jerry Lawler. The rest is pretty much history, but I had a bunch of guys [help]: Ron Simmons and D’Lo Brown, Billy Gunn, Owen Hart, Bret Hart. Guys that worked with me, and I owe them a debt that can never be repaid because here I am, going into the Hall of Fame.
You’ve said before, on Chris Jericho’s podcast, that you had to learn to humble yourself before you could start to improve. When did you realize that?
I was having a lot of problems just from fighting and pushing people in the face…. I couldn’t handle somebody talking trash to me that I know I could whup. And the only reason they were talking like that is because it was the wrestling business, and they could get away with it.
I think one of the primary reasons for my getting it together was Owen Hart. Owen Hart said ‘listen, the only reason they’re messing with you is because you react.’ Around that time, Vince sent me to Canada to kind of learn locker room etiquette and to be away from the main talent – because everybody that messed with me, I wanted to fight. I had to learn how to exist in the locker room.
…. I spent nine months in Calgary in Canada, working at Bret Hart’s house with Leo Burke. I learned an unbelievable amount during that time period. Then I went to Louisville, Kentucky, to Ohio Valley Wrestling, for a year.
As crazy as Jimmy Cornette was, Jimmy Cornette was the most studied and taught me a lot about history and respect in the business. I appreciate him for that. Danny Davis and Rip Rogers, they were so instrumental in teaching me and getting me in the best shape I had ever been in. They were the next step. I got to Louisville and I found myself. I wish that I had that two years back and did that when I first started wrestling, but that’s not the way God had it lined up for me.
During the Nation of Domination era, what was it like to be paired with legends like Ron Simmons, Charles Wright, D’Lo Brown and a young Rock?
It was like me getting my master’s. Once I came back and I came into the Nation of Domination, I was around the most seasoned guys in the company. Ron Simmons and The Godfather, or Kama at the time, and being around Crush and Owen Hart.
D’Lo was one of the best in-ring technicians that there was. D’Lo was a hell of a worker. Being in the tag with him, just watching him every night, 215, 220 nights a year, you can’t help but learn by osmosis. All of those guys, I learned something different from each one. It was just a beautiful thing.
You then transitioned to the Sexual Chocolate character and were involved in a lot of angles that would be highly controversial today. Where did that idea come from?
Oh it’s in the top three. It may be No. 1. It’s a toss-up between winning the World Championship and that match, because there would be no World Championship if I didn’t have that time working against him.
I learned a lot. I learned that you have to be able to raise your game when you’re in the ring with someone that’s superior to you. And I looked at him as being superior – and I had never really had that in my life. I never thought that nobody was better than me, and I wanted to raise my game to where I didn’t feel that way. And, of course, I don’t think there will ever be anybody that’s equal to The Undertaker, including my all-time favorite Andre The Giant.
After 15 years in the business, you beat Randy Orton in 2011 to win the World Heavyweight Championship What do you remember from that night?
All the air went out, if felt like a truck hit me. I was so emotionally invested and pushing myself to become the World Champion and be the best there was in the industry – and I had finally got there. I mean, it just took all the wind out of me. I was tired for a week just to recover from that one night.
Once you become champion…. It’s like Spider-Man, ‘with great power comes great responsibility.’ I had to live up to that standard, and it was hard at first. You’re on every appearance, you’re on every show, you’re doing media at 6:00 in the morning, you’re taking a private plane from one coast to the next to do ‘Good Morning America’ or whatever show that you’re on. A lot goes with being champion, and I enjoyed every single minute of it because I worked for that. I was able to do something that very few men have been able to do in this world. That’s saying a lot.
What was the most fun aspect of this job for you?
Traveling the world and meeting people…. I had presidents like Bill Clinton go ‘oh my God, you’re Mark Henry!’ That’s amazing, to be able to have that kind of influence in this world. To have presidents and foreign dignitaries and actors – I have so many friends now, people that have won Oscars and won Grammys. Real special stuff, and I would have never been around those people had it not been for pro wrestling.
When WWE fans are reminiscing about Mark Henry in 20 years, what do you hope they’ll remember you for?
Once you become champion…. It’s like Spider-Man, ‘with great power comes great responsibility.’ I had to live up to that standard, and it was hard at first. You’re on every appearance, you’re on every show, you’re doing media at 6:00 in the morning, you’re taking a private plane from one coast to the next to do ‘Good Morning America’ or whatever show that you’re on. A lot goes with being champion, and I enjoyed every single minute of it because I worked for that. I was able to do something that very few men have been able to do in this world. That’s saying a lot.
What was the most fun aspect of this job for you?
