Charles Wright, aka The Godfather, was recently the subject of an editorial on IMetAWrestler.com, and the piece recaps Wright's stories told from a "Breakfast With Champions" event in Los Angeles. Below are a few excerpts from the piece:
On playing the Papa Shango role:“I took Papa Shango extremely seriously. The reports and rumors of me hating the gimmick are true – it’s because Shango is so dark, so demanding, and it took so much out of me, that it was exhausting. I’m a happy guy, man. I love being happy. I’m The Godfather! I love smiling. But Papa Shango, man…I had to go to a real dark place to make him so convincing.”"I used to read books on voodoo, in fact I built an entire voodoo library. Everything I said in my promos was real and legit. All the props were from voodoo stores. It was totally authentic. The effects guys worked with the staffs and sticks so that they all did something different. I had a bunch of them – some would shoot sparks, others had smoke and lights that came out of them."On Vince McMahon getting him clearance with the networks:"I got away with talking about weed so openly on TV because the network executives had no idea what I was saying. They didn’t understand the slang. They had no idea what a “fatty” or a “blunt” was, so I was able to say all this stuff and they had no clue. My friend in Cypress Hill said he was amazed at the shit I got away with.""Vince loved the gimmick. Loved it. He used to go to bat for me so many times – fighting the networks, fighting the executives. He did everything he could to keep the character as a central part of the show. Vince used to come to me and say, “Charles – he always called me Charles – you’re having too much fun out there. You should be paying me!” And that didn’t surprise me – Vince is the biggest pimp of them all!"You can read the entire article at this link.
