Hornswoggle Says Original Plan Was To Change His Voice For Anonymous RAW GM Reveal
Hornswoggle was a recent guest on The New Day's Feel The Power podcast and took the time to discuss how the WeeLC match came about. Hornswoggle revealed that he was originally really worried about his spot on the roster when El Torito was brought on and started getting TV time, because he wasn't being used much during that time. He recalled training hard ahead of time and cutting weight after being told to lose 10-15 pounds.
"So El Torito gets hired, and I'm just depressed," Hornswoggle recalled. "He just gets called up to TV when I'm not being used. Now I'm pitching off to work him because I thought that would make sense. Just let him wrestle. You would think that would be the out. Okay, finally I get told by Talent Relations that they are worried about my weight. I go on a crazy diet and I end up losing 25 pounds, which they only asked me, 'Hey, can you lose like 10-15?' I said, 'Oh, screw it. I'm going to go all the way, and in that, I was working out. I found a local ring at a training school and just started doing that every week.
"I knew I can do it, and Road Dogg called me one week and said, 'Alright, you're getting your wish. It's you and Torito this week' because Heath [Slater] was in Saudi Arabia or something," Hornswoggle added. "He was on tour, so we couldn't do the original six-man of 3MB vs. Matadores and Torito, and he goes, 'You're going to be with 3MB tonight'. 'Perfect, what do I wear?' And he goes to the seamstress and they were making a pair of sheet pants; he goes, 'Hey, we need you to make a pair of 3MB pants for [Hornswoggle] tonight. They need to be done for TV. She goes, 'I can't do that, but I could chop off Heath's pants'.
"I get on Heath's pants, and Heath has no realization of this until Bruce [Prichard] sends him a picture of me wearing his pants," He continued. "Now we're going at it. They also want us to test me in the ring because I'm not a wrestler