Marty Garner Recalls Facing MVP In The Latter’s WWE TV Debut Match

Marty Garner was MVP’s first opponent on WWE television at No Mercy 2006, and he recently recalled how it came about. Garner spoke with Fightful’s Jeremy Lambert & Joel Pearl on In The Weeds and talked about how Vince McMahon approached him to work against MVP on the PPV. You can check out highlights below:

On being approached by McMahon for the match: “I was at the arena that day, and Vince McMahon came up to me and he goes, ‘Marty, how would you like to work on the pay-per-view? ‘You mean a dark match?’ ‘No, I mean on the pay-per-view.’ ‘I would love that.’ ‘You’re going to be working MVP. He was supposed to be working Chris Benoit tonight, but he’s not ready for Chris Benoit.’ ‘Not a problem.’ Me and MVP worked out our match and Vince said, ‘Let me a see a little of it.’ He was going to slap me in the beginning of it. He hauls off and slaps my lips off. Vince said, ‘Woah, woah, woah, I didn’t mean that part of it. You didn’t have to slap him like that. We’re just practicing here. If you would have hit me like that, you would have got a receipt.'”

On working with MVP on the match: “In the match, when we locked up, I said, ‘Make it a good one.’ He slapped me so hard, he hit me in my ear, and that will throw your balance off and knock you a little goofy. When he hit me in my ear, I didn’t know where I was at for about six seconds. I went down to one knee, looked around, and went, ‘Okay, where am I? In a wrestling ring, doing a match, that’s right.’ It threw me off for a minute. We had a decent match, he squashed me, but it was a memorable moment.”