Heath Slater Says He Pitched to Hit Brock Lesnar In Their Segment, Recalls Vince McMahon’s Reaction to ‘I Got Kids’

Heath Slater’s famous “I got kids!” angle with Brock Lesnar gave him a permanent catchphrase, but Slater says he pitched for one more aspect of it. The WWE alum appeared on Table Talk and discussed the segment, which helped Slater get over and he’s been using since. You can see highlights from the discussion and the full video below:

On the process leading into the segment: “Well, that segment was like — it put me on the map, but slapped me in my face too. Like, literally. So yeah, the whole, ‘I don’t give a s**t about your kids’ was supposed to be ‘I don’t give a damn about your kids.’ And I guess, you know, the crowd was into it, and the people were — hey, I got a shirt out of that segment. Because, this is a fact. Everyone knows me, that f you give me bullet points and tell me the ending place, I can come up with the right words to where my fans can translate and be with me. But when you hand me a damn four-page script and I have to go out there, and then you’re changing it every hour. And 20 minutes before I go out, I got everything I think that I have to say in my mind, and then you give me a new script? And then I’m just like, ‘What the hell is going on?’

“So, I had this segment with Brock and Paul. And after I don’t know, four scripts, and then 20 minutes before I go out a few new lines came in. I literally was like, ‘Man, I have to just go out there and do my s**t, because I don’t know what’s going on right now.'”

On the segment itself and the ‘I have kids’ line: “So my music hit, Paul’s cutting a promo. Paul says his, I say mine, Paul says his. I damn forgot what my next line was. I’m just like, ‘Oh, no.’ So I’m just like, ‘Well, you gotta shoot of the hip now, baby!’ So I pull my guns out, and I’m just like, ‘Damnit, all these people here know I’m gonna get my ass kicked! He knows he’s gonna whup my ass, I know it, but I have to do this. I have kids! I need this job!’ And then next thing I know, I guess Vince in the back was like, ‘Woah! I got kids, I need this job. Print that out! Print that out, we need that!’ That was not even in my damn lines.”

On pitching himself to punch Brock in the segment: “The only thing I ever wanted to do in that whole thing is give him one punch. One punch, and that was it! And then Paul was just like, ‘Well, if you hit Brock you’re gonna have to really hit him.’ And I’m just like, ‘Man, whatever. If he just sells it, I’ll lay it in. I’m not gonna kill him, I know how to throw a damn punch. I’ll make it look good.’ Just because if he says, ‘I don’t give a damn about your kids,’ and boom! And then he just kills me? Great. Give me that punch, two little, ‘Oh s**t, damn kid, really?’ [And then] kill me. The fans would have loved it…That’s all I pitched for the whole segment.'”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Table Talk with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.