Renee Young Recalls Working With Gene Okerlund, Becoming Close Friends, Okerlund’s Road Stories

On the latest episode of The Bump, Renee Young looked back on her WWE career and recalled her first experiences with Gene Okerlund. Young worked with the late WWE Hall of Famer on the international show Vintage to start her run with the company and shared her memories of becoming close friends with him. You can check out highlights and the full video below:

On her first experience working with Okerlund: “Man. So, the very first job I ever did with WWE was hosting Vintage with Gene Okerlund. And so the network that I worked for in Toronto also aired Vintage because it’s an international show, so it aired in Canada. So I knew the show, I was very familiar with it. And when they were like, ‘Okay, you’re going to work with Mean Gene Okerland on Vintage,’ I was like, ‘What? Me? What are you talking about?’

And I will always remember that first time, and I was actually Renee Paquette one time for WWE before I became Renee Young. And to have Mean Gene Okerlund on as Renee Paquette, like I was shaking in my boots. I was nervous. I was like, shaky voice, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was so excited to work with him.”

On becoming friends with Okerlund: “We worked together on that show for, gosh, five years, something like that? I would go out and spend time with Gene, we would all go out to dinner afterwards, and just have some cocktails and eat food. And he would regale us in his stories of like riding with Andre [The Giant], and Hogan.

“And so as much as Mean Gene Okerlund is such a presence on air, and he was literally and to the very end just always [a] firecracker. Always had that big personality. It was the time between takes, that would crack me up. The stuff that would fly out of his mouth, just off the cuff. Gene never lost his sharpness. He would always have me in stitches, I just loved working with him. He was like truly a friend, felt like almost like family member. We were just really, really close.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit WWE’s The Bump with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.