Todd Grisham Recalls How He Got Hired by WWE, Directions From Vince McMahon, & Weird Advice From Kevin Dunn

During a recent interview with Insight With Chris Van Vliet, former WWE broadcaster and announcer Todd Grisham spoke at length about his WWE career, including how he got his job, his first WWE assignment, and more.

Grisham also revealed getting advice from former WWE broadcaster Kevin Dunn, who told Grisham that his voice was too “high-pitched” and advised Grisham to start smoking cigarettes. Below are some highlights from Insight:

Todd Grisham on How He Got Hired by WWE

“I was working in Tucson, Arizona as a local sportscaster, used to do similar stuff for the CBS affiliate, and I was covering the Arizona Wildcats and the Diamondbacks. I was there for game seven when the Diamondbacks beat the Yankees after 9/11. Crazy, great experiences. This guy that I know, said, ‘Hey, WWE is hiring. You should send an audition tape in.’ Because at the time we would do this Friday night high school football show me and this guy named Scott Killbear, and we do these outlandish skits where we do funny things, dress up like The Matrix or cheerleaders, crazy stuff. I was like, I’ll send a tape in. Sent a VHS tape in, and I forgot all about it. Six months later, out of the blue, I get this phone call on I believe a Thursday afternoon, ‘Hi. This is Sue from WWE. We like to bring you in for an audition.’ I’m like, Whoa, cool. When? And she goes, ‘Monday.’ I go, ‘Like, in four days?’ She goes, yeah. And at the time, I wasn’t watching WWE. I grew up loving it, of course, but I was 27 at the time. I’m like, wow. Okay, well, sure. So I’m just crash-coursing and I’m watching reruns of SmackDown and Raw, and I’m buying the magazines at the grocery store, and I printed out all the bios of every wrestler on the roster, made a binder, because I had to call matches on this audition and do these things. I did my research. So they flew me into New York City. This guy picks me up in a limo in New York City.

“I’m a small-town Alabama boy, so this is incredible. So I go to the audition, and I remember there was like five other guys on the audition at the same time. I was like, this sucks. But they were all taking it as a joke. They’re like ‘This is stupid.’ One of the guys I remember worked in Anchorage Alaska as a sportscaster, and he was like, ‘I’m not even gonna take this job. I just did it for a free trip to New York. ‘I’m like, bro, you could be on a worldwide TV show juggernaut like this, but you’re working in Anchorage Alaska, and 40 people are watching you? Anyway, so they brought me in and Hacksaw Jim Duggan was there, and he was the guy I was playing off of. They’re like, ‘Interview, Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Do this with Hacksaw Jim Duggan.’ So we did that. And then I called matches, and I called it with Josh Matthews. I remember the first match. They were like, it’s Val Venis versus Stevie Richards. So hold on. So open my binder. I find the Stevie Richards page, and I find the Val Venis page, and they were blown away that I had done that much research, and I felt like I nailed the audition. Michael Cole called me the next day and said, ‘You killed it. I’ll get back to you, but I’m just letting you know we work at a snail’s pace sometimes. It may be a while.’ It was like four or five months, I didn’t hear anything. And then he called me and said, ‘Bro, the fact that you haven’t called and checked up on it is a good thing that you’re not driving us crazy. Just stay patient.’ And then a month later, they called and offered me the job.”

On How Vince McMahon Would Direct Him To Do Play-By-Play

“Well, Vince would always say, ‘Don’t tell me what I can see.’ If you go clothesline. He’s like, ‘I could tell it’s a clothesline, damn it! Tell me, ‘Look at the impact and look at the force of that shot, and that might have decapitated him!’ So you’re almost like, just kind of giving a feel of what it’s like to be in there. You’re not necessarily saying first and 10 wide receivers open 10-yard pass. You’re not doing play-by-play.”

On Advice He Received From Kevin Dunn

“This is a funny story. Kevin Dunn said, ‘Listen, you’re really good, but your voice is too high-pitched. You got to get it lower.’ And I go, ‘Well, what do I do?’ He goes, ‘Maybe you should start smoking cigarettes.’ I said, really? And everyone laughed. And he’s like, ‘I’m serious, you should start smoking cigarettes.’ Because JR was chain-smoking all day long. And I was like, should I start smoking cigarettes? But thank God I didn’t do it.”

