Mark Henry made an appearance on Insight to discuss a wide range of topics including how joining AEW came about, his current role with the promotion and more. Here are the highlights:
How his AEW deal came to be:
“I talked to Tony Khan and you know, Tony is a big fan of wrestling. We talked and he asked me why I wasn’t wrestling. I said, ‘Man, I don’t want to do it anymore. I’m old.’ He laughed, and I was like, ‘I want to be more on the executive side. I want to be able to help build the business.’ He said, ‘Man, don’t tease me.’ I said, ‘Tease you how?’ He was like, ‘Would you come to AEW?’
“I was like, ‘Hell yeah I’ll come to AEW if you hire me on the executive side and I get to help the talent.’ He was like, ‘Man, I’m gonna have my legal call you today.’ That’s how it happened in one day. It was not like I knew that I was going to talk to Tony Khan. Who knew I was going to run into a billionaire wrestling company owner? I didn’t know that.”
His AEW role:
“I do a lot of their psychology. I’m considered a coach, but I don’t do the matches. I don’t produce the matches that you see on TV. I go to each individual guy and I talk to them about their personas. I talk to them about their character and, ‘Hey, man, I think if you change this, can you try to do this differently?’ You know, so we go back and forth.
“There are some people that listen better than others and you can see the development of those people. I love working with Orange Cassidy. I love talking to him. He’s a sponge, he’s smart as hell, and he wants to be great, and I like passion. I like people that’s like, ‘Man, they got me on fifth, it’s gonna suck for everybody that’s going after me.’ I’m like, s**t, let’s go. I love it. I love people like that, man. Orange Cassidy is like that man. Will Hobbs man, golly.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co