Marc Mero Says Johnny B. Badd is his favorite character.
Johnny B. Badd was one of WCW's most colorful characters. As a tribute to, or knockoff of, Little Richard, Badd was a loud, bombastic, athletic type who would just as soon sing you a song as kick your tutti fruiti booty.
Johnny was silly, sardonic, and flamboyant, much like a certain American Dream of years gone by. In fact, Marc Mero -- who played the Johnny B. Badd character -- says that the idea for the gimmick came from the mind of Dusty Rhodes.
That's what Mero told Fightful's Jeremy Lambert and SP3 on Fightful Overbooked's In The Weeds. Mero discussed the origin of the character and even said that, in a career full of different ideations, Johnny B. Badd was his favorite.
It was a Dusty Rhodes brainchild. I’ll never forget, when I was doing jobs for WCW, trying to get into the business, after one of the matches he said to me, ‘Has anyone ever told you that you look like Little Richard?’ I thought he was talking about a wrestler named Little Richard. ‘I’ve ever heard of the wrestler Little Richard.’ ‘No, no, the singer, Little Richard.’ ‘Oh, I’ve never heard that before.’ ‘I think I got a gimmick for you.’ I did watch mannerisms of Little Richard, but it was Dusty Rhodes that really got it down. He would meet me before the matches and show me how he wanted me to walk, talk, say this and that. Some of my fondest memories in wrestling is working with Dusty Rhodes. He is like my mentor and the guy that came up with the character. I spent a lot of time with him and some of the funniest moments were watching him be me, be Little Richard. You know how flamboyant Dusty Rhodes was. He’d say, ‘Now walk up to the microphone and say, I’m so pretty, I should’ve been born a little girl.’ I start laughing. Here I am, a boxer from New York, talking like I’m from Macon, Georgia. We would have so much fun with that. It was my favorite character. It’s so different from who I am, so it was playing a role every single night of this character that is so opposite of me. It was a lot of fun," Mero said.
The gimmick was so successful that he eventually took it to New Japan Pro Wrestling, which was another career highlight for Mero.
"They really enjoyed the confetti gun, throwing the frisbees, and all the gimmicks. I tried to make my entrance longer than my match so I didn’t have to memorize a lot. The Japanese fans were great, they’re just different from the American fans. They would cheer when you made it to the rope, where American fans are like, ‘That’s not a big deal.’ They’re big on false finishes and very quiet audience compared to the American audience. Once they find out what room you’re in at a hotel, they’re relentless to get an autograph. I used to shoot the Badd Bucks. On television, when I shot the confetti gun, I put real money in there so people would go crazy trying to find it. When I would go to arenas, I had fake money with a picture of me, a $1000 bill that said ‘In Johnny We Trust.’ They would collect all this confetti and would want me to sign it. Great fans. Blessed to have done that," Mero said.
Mero left WCW for the WWF in 1996 and eventually portrayed a more "realistic" character, as 'The Wildman.' Mero possibly gained his most notoriety during his partnership/feud with his ex-wife, Sable.
Nowadays, Mero has traded his wrestling tights and boxing gloves for a microphone. He's a motivational speaker and he's just as good in front of a crowd now as he was then. Fans can follow Mero on social media.
Check out the full interview with Marc embedded above.
