Posted on 12/18/125 by Colin Vassallo
Former WWE commentator Todd Grisham sat down with Chris Van
Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, California
to discuss how he got the job with WWE, being hazed by
members of the locker room during the start of his career,
bizarre advice from Kevin Dunn, why he made Vince McMahon
furious, his infamous announcement of Christian’s return,
getting slapped by Mickie James, his thoughts on Logan Paul
and Jake Paul, and more!
On being yelled at by Vince McMahon:
“Vince McMahon went insane on me one time because I said
that John Morrison, who was a heel at the time, loved
poetry. Normally, I wouldn’t say that, but there was a new
WWE magazine. They just transformed it from being like a
results-based boring magazine, like ‘Last week, Eddie
Guerrero beat JBL by pinfall…’ Here’s the description, to
more of a Maxim-style lifestyle magazine. Get to know the
superstars better. So they’re like, anytime you can
incorporate stuff from the magazine, do it. It helps sell
the magazine. It helps tell their story. It syncs everything
up, great. So they did a whole thing on John Morrison; his
finisher was called Starship Pain. So he wrote a poem called
Starship Pain. So he’s in the ring and I go, ‘John Morrison,
Starship Pain, he’s a big fan of poetry, and wrote a poem
about the finisher Starship Pain.’ Vince goes insane in my
ear. ‘Did you just say that our number one heel is an effing
poet, you stupid F! What the f*ck! Shut up. Just shut up.
Don’t say anything else! Jim Ross, you call the rest of this
fight. I don’t wanna hear another effing word out of you!’
So literally, the match starts and I don’t say a single word
for like five minutes, and then the match ends, and we gotta
do a promo going to the next fight, and he goes, ‘Okay, you
can talk now.’ I’m like, ‘Coming up next, Shelton Benjamin
goes one-on-one with The Heartbreak Kid, Shawn Michaels.’
But he was so angry at me over that.”
On possibly being lined up to replace JR:
“So eventually they said ‘All right, here’s what we’re going
to do. We’re going to give you the keys to Raw. You’re going
to be the face. You’re going to call Raw. JR, we’re retiring
him.’ He had a retirement tour, or something similar to
that, where he was going to retire after WrestleMania. He’s
going to call the WrestleMania match, and that was it. But
the receptions he was getting in all these buildings, and
eventually they’re like we can’t take him off the air. He’s
too big. Even though Vince tried to squash it. Vince hated
Jim Ross for whatever reason. He fired him 10 times. One
show, I don’t remember where it was. It was in Oklahoma, in
front of his home crowd. So the show ended and they were
gonna have Jim Ross speak to the crowd. Thank you very much.
Blah, blah, blah. So Jim Ross is in the ring, and Vince
tells me grab a mic and go down there, and he gave me some
questions. I go down there. ‘Sorry to interrupt you, JR, in
front of the crowd, but how does it feel to be getting
released by WWE and fired by Vince because he just doesn’t
think you’re that good…’ and all these antagonizing things.
The number one rule, you probably know this when you’re an
interviewer, is to never give up the mic. Boxing, UFC, they
take the mic. You’re out of control. So you sit there no
matter what. But at that point, Jim Ross looked at me and
goes, ‘Could I please have the microphone?’ And I’m
thinking, Vince is gonna kill me if I give him the mic. But
I was like, I just handed him the mic. I was like, I’m not
gonna do it, and I’ll take the abuse. And JR went and said,
‘I know those weren’t your questions. Those were his.’ And
so anyway, long story short, they don’t fire JR. Maybe
that’s when they put me on ECW, I don’t remember, but we’re
gonna give you this show. Well, you’re the guy in waiting
until Jim Ross is done.”
On “It’s Christian”:
“Christian was one of my better friends at WWE. We’d hang
out in catering all the time and talk. He was the most, I
mean, I think even most Superstars or wrestlers will tell
you that you got to be a little bit insane to be a wrestler.
He was the most normal person backstage, and Shane Helms,
The Hurricane and Edge, those were kind of the guys I would
hang out with. And Christian we would play this game called
Words with Friends, which is like an app back and forth. So
he left WWE to go to TNA for a while. We’d still hang out
and text and talk, and he was coming back. So I was excited
all day long. Yeah, that’s great. Here’s the match, was
talking to him about his match, and I’m thinking, I gotta
nail this when he comes out. I had something to say. I’m
standing in Gorilla about to walk out, and Vince had glasses
on his nose, and he did one of these [come here gestures].
I’m like, Okay, I walk over. He’s just said to me, ‘When
Christian walks out, I want you to just say “It’s
Christian”, and that’s it. Understand?’ I’m like, Yes sir.
And I’m thinking, Oh my god. So that’s how I did it. But I
felt like, How do I do it? So I almost did it, in my brain,
like I couldn’t believe it. I was stunned silence, like,
‘It’s Christian. How can this possibly be?’ So that’s how I
tried to do it. And, man, that’s probably the most criticism
I get from fans. Like, ‘Why does Todd hate Christian? Why
did he do that? He ruined it.’ But Vince just did not like
Christian. I think he thought he liked big guys, and he
thought Christian just didn’t look the part. But he was such
a good in-ring performer. I mean, has he ever had a bad
match?”