Mark Henry recalls his relationship with Yokozuna and how more like it could change the business today.
On the latest edition of Busted Open Radio, Henry was speaking with Pat McAfee about the WWE Icons documentary that debuted following the Royal Rumble, and how Yokozuna took care of him and shaped his career and the way he worked in the ring. The panel praised McAfee for the respect he showed when he first entered the business, which prompted the Hall of Famer to comment on the jaded and entitled mentality of some within the industry. Here is what he said:
"That dude [Yokozuna] took care of me, man. I didn't pay for the car. I didn't pay for my hotels. Nothing. He took care of everything. All he asked was for me not to question him. He said, look man if I tell you to do something just do it and I got you, and he did. He took care of me in a way that nobody in my wrestling history has. I drove the car, I fetched the bags, I went and got his food, and if he had other errands for me to do, I did. if the wrestling business can go back to that and put guys with the veterans and have them be mentored, is really what it was, then the business will be better because now we have this jaded, oh I'm already somebody, type of mentality."
Henry believes that the mindset some have of being a big-deal just because they're on NXT or a draw on the independent circuit will go away if you can give to the young, to the future, what he got from Yokozuna.
He continued to compliment the WWE Legend by saying the following:
"Yoko was one of the nicest human beings ever born to this earth. When it came to work, he was like, hey, it's about longevity. This was his speech to me; it's about longevity, and if you want to be great, you gotta work against the greatest people. You can't work against the greatest people if you're the shits and you hurt everybody. He said you want the best guys to say, oh, I wanna work with him because it's a night off. That's why I work the way that I work because I had Yoko mentoring me early in, even though I had kinda shit the bed with my attitude. I couldn't control that, but my work was always solid. You watch Yoko drop that leg on people and sit on them, it was like a pillow hitting you. It was beautiful."
During his career, Yokozuna won the WWF Championship twice. He sadly passed away on October 23, 2000. In 2012, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
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