By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast with The Godfather
Hosts: Chad and JP (transcription by John Poz)
Twitter: @TwoManPowerTrip
Website: www.tmptempire.com
Interview available at Tmptow.podomatic.com
On the Godfather character being true to life: There’s never been a more true to life character than Charles Wright, the person and The Godfather, the character. I’m not saying I am a pimp by any means, but I seem to be around half naked women all my life (laughs). What finally got me over in the WWE at the time, was letting me just be me, instead of making me the Voodoo monster (Papa Shango) or the Ultimate fighter (Supreme Fighting Machine Kama). They let me be myself which to me is always a good thing.
Coming up with the Godfather character: I was Kama Mustafa in the Nation of Domination at the time with the grouping of Faarooq (Ron Simmons), The Rock, D-Lo Brown and they were bringing in Mark Henry with us. I felt as if they weren’t doing much with me and I needed to come up with something. So as I started to think, my wife and I came up with the Godfather character. She said people would be surprised of what you’re really like in real life. You have to let your real personality out, if the fans knew what you were really like then they would love you. So I took a lot of her suggestions and I did a lot of things that I didn’t want to do initially because I thought they were wrong but she was right on everything and it seemed to workout just fine.
Godfather fitting into the Attitude Era going during the Monday Night Wars: The Godfather character just fit perfectly right in with the Attitude Era and what the WWF at that time was all about. I convinced Vince (McMahon) to let me try something and that it would it work. The first time that I went out there and did the character with Bradshaw it was over. It was really over to where the next day I’m talking to Vince and he’s like ‘what’s going on with this gimmick? I’m hearing good things about this.’ It just took off and that was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done. It was my idea to entertain the people, there was enough wrestlers out there, there was enough table matches, enough ladder matches and blood matches. I said you know what, I’m going to go out there just to entertain the people and that’s what I did.
Getting a ton of heat with the PTC, and getting over huge: You have no idea how much heat Vince McMahon and the WWF were getting at that time when I was playing that character on TV. Even though it was the Attitude Era, I was really pushing the envelope every night. The Godfather character was over huge, you have no idea. I was seeing so many signs at every show: Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy, We Want the Ho’s, and Ho Train, it was surreal at the time.
Other interview topics include being a Pimp, Brawl for All, the Papa Shango gimmick as well as Kama Mustafa, The Nation of Domination, The Supreme Fighting Machine, Vince McMahon, and more.
You can listen to other shows apart of the TMPT Empire including Shane Douglas’ Triple Threat Podcast, Taking You to School with Dr. Tom Prichard, Talking Tough with Rick Bassman, and the University of Dutch with Dutch Mantell.
Be the first to comment