Mark Henry on coaching in AEW, letting talent learn from their mistakes, the big man in AEW who can’t get enough coaching, whether his Hall of Pain push came too late in WWE

By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)

CBS Sports interview with Mark Henry
Host: Shakiel Mahjouri
Story available via CBSSports.com
Video footage available at SHAK Wrestling YouTube Page

Mark Henry on coaching in AEW: “A seasoned producer, a seasoned writer, a seasoned agent or a coach can say to any athlete that they work with, ‘I’ve done this 150, 200 times. You’ve never done it before once. So why don’t you just take my advice and see if it works?’ And 90 percent or 99 percent of the time, the athlete will say, ‘Let’s go.’

“Then there’s that tiny, tiny, small spot where somebody will go against the grain and you say, ‘Okay, let’s do it your way.’ That’s my philosophy. I want you to be able to show me that you can succeed. But if you fail, I’m going to tell you, ‘Now, are we ready to list?’ Some people fuss and fight. The talent tends to rebel against that. I don’t do that. I’m gonna let you fail. Same as my kids. I let them fail because it means more when you pick them up. When they see that you know what you’re talking about. The lesson for today, kids, it’s okay to fail as long as you get your ass up.”

Mark Henry on big men in AEW: “The proof is in the pudding. Wardlow is doing his thing. I know that Will Hobbs, Brody King, Lance Archer, and Satnam Singh are hard workers. That’s the underlying trait of a wrestler where you can’t get enough. You’re always looking at videos and old-school wrestling matches. Those people are the ones that make it because it’s not just that they’re a fan of it or that they like it, but they can see the end of the tunnel already. It’s far away but they can see it. They can see the million-dollar houses and exotic cars and vacations in the Caymans. They can see all of the luxuries, but they also see Mount Rushmore and they desire to be on it.

“Those are people that I like to work with because it’s really not working at that point. It’s just opening the door for them to come in. Satnam Singh is one of those guys. He just can’t get enough. It’s like to the point where I see him walk up and I go, ‘Oh shit, here goes an hour.’ I know he’s going to want to pick my brain for an hour, but that is why they hired me. To take care of all of those people that have that potential and the ones who don’t, push them to be more like the other guys.”

Mt. Rushmore of pro wrestling power: “Cesaro (Claudio Castagnoli) would be on the top of my list. That dude is ridiculously strong. John Cena, Big Show (Paul Wight), Brock Lesnar, Ted Arcidi, Jaques Rougeau. He was strong. He was really strong.”

Mark Henry on if the Hall of Pain push came too late: “No. I mean, at one point it did happen, but I got injured. When you’re moving towards WrestleMania and you’re potentially going to be in the main event and then you tear your shoulder up, you get put on the ship. There are contingency plans for the contingency plan.

“The show must go on. So my window slammed shut and it took another seven years before that happened again. This time I didn’t get injured. I was more experienced and that’s just the way it works. There are a lot of guys that never get a second chance. So for me to get four chances means that I was prepared and that I got over the things that I had. The people that are outside of the wrestling game put too much emphasis on what they have read about wrestling and terminologies like ‘the push,’ and ‘they’re going to strap the rocket to him,’ and all of this stuff. I invented Sexual Chocolate. Sexual Chocolate is one of the most over characters ever created. Me being an Olympian, being a strongman, it only worked because it was true. People don’t realize it. Some people think that’s a moniker, something that they call you.

“Google me. Just Google it. Twenty years ago, I did something that no other human had ever done and has never done since. Come on, man. I earned those moments on TV. So to go into the Nation of Domination and to once again get over, people gave a damn about whether or not Mark Henry was in the ring or not. And then to go from the Nation to being Mark Henry, the World’s Strongest Man legitimately again in 2002 when I won the Arnold Classic. It was like me going back and reliving my past, but it also validated me to a whole other generation a decade and a half later. To people that didn’t know that I did that. So then the Hall of Pain era. Being able to go into that was special because now I know everything that I need to know. My questions were ‘How long?’ and ‘Who am I working with next?’ That’s all I need to know because everything else you can just say, ‘In the ring, this guy.’ It went down. Everybody can’t do that. I was really, really blessed to be in those situations, but I earned them, too.”

Mark Henry reacts to sex therapist and sex with sister storyline: “The interviews with the sex therapists and all of that stuff, the writers were the ones responsible… They’re little perverts, I mean, just to put it mildly. People say stuff that they really don’t [mean]. They don’t believe all of that. They’re just trying to be entertaining. Back then in the Attitude Era, they wanted to push the envelope and to shock. There was a lot of shock-jock stuff going on… Some of it was just ridiculous.”