Mark Henry On Possibly Getting Involved In His Son’s Wrestling Matches

In an interview with Fightful, Mark Henry spoke about possibly getting involved in the matches of his son Jacob in a managerial role. Here are highlights:

On telling his son to travel first: “Well, I told them before he comes to America and becomes a mainstream name, he better travel the world first. So he understands that he’s gonna have to go to Japan, that he’s gonna have to go to Australia, that he’s gonna have to go to Africa and Mexico and Canada and do tours for about a calendar year and work out all the bugs, learn to work out with different people’s styles, learn to exist in locker rooms. That’s the stuff that I didn’t get. I’m not gonna do to him what happened to me. That’s what fathers are supposed to do.”

On Jacob’s understanding of wrestling: “Jacob is a stereotypical second-generation wrestler. His understanding of pro wrestling is elite. Hell, I’ll set it up for you. I don’t have to be present. Sure. He can come on this show with you, and you’ll come away from it going, ‘Holy shit, this dude is for real.’ Because his understanding of wrestling and the psychology of it—and it hurt me to break it to him. It was like at eleven years old I had to tell him that Santa Claus wasn’t real, for wrestling and that what we do is based on psychology. Sometimes it’s the Bible. Sometimes it’s simple, good versus evil, fast versus slow, big versus small. Like, learn to tell a story in every moment and he was like, ‘But y’all fought.’ I’m like, ‘Baby, we went at each other, but we know what we were doing,” he continued. “Like we’re professionals and one of these days, you’re gonna be a professional and when you get there, you’re gonna be one of the best of them.’ But it comes with a price to pay. It’s like the montage from the TV show Fame, and they tell you that it is blood, sweat and tears and you got to sacrifice and that’s pro wrestling. Like you give a piece of yourself every time you go out there and everybody’s got a bump card and at some point it fills up and it’s over and you want to be able to make that stretch out over 30 years and not have it fizzle out in three or four years. So he’s been trained to be a guy with longevity.”

On getting involved in his matches: “I got about five bumps left in me and they won’t happen for about three years. Once Jacob gets out of college and he goes into wrestling, I’m gonna have to stand on the apron and somebody’s got to come bump me and he’s gonna beat the shit out of them.