Todd Grisham Recalls Getting Slapped by Mickie James on WWE TV, Says James Slapped Him for Real

During a recent interview with Insight With Chris Van Vliet, former WWE broadcaster and announcer Todd Grisham recalled a WWE TV segment in the 2000s, where he was slapped by former WWE Women’s Champion Mickie James. Below are some highlights from Insight:

Todd Grisham on Getting Slapped by Mickie James

“If you were an announcer and you got physicality, they would give you hazard pay. So I remember one time Mickie James slapped me. That was the worst thing ever. I’ll take 20 AAs before a slap, because they don’t trust you to sell the slap, because you’re not a worker. So they slap you, and she hit me right here.”

On How Mickie James Slapped Him as Hard as She Could

“As hard as she could. I get slapped, and I’m like [groans]. You got to sell for the camera for, I call it the TV novella shot, like your husband’s dead, you got to hold it for like, five seconds. So they go to commercial break, the camera is on my face, and people like, ‘Oh, you were you were selling pretty good.’ I was like, I was not selling. I felt like my face was gonna get ripped off. But, the hazard pay, so after she slapped me, they give you 500 bucks. Literally, they’d be like, and cut. Nice job, Todd. And someone walked over and goes, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, here you go. Cash. So I’m like, beat the hell out of me. You want me to go in the ring and let her slap me again? But Max Brettos, who I believe was the shortest tenured employee of all time. I talk about they hire you just to see where you fit in. He was there for a cup of coffee, but they asked him, did he want to do it? And he was like, No, I don’t really want to do that. I was like, I’ll do it, okay, that’s how it went. I was like, yeah, and you’re gonna pay me 500 bucks? But people remember you more for the physicality moments than anything else.”