Mark Henry has joined All Elite Wrestling to help “tighten the screws” of the still relatively new promotion. The World’s Strongest Man will wear many hats working behind the scenes in AEW, and his decades of experience should prove to be invaluable to all of the young talent in the locker room.
This week on Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette, Mark Henry explained exactly what his role is at AEW:
“I’m going to be doing educational programming, I’m going to be doing community involvement,” Mark Henry said. “I want the city of Jacksonville to love this company like they love the football team that don’t exist here. I’m going to coach — I guess coaching is explaining psychology. And, you know, we use a term on Busted Open called tightening the screws, AEW is not broken. Like, they’re good. They got people already that live and die for them. But there are little problems that come up with fine-tuning. And even master guitars and master pianists, they have to tune their equipment every now and then. And that’s the job that I have here.
I want to be a mentor. And lead by example. I told Vince, I was like, man, I hope you don’t have any ill will and negative feelings. He said, Mark, I know you’re gonna be great at whatever you do. He’s like you approach pain from a point of not wanting to fail, as opposed to wanting to have success. And those people always do good. I just can’t do it right now. And I said, Well, I mean, I appreciate you being honest with me. Because if I was to sit around and wait, I don’t think that nobody beneath you is going to call me and tell me straight up what it is. Because I think some people are fearful that I’m going to be better at their jobs than they are, which I probably would. And I don’t doubt for one second that I am.
So I want the wrestlers around to understand I’m not going to come from a place of you’re going to do it, you’re going to do it my way…I’m not that guy. You know who I am. My point of contention is there are guys that are over, like your husband [Jon Moxley]. I’m not going to tell him what to do. If he has a question for me, I’m going to answer it and give him my opinion. And I’m going to give him an example of how it will work. Because that’s what my experience has done is gave me a broader world of where to go and how to get there.
That’s what I want to teach all these guys. And it comes from study. So there’s going to be a new culture added to what they already have of young people watching 1950s, 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s wrestling, till you’re sick of it, and then watch it again. And you’ll find things that fit you. Everybody knows how to wrestle. But when and where you do stuff is what makes you great. And they’ve only been around for less than two years. How do you expect them to know everything?”
Renee Paquette asked Mark Henry to elaborate on what it means to “tighten the screws” at AEW, and the WWE Hall of Famer gave a couple of examples:
“We got to work on the social media aspect,” Mark Henry said. “What’s going out? What’s been portrayed that you really want to be said, an example of people seeing it, as you know, AEW is more brash, and it’s got a more of an adult feel to it at times, you get people putting the birds out and all kinds of stuff. But at the same time, you got to counterbalance that. And you got to do stuff in communities where you do live events. And in this community where we’re giving back to the city. We’re trying to help be an example rather than a problem.
Wrestling-wise, I want to see less — like I want everybody to watch the matches before them. Because there’s a repetition thing, somebody will do a tope, and then the next match will have two topes. And then the next match has three topes. Stop trying to outdo what you saw before find something else to do rather than that.
Repetition is the thing that’s kind of a pet peeve of mine. And I feel like you’re not watching the product if you go out and do something and somebody else just did the same thing. And I love The Bucks doing superkicks. Why are there three matches on the card where somebody does a superkick before them? If that was me, I’d be upset about it.”
Renee used the example that no one else would be allowed to do the World’s Strongest Slam when Mark Henry was on the card, and he confirmed that was exactly what he means.
READ MORE: Mark Henry Says He’ll Be A ‘Swiss Army Knife’ In AEW, Is Open To Wrestling For The Company
Are you excited to see Mark Henry join AEW? Do you think he’ll be able to help the company grow and improve going forward? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit Oral Sessions with a H/T and a link back to this article for the transcription.
