Mark Henry Discusses Mentoring Action Andretti In AEW, How Andretti “Got It” Quickly
Mark Henry discusses his role as a mentor in AEW.
The Hall of Famer spoke on this topic during a recent interview on the Kurt Angle Show, where he explained how he always tries to get younger talents to think outside of the box.
I’m always gonna be around wrestling to some capacity. I feel like I’m more of a wrestling counselor than a coach. I don’t teach them how. I want them to already know how. I teach them where you do it, when you do it, and why you do it. I teach them to think outside the box because that’s what Stu Hart did for me, and Leo Burke, and Tom Prichard, and Rip Rogers, and Jim Cornette did for me. They were all free-spirited thinkers. They would be like, ‘Stop being Mark Henry, nobody wants to hear that shit. Be somebody else.’ So when you start thinking, how can I get over being something else? It opens up your brain to pro wrestling.
Henry admits that he enjoys having one-on-one time with younger wrestlers because he feels like that is the best way he can communicate something to them.
If somebody said Mark, you gotta be John Wayne. You give me 20-30 minutes with John Wayne rehearsal stuff, I’ll be the best John Wayne I can be,” he continued. “I don’t need a lot of study time because all I need to know is what the character references [are] and the sound and voice flexion, and that’s the science of studying wrestling or acting, and that’s what I teach. I enjoy the personal one-on-ones, the people I talk to every week. It’s working and when you see what you do works, it’s gratifying. I sit back sometimes like, ‘Man, I did that.’
One talent that Henry is big on is Action Andretti. He says that Andretti was someone he mentored and after several sessions together instantly got hired by AEW.
Action Andretti, every time he passes me he goes [nods] and I know what that means. He’s saying, ‘Thank you, but I got it,’ and he got it. He’s one of those that you have a conversation with, he didn’t have a job, and two or three sessions with me, they hired him. So, those are the things that are good to me.
On the same interview Henry revealed that A&E will be doing a documentary on his career in WWE. You can read about that here.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)
