A former ring announcer has revealed that the only advice they were ever given by Vince McMahon was to be “more Hispanic.”
Ricardo Rodriguez arrived on WWE’s main roster alongside Alberto Del Rio in August 2010. The wrestler-turned-manager was billed as Del Rio’s personal ring announcer while also helping him during matches.
Rodriguez became popular with fans for his flamboyant announcing style where rolled the “R” in Del Rio in crowd-pleasing style.
Aside from a brief run alongside Rob Van Dam, Rodriguez spent the best part of four years with Del Rio before being released in July 2014.
Speaking during an appearance on the Cheap Heat Productions Podcast, Rodriguez reflected on his time in WWE. While with WWE, Rodriguez worked for Vince McMahon, and revealed that he was only ever given one real piece of advice from the then-Chairman – “Be more Hispanic.”
“The only real advice that he gave me was, and I quote, ‘No, not like that. Be more Hispanic.’ I still don’t know what that means! The very first time that I did the rehearsal for the intro thing, I was thinking very formal, very Tony Chimel, Justin Roberts… formal… Howard Finkel.”
Expanding further, Rodriguez explained where he took inspiration for his trademark announcing style.
“I thought of the guys from AAA, the announcers from AAA, which are very loud, and then I thought eventually of the soccer announcers that are in Spanish,” Rodriguez continued. “I’m a big football/soccer fan, but if you watch it in English versus when you watch it in Spanish, it’s two completely different vibes.”
Since leaving WWE, Rodriguez returned to the independent scene before making one appearance as a commentator in AEW in October 2021.
H/t to Sportskeeda for the transcription.