The Godfather was a guest on Stone Cold Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions show last month to look back on his career.
During it, Charles Wright shared that it was his wife who came up with his Godfather character, which was a babyface pimp. He then pitched it to the company and the rest was history.
“I was in the Nation. At that time, Faarooq was gone, Rock was doing more singles and D’Lo and Mark Henry kind of hooked up together. My contract was coming up and I’m like, ‘Ooh, I got to come up with something because I got lost in the shuffle here.’ So, I started growing my hair. Now, at this time, they’re building The Rock. He’s wrestling you [Steve Austin], and when it’s time for the Stone Cold Stunner, we’re jumping in there and taking it. That’s all me and D’Lo were doing; was taking people’s finishes at the end. So, I started letting my hair grow. My hair grows fast. So, I start growing my hair, I dress with a black vest, black pants and these hats. The same hat me and Taker got into a fight over. I always wore these hats. My wife starts saying, ‘Instead of being a heel, why don’t you just be a babyface and let people like you?’ She goes, ‘Why don’t you become a pimp?’ This is all my wife. ‘Why don’t you become a pimp and wear these colors, and wear these bright colors and hats and jewelry.’ I’m like, ‘Well if I’m going to be a pimp, I want to be a mean pimp.’ She’s like, ‘No, no, no! You need to do something where people see the real you and let your personality come out instead of pretending to be somebody.'”
“My wife would have the vest made. All this jewelry, she’d have it made. Hats. Glasses. She did everything. All I did was perform,” Wright said. “The WWE, really, had nothing to do with it until Vince kind of heard that it was getting over and he came to me and he says, ‘Hey, Charles, this might have legs to it.’ He says, ‘Do you think you can get some girls and put it to it?’ Because at that point we were just doing it at the house shows, because me and Bradshaw, we were on the popcorn match. Me and Bradshaw are going 10 minutes, beating the hell out of each other and people are sitting on their hands. We’re getting no reaction and we’re lacing into each other. So one day I went to Jack Lanza because my wife had talked about it and I said, ‘Let’s try something different.'”
H/T to Fightful