Finlay and Hornswoggle have told the hilarious story of how Hornswoggle found himself trapped under the ring in Mexico face to face with a live chicken.
Both men were guests on Stories With Brisco and Bradshaw where they both gave their side of the story. According to Finlay, the chicken was payback for Hornswoggle’s continuous ribs on one of WWE’s security team.
Finlay began:
“We were on a tour in South America and one of our stops we were in Mexico somewhere. We were on a flight between shows and Scott Acock, the security guy, great guy. He’s an ex-cop and ex-military. He’s going ‘that son of a gun. He keeps ribbing me. I’m gonna get him back.’”
“[I said] You know he’s afraid of chickens. Scott asks ‘How do you know he is afraid of chickens?’ Well, there was a thing that Khali was doing where he had all the women around him dancing. They had chickens and goats and all of this stuff. I saw ‘Swoggle selling the chickens. I saw the fear in his eyes, I know he is afraid of chickens.”
Hornswoggle then interjects to confirm his fear:
“People fear a lot of things. The two things I fear are the dark and birds in general. Birds are unpredictable, especially chickens and roosters. They have talons! This is a phobia of mine and a lot of people. It’s a common phobia, people train roosters to fight.”
Finlay then continued, noting that he keeps tracks of his colleague’s fears for just such an occasion as this:
“On my phone in my notes, I have a list of what everyone is afraid of. It’s there just in case I need to use it. I don’t know when but when the time is right. So we call one of the production guys and say ‘Hey, can you get us a chicken?’ He asks fried or boiled? I’m like no we need a live one. So we put Hornswoggle under the ring and we came up with this plan. We’ll put him under the ring, and then we’ll throw the chicken under the ring.”
“We get ‘Swoggle under the ring, and we rig up lights under the ring. We get a camera rigged up, there’s massive pyro for Chris Masters. While everyone is looking at Masters, the rooster gets thrown under there. You hear this massive AAHHH! It’s running around and he’s swiping at it. It’s running around because the rooster is scared too. He’s screaming and swearing at it.”
Hornswoggle then finishes up the story claiming to be lucky to be alive following his close encounter of the poultry kind:
“I see the apron fly up. I think someone took a bump above me. And now I see a camera under there, I’m like why is there a camera there. I turn and I am eye to eye with this rooster. I am not happy at all. Now I think I’m going to throw my whole spot away. There was a kendo stock and my jacket. I grabbed the kendo stick thinking if it comes at me, I’m going to swing at it. Finally, it comes back one more time, and then it gets away. It was the absolute worst, too far. I could have been killed.”
Finlay also shared with JBL and Gerald Brisco the story of him trying to sell Hornswoggle when they were on a tour of the Phillippines.
Credit: Stories With Brisco and Bradshaw