Heidenreich Recounts How His Poetry-Reading Gimmick Came About

Heidenreich saw his WWE career take a strange turn when he started reading poetry on TV, something he recently reflected on. Heidenreich debuted the new aspect to his character on the August 26, 2004 episode of WWE Smackdown. In addition to his strange segment with Michael Cole, the gimmick led him into a feud with The Undertaker.

Heidenreich reflected on how the character came about during his appearance on Insight With Chris Van Vliet. He noted that the moment where he was on the Smackdown fiest reading poetry was rough for him because he has a fear of heights. You can see highlights below

On His Poetry Gimmick:

“Yeah, that’s crazy. I mean, some people said, I guess when you’re getting over or getting popular as a heel, a lot of times they want to turn you. I think with TV and the way things are now with WWE, I think back in the day, they may have taken a year or two to do that, let you run in every situation. But yeah, they turned me.”

On How It Came About:

“All right, poetry. I’ve been writing since college. An English teacher let me write a story about Jim Morrison’s poetry, and I got a high grade with it, and that opened my door to, hey, I didn’t think I was good at writing, but I started writing then. I’ve been writing poems and songs and other stuff. I don’t know what it is, but I have notebooks full of crazy stuff, and I think I’m pretty sure I was on a plane flying with Paul [Heyman], who was sitting behind me. I was writing a poem. I don’t know if I wrote it to him or something. I just wrote it. I’m like, I’m gonna slip this back here, like your note in school or something. He read it. He’s like, ‘You write poetry?’ I said, yeah man, all the time. I think I saw the wheels turning in his head. I owe him a lot. I’m pretty sure he said, hey this guy writes poems, something off the wall and bizarre, and they liked them. When I write them normally, I’d ask Vince, he was involved with me a lot. I’m like, do you want to hear it? He goes, ‘I know it’s gonna be good.’ I’m like, that’s cool, man. It made me feel good.”

On Doing Poetry On the Smackdown Fist:

“This is a story I just remembered. They used to call me Scared of Heights instead of Heidenreich. Scared of heights. Because I was terrified to get up on that thing, number one, because that’s like 60 feet. We practice it, and that lift raises me up, and I got a harness. Because I’m like, I’m not doing it. But when we practice it, the guy who does all the stunt stuff, he went up there with me. I think he was a guy who worked with WWE, but he was a real stunt guy for movies, but he went up there with me. When we pulled to that big fist, it was like right on it, there was no gap.

“When we went live, we lifted the thing up. It was like six inches. Six inches seemed like 20 feet to me. I was like, dude, man, it’s not all the way against the thing. He goes, you got to go. I said, I’m scared, man. He like shoved me, get out there. But I had a harness, but I was trying not to act scared on that fist. It’s a big fist, but still it’s 60 feet, and if you don’t like heights, because I used to get scared having to do the Legion of Doom finish to stand up on top of the turnbuckle that’s way up there. So I’d always get on it, and I’d go right away before I fell. But anyway, somebody found out I had a fear of heights, and they was like, ‘You’re not Heidenreich, you’re scared of heights.’ The camera dudes would be saying it, I’m like, shut up, man.”