CEO of Special Olympics Talks WWE Partnership

On WWE’s community website, an interview was recently published between WWE.com and TJ Nelligan. Nelligan is the CEO and Games Chairman for the Special Olympics. The games for the event occurred from Monday, June 16 up until Fritday, June 20, in New Jersey. WWE, one of the founding partners for the 2014 Special Olympics Games, was represented at the event as Stephanie McMahon, Kofi Kingston, among others appeared in some capacity. In the interview, Nelligan talks about the impact of WWE’s partnership, specific cases of WWE Superstars surprising the athletes, and many other topics.

Nelligan talked about what it meant for him to watch his son, one of the athletes compete. Nelligan also talked about how big of a WWE fan his son is:

“We had about 60 relatives here. His grandparents, aunts, uncles, sisters, all of his cousins came to watch [my son] Sean compete. He was on a four-man bocce team, and they won a gold medal in that event. Bob Belfiore, who started the Law Enforcement Torch Run here and former Chief of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, gave him his medals. That made it so meaningful to Sean, because he’s known him for 20 years. In singles bocce, he was in the gold medal game, but a young man from Louisville, Ky., beat him. Tough match. He came over and told me, “Dad, that Kentucky guy was good!” He high-fived the other guy and they had a ball no matter what.”

“He’s a huge WWE fan. We went to Monday Night Raw up in Hartford, Conn., last year. It’s amazing to see the athletes – whether at Olympic Town with the Divas or at the Opening Ceremonies when Big Show came in – the roar of the crowd was the loudest anytime anything with WWE was mentioned. All we had to do was put the logo up and people just went crazy.”

Also, Nelligan spoke about Kofi Kingston surprising the athletes during the Closing Ceremony, in addition to athletes meeting their favorite WWE Divas.:

“Yeah, it was crazy. The line at Olympic Town to get autographs from the Divas went around the corner. I saw one athlete stand in line to meet Naomi, and it was an amazing sight. All of a sudden, the person administering the line pointed to him and said it was his turn. He stopped, stared at her and started hyperventilating, closed his eyes, took a deep breath and walked toward her. Naomi said, “Oh my God!” and she gave him the biggest hug. It was unbelievable.”

This led to Nelligan talking about an instance in which Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson surprised an athlete at WrestleMania 29:

“At WrestleMania at the MetLife Stadium when we announced the partnership, an athlete named Ashley Weber was talking to me about three hours before the show saying, “I just want to meet The Rock.” And here comes The Rock walking toward her behind her back. I looked up and said, “You really want to meet The Rock?” He tapped her on the shoulder and she was in shock. She put her hand out to shake his hand, and he said, “Oh no, we don’t shake hands here. We hug.” And she wouldn’t let go.”

Be sure to read the piece in its entirety, here.

Editor’s Note

This is a tremendous look at the impact WWE makes in conjunction with the Special Olympics. The interview is very informative and worthy of a read.