By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Insight With Chris Van Vliet with guest Todd Grisham
Host: Chris Van Vliet
Podcast available via Podcasts.Apple.com
On being yelled at by Vince McMahon: “Vince McMahon went insane on me one time because I said that John Morrison, who was a heel at the time, loved poetry. Normally, I wouldn’t say that, but there was a new WWE Magazine. They just transformed it from being like a results-based boring magazine, like ‘Last week, Eddie Guerrero beat JBL by pinfall…’ Here’s the description, to more of a Maxim-style lifestyle magazine. Get to know the Superstars better. So they’re like, anytime you can incorporate stuff from the magazine, do it. It helps sell the magazine. It helps tell their story. It syncs everything up, great.
“So they did a whole thing on John Morrison; his finisher was called Starship Pain. So he wrote a poem called Starship Pain. So he’s in the ring, and I go, ‘John Morrison, Starship Pain, he’s a big fan of poetry, and wrote a poem about the finisher Starship Pain.’ Vince goes insane in my ear. ‘Did you just say that our number one heel is an effing poet, you stupid F! What the f—? Shut up. Just shut up. Don’t say anything else! Jim Ross, you call the rest of this fight. I don’t wanna hear another effing word out of you!’ So literally, the match starts, and I don’t say a single word for like five minutes, and then the match ends, and we gotta do a promo going to the next fight, and he goes, ‘Okay, you can talk now.’ I’m like, ‘Coming up next, Shelton Benjamin goes one-on-one with ‘The Heartbreak Kid’ Shawn Michaels.’ But he was so angry at me over that.”
On possibly being lined up to replace Jim Ross: “So eventually they said, ‘All right, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to give you the keys to Raw. You’re going to be the face. You’re going to call Raw. JR, we’re retiring him.’ He had a retirement tour, or something similar to that, where he was going to retire after WrestleMania. He’s going to call the WrestleMania match, and that was it. But the receptions he was getting in all these buildings, and eventually they’re like, we can’t take him off the air. He’s too big. Even though Vince tried to squash it. Vince hated Jim Ross for whatever reason. He fired him ten times.
“One show, I don’t remember where it was. It was in Oklahoma, in front of his home crowd. So the show ended, and they were gonna have Jim Ross speak to the crowd. Thank you very much. Blah, blah, blah. So Jim Ross is in the ring, and Vince tells me, grab a mic and go down there, and he gave me some questions. I go down there. ‘Sorry to interrupt you, JR, in front of the crowd, but how does it feel to be getting released by WWE and fired by Vince because he just doesn’t think you’re that good…’ and all these antagonizing things.
“The number one rule, you probably know this when you’re an interviewer, is to never give up the mic. Boxing, UFC, they take the mic. You’re out of control. So you sit there no matter what. But at that point, Jim Ross looked at me and goes, ‘Could I please have the microphone?’ And I’m thinking, Vince is gonna kill me if I give him the mic. But I was like, I just handed him the mic. I was like, I’m not gonna do it, and I’ll take the abuse. And JR went and said, ‘I know those weren’t your questions. Those were his.’ And so anyway, long story short, they don’t fire JR. Maybe that’s when they put me on ECW. I don’t remember, but we’re gonna give you this show. Well, you’re the guy in waiting until Jim Ross is done.”
On the “It’s Christian” introduction: “Christian was one of my better friends at WWE. We’d hang out in catering all the time and talk. He was the most, I mean, I think even most Superstars or wrestlers will tell you that you got to be a little bit insane to be a wrestler. He was the most normal person backstage, and Shane Helms – The Hurricane, and Edge, those were kind of the guys I would hang out with. And Christian, we would play this game called Words with Friends, which is like an app back and forth. So he left WWE to go to TNA for a while. We’d still hang out and text and talk, and he was coming back. So I was excited all day long. Yeah, that’s great. Here’s the match. I was talking to him about his match, and I’m thinking, I gotta nail this when he comes out. I had something to say.
“I’m standing in Gorilla about to walk out, and Vince had glasses on his nose, and he did one of these [come here gestures]. I’m like, Okay, I walk over. He’s just said to me, ‘When Christian walks out, I want you to just say “It’s Christian” and that’s it. Understand?’ I’m like, Yes, sir. And I’m thinking, Oh my god. So that’s how I did it. But I felt like, How do I do it? So I almost did it, in my brain, like I couldn’t believe it. It was stunned silence, like, ‘It’s Christian.’ How can this possibly be?’ So that’s how I tried to do it. And, man, that’s probably the most criticism I get from fans. Like, ‘Why does Todd hate Christian? Why did he do that? He ruined it.’ But Vince just did not like Christian. I think he thought he liked big guys, and he thought Christian just didn’t look the part. But he was such a good in-ring performer. I mean, has he ever had a bad match?”
I don’t ever recall John Morrison being a top heel ever.
Lol