In the early 2010’s, Mark Henry embarked on the most profitable run of his career when he began his ‘Hall of Pain’ gimmick.
The brutal character who destroyed everyone in his path was a far cry from the fun-loving ‘Sexual Chocolate’ of years gone by. Surprisingly, the whole thing started when a prank Vince McMahon played on Henry didn’t get the reaction he expected.
The prank in question saw The World’s Strongest Man go out for a dark match against Sin Cara, only for the luchador to no-show. His music played three times before Henery took the mic and demanded someone come out.
When it didn’t happen, he stormed to the back only to find McMahon and other producers had already left, leaving Henry to wreck the place in their absence. The incident got him so angry, he quit the company.
Mark Henry explains his anger at Vince McMahon’s ‘rib’
On the latest edition of Chris Van Vliet’s ‘Insight’, Mark Henry said the incident made him the “maddest he had ever been.”
“They robbed me. When I looked at Scott Armstrong. And he said, It’s not me. And he had fear in his eyes. And you can smell fear and you can see it, and he was deadly afraid.
“I asked for the microphone. And I started talking and they turned the microphone off. And I said, Okay, I get it. And like that was one of the maddest times, that was the maddest that I had ever been at that point.
“I’m just glad that they had got in the limo and drove off because the conversation that we’re having right now may not happen because I’d have whooped all their ass. I don’t know if I could have controlled myself, as mad as I was back then.”
He went on to describe how the disrespect he felt at the time led to him quitting.
“I felt disrespected, I felt trivialised. Out of all the work that I did. Like all of the sacrificing, and you people say, ‘Oh, you got paid a lot of money.’ You know what, man, I didn’t get paid enough money to dummy down my pride and my respect as a man. Ain’t no price for that.
“When that happened, I felt like okay, I’m expendable, I’m useless to them. They don’t respect me. That’s kind of feeling that it was.
“I got a lot of counsel after that, about how I felt as a man, because like, it was troubling. But being that I am a man and that I was able to say my piece to Vince and everybody involved, like, just know who I am, because that won’t ever happen again. If it does, like us talking will not be an option. And I quit.”
However, his wife talked him around to going back to the company,
“You know what, man, I probably owe my wife more of an apology and thank you, because she was the one that got me to come back to wrestling. And go and talk to them again, because I didn’t have any interest in coming back. Then none of that, none of the things after would have happened if that was the case.”
“Vince just thought it was funny. He said that he thought it was funny. And they wanted to get to the cars and get to the airport. And that was gonna give them time to get out of there without any traffic. Not thinking how’s Mark gonna feel after this?”
Henry has previously revealed that after McMahon apologised, he showed him a video of Henry standing furious in the ring and asked him to replicate that emotion. Leading to the creation of the ‘Hall of Pain.’
If you use any of the above quotes, please credit the original source and give an H/T and link back to Inside The Ropes for the transcription.