Traveling the world and meeting people…. I had presidents like Bill Clinton go ‘oh my God, you’re Mark Henry!’ That’s amazing, to be able to have that kind of influence in this world. To have presidents and foreign dignitaries and actors – I have so many friends now, people that have won Oscars and won Grammys. Real special stuff, and I would have never been around those people had it not been for pro wrestling.
When WWE fans are reminiscing about Mark Henry in 20 years, what do you hope they’ll remember you for?
I definitely hope they remember the strength element, but more than anything I would say remember the fact that I was not selfish. That I was able to share not only my time, but I taught the future. There’s a lot of guys in this business, you can go into that locker room right now and I guarantee you I had an influence on more than half, because I tried to. It was intentional. That is something that I hang my hat on.
…. I used my celebrity to endorse and help other people [and work with] a lot of the charities. Nobody could ever say Mark Henry said ‘no.’ Because I tried to help as many people as I could my entire career, and I was happy to do so.
You’ve said that you aren’t fully retired, but we last saw you in the ring at WrestleMania 33. When did you decide it was time to step away?
You know what, I saw a match – and I always study my matches. I always see what I did wrong, what I could do better. I was watching and there were things that I did that weren’t up to the standard that I thought they should have been. And a lot of that… I think some of it was age, some of it was the fact that I had some pre-existing injuries that I really couldn’t do all the things that I could do. And I didn’t want the fans to remember me being injured and being a shell of my former self.
I want people, when they remember me, to think of the Hall of Pain, when I was catching guys, 275 pounds. Picking up Big Show, close to 500 pounds, over my head and driving him through a table. And picking up Kane, 320 pounds and slamming him through tables. And jumping off the top rope to the ring and jumping out of the ring to the floor and splashing Kurt Angle. I wanted people to remember me at my greatest.
Around 2015, I started to see my skills diminish. It happens to everybody. Father Time is undefeated. He is gonna win every time, and I saw him catching me.
What’s next for Mark Henry? What are some things you’d like to do in the future?
Roddy Piper and The Rock and Batista have set the standard for guys that go into acting, and already I’ve done a couple things. I’ve done a show, I’m on a cartoon on Disney [Pickle and Peanut], I’m doing voice acting. I just finished a show on HBO that should come out in June. I have a radio show on SiriusXM 93 on Mondays and Fridays.
I definitely hope they remember the strength element, but more than anything I would say remember the fact that I was not selfish. That I was able to share not only my time, but I taught the future. There’s a lot of guys in this business, you can go into that locker room right now and I guarantee you I had an influence on more than half, because I tried to. It was intentional. That is something that I hang my hat on.
…. I used my celebrity to endorse and help other people [and work with] a lot of the charities. Nobody could ever say Mark Henry said ‘no.’ Because I tried to help as many people as I could my entire career, and I was happy to do so.
You’ve said that you aren’t fully retired, but we last saw you in the ring at WrestleMania 33. When did you decide it was time to step away?
You know what, I saw a match – and I always study my matches. I always see what I did wrong, what I could do better. I was watching and there were things that I did that weren’t up to the standard that I thought they should have been. And a lot of that… I think some of it was age, some of it was the fact that I had some pre-existing injuries that I really couldn’t do all the things that I could do. And I didn’t want the fans to remember me being injured and being a shell of my former self.
I want people, when they remember me, to think of the Hall of Pain, when I was catching guys, 275 pounds. Picking up Big Show, close to 500 pounds, over my head and driving him through a table. And picking up Kane, 320 pounds and slamming him through tables. And jumping off the top rope to the ring and jumping out of the ring to the floor and splashing Kurt Angle. I wanted people to remember me at my greatest.
Around 2015, I started to see my skills diminish. It happens to everybody. Father Time is undefeated. He is gonna win every time, and I saw him catching me.
What’s next for Mark Henry? What are some things you’d like to do in the future?
Roddy Piper and The Rock and Batista have set the standard for guys that go into acting, and already I’ve done a couple things. I’ve done a show, I’m on a cartoon on Disney [Pickle and Peanut], I’m doing voice acting. I just finished a show on HBO that should come out in June. I have a radio show on SiriusXM 93 on Mondays and Fridays.
I’m staying busy. I never in my career did appearances, like where you go and sign autographs and you do the comic-cons and all of that stuff, because I wanted when I stopped wrestling to go and do that stuff and have it really mean something to somebody, that it hadn’t been watered down. So I’m doing some of that stuff now. I’m really enjoying myself, I’m meeting a lot of people that I probably would have never gotten the opportunity to meet.