His First WWE Asignment

“Well, when you get hired, it’s kind of like they don’t hire you for a specific thing, and they just kind of bring you in almost like a scout team player. Come in, let’s see how you do against the starters, and maybe we’ll put you at wide receiver, who knows? So they just kind of bring you in. Mark Lloyd was doing WWE Bottom Line, and they were like, maybe you can start doing one of these shows one day. So I was there for like four or five weeks, and I started doing Bottom Line, which was a show that recapped the week’s events on Raw and SmackDown. So I started doing those kind of shows, and then they said, All right, we’ll put you on the road. I did backstage interviews. I remember the first one I ever did involved Booker T. No one gave me any direction. They said, ‘Alright, you interview Booker T.’ So I thought, usually when the wrestler kind of gets in your face, you know that you’re supposed to act scared. So that’s what I did. Booker T didn’t say anything to me. He’s like, ‘Real fool. I’m gonna go out there tonight and I’m gonna beat this guy down!’ And I’m scared to death. I totally overacted it, but no one said a word to me. Then I watched it back, this looks stupid. So I kind of worked on acting scared, but not scared to poop my pants scared, just like I’m worried here, but he’s not gonna put his hands on me, because I’m a professional.

“So that’s kind of a skill that I developed. But that’s it, they don’t really hire you for a specific job. They just throw you into the deep end and see what you can do and where you can go. Eventually, I just kind of get a bigger opportunity and more visibility and up and up and up. But I do remember the first time on the road that I had an in-ring experience. They give you this sheet at the end of the day after the production meeting and say, Here’s the rundown of the show. I was looking through there, you’re looking for your name. Am I doing an interview? And it said ‘Todd Grisham is hosting a debate between Edge and Shawn Michaels.’ And I’m like, Whoa. And I told Coach, look at this. He goes, ‘There you go kid, your first in the ring [segment].’ Then I look down at the bottom, and it goes, ‘Todd Grisham takes a super kick.’ I’m like, whoa. Wait a minute. I’m just worried about saying my lines, right? So I get in during the day, in the build-up, I’m all nervous and stuff. And finally, someone walks up to me, I think with Shelton Benjamin. He goes, ‘Hey, you ever taken a bump before?’ I’m like, no, no. He goes, ‘You just can’t flinch. Whatever you do, don’t flinch.’ I said, Okay. And right then he throws a fake Super Kick to me. I’m jumping back here. [He said] ‘Whoa, you can’t do that. Let’s try it again.’ I’m like, okay, so he does a fake Super Kick, kick again, and I don’t move. He goes, ‘There you go. That’s it.’ And then Shawn Michaels walked up to me and said, ‘All right, whatever you do tonight, don’t move.’

“So the storyline was, I host this debate. It gets out of control. Shawn Michaels shoves Edge into the corner or something, and I’m kind of pushed back behind Edge. And then Shawn Michaels goes to Super Kick Edge, who gets out of the way, and Todd Grisham eats the shot, great. Okay. So the show happens. I do my lines, there’s the moment. Edge is right in front of me, and I’m thinking in my brain is, do not flinch and do not move, but as soon as it hits, you got to crash like you’ve been killed. Edge gets out of the way, and I’m against the ropes. And Shawn Michaels, he looks so far away from him, like he seemed to be able to kick me. Sure enough, he couldn’t kick me right, so his foot almost kind of comes into my chest, right? Well, I sell it like the JFK assassination, but it hit me in the chest. And even JR’s commentary goes, ‘Well he took it in the chest, it’s really got to hurt.’ And afterwards, I remember, of all people, Mike Chioda was so mad at me. He came out. He goes, ‘What the f are you doing kid? You got to feed into that you’re too far away. You’re making Shawn Michaels look stupid. What are you doing?’ I said, they told me don’t move. They said, do not move, and I did not move. He lights up a cigarette, ‘My God!’ I don’t get it. I was like, they’re gonna fire me. But thank God, they didn’t.”