Mark Henry was recently a guest on The Stone Cold Podcast where he and Steve Austin discussed in detail Henry’s wrestling career.
Mark Henry would work alongside The Rock as part of The Nation of Domination stable. Henry praised The Rock and said that his work ethic and dedication were what contributed to his success.
“[Working with The Rock] was masterclass,” Henry said. “I had learned wrestling and I had learned psychology, but I hadn’t learned how to apply it in the ring. There’s never been a wrestler more studied than Dwayne. He was over prepared. We would talk in the car and he’d have VHS tapes of matches of the people that he was going to wrestle against. We used to carry video games and he would carry a VCR on the road with him and he would watch tapes at night when we got to the room.
“He would always be writing promos and practice those promos on you in the car. He’d say, ‘I just wanna ask you a question, how do you feel about driving down to New York?’, ‘Well, it’s…’, ‘IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW…!’ He would practice everything. He told me that I played too much and that I needed to focus. He said I could be good. If I focused on wrestling the way I focus on video games and college football, I’d be great. And he was right. I needed to get serious.“Jerry Lawler took us so we could learn to work on the road,” Henry recalled. “So, we went down to Memphis and started working and driving five hours. I thought we were going to fly and [Rock] said, ‘No, spoiled dude, it’s over. You’re on the road now. This is what it really is. I used to do this with my dad’. He was destined for greatness because he had already knew everything. He had accepted it a long time ago. He tried explaining it to me but I was in my own world.”
On the topic of The Rock’s huge success, Henry discussed The Rock’s infamous catchphrase ‘Know Your Role and Shut Your Mouth’ and he revealed that it was actually advice from Ron Simmons when Henry was still a young wrestler who just got a taste of the spotlight. Simmons told Henry to keep his mouth shut and do what he is told so that he would succeed in the wrestling business.
“We got to the building and Ron [Simmons] said, ‘Look, all you got to do is keep your mouth shut and do what I ask you to do and you’re going to be alright.’, Henry remembered. “And there’s never been truer words. Now, a lot of people think that Dwayne was the one who came up with the ‘Know Your Role and Shut Your Mouth’ but that was Ron Simmons. Ron Simmons was the one who said, ‘Look, you need to know your role and if you can shut your mouth…’and Dwayne took that and made it- it was one of the things that helped him out. So it was one of those things where we were all benefiting.”
h/t to Wrestling Inc for the transcription.
