Mark Henry Talks About His Early Years and His Upcoming Match with Rusev

In a recent interview with The Nashville Scene, former World Heavyweight Champion Mark Henry talks about his early years and his upcoming match with Rusev at “Night Of Champions” on Sept. 21. Henry discusses many things, such as the various characters he’s portrayed in WWE over the years, how he had to adapt to the physicality of the business, and what he intends to do to Rusev during their upcoming bout.

Below is an excerpt from the interview.

Henry’s journey led him to his high school football team’s weight room, where he was squatting 600 pounds easily. Soon dubbed “the world’s strongest teenager” by the Los Angeles Times, he was discovered by a University of Texas at Austin professor during a high school powerlifting competition. Persuaded to train in Olympic-style power lifting, Henry soon found himself the veteran of two Summer Olympics, with multiple invites to talk shows and even a nude photo shoot with photographer Annie Leibovitz. It was only a matter of time before the WWE came calling.

“I was contacted after a televised interview where I was asked what the world’s strongest man does in his spare time, and I said, ‘Well I’m a videogame head, but no one can bother me on Saturdays, because that’s the day that I watch wrestling,’ ” Henry remembers. “The WWE, or WWF as it was still called at the time, reached out to me after hearing that. I was in Austin, Texas, at the time because I was actually going to the Dallas Cowboys football camp. I’ve always thought it was divine intervention.”

It didn’t take long for Henry to make his mark in the sports-entertainment field. Appearing on television to slam Memphis legend Jerry “The King” Lawler after he made some disparaging remarks at Henry’s expense, the supersized competitor signed a record-breaking 10-year contract with the WWE.

“I knew that it was going to take me time to learn the industry; I had never trained in a martial art, or hand-to-hand combat, or wrestled in high school or college, so I was going to be an amateur,” Henry explains. “I needed a guarantee, because I was already somebody, and I was going to give up my life as a strongman, and a potential NFL football player, to wrestle.”

His gamble paid off. The change in conditioning soon had him on the injured list, a spot he has filled on and off ever since.

“I found that it was harder than I expected it to be. For my whole life I was an anaerobic athlete, and wrestling is an aerobic sport,” he says. “It took time to deal with that, as well as deal with the injuries that I suffered. Right off the bat, I broke my ankle, and that took almost a year to heal. I had almost three years of injury time in my first 10 years in wrestling. That may not sound like a lot, but three years is a long time to spend rehabbing injuries.”

Perhaps the one thing that his newfound career in wrestling and his once-promising career in football have in common is their lack of compassion for wounded players. I ask if the locker-room leaders took it easy on him once they found out he was injured.

“No, nobody has time to worry about anyone else’s injuries,” Henry shoots back. “Everyone is nursing their own injuries, or are worried about themselves. Suck it up and go.”

Reminiscing about old injuries isn’t how Henry pictured his afternoon off. Time to wrap up the interview.

“To summarize what I’ve done, I’ve been able to come in as a nonexistent talent, to becoming Sexual Chocolate, to my mother dying and my taking time off and in the process getting my strength back to the point where I competed again in 2002 and became legitimately the World’s Strongest Man at the Arnold Strongman Classic after a seven-year hiatus; after all that we finally hit the eight to 10 years where I became a high-level talent and became a World Champion during that time period … twice.”

Whew. Taking a breath, Henry goes into shill mode, the power of the kayfabe code now pulsing through his veins.

“And today, here we are, standing at the threshold of Night of Champions,” he intones, working himself up to come-to-Jesus fervor, “and we’re standing on the doorstep of Nashville on the 21st seeing one of the epic battles between John Cena and Brock Lesnar, who I’ve had my dealings with both of these guys and know exactly how tough they are, so I’m excited about seeing what will happen with them.

“But I’m just as excited about what’s going to happen between me and Rusev. I’ve always had pride in being a two-time Olympian and being a man that represented America to the fullest, and everyone knows I wear that on my sleeve. So to have someone come and run down my country, and they live in my country, is a little bit much. I represent to the fans on the 21st a chance to stand up to Rusev, and give him a buttwhoopin’ of epic magnitude.”

You can read the entire piece here.

Editor’s Note:
Mark Henry is awesome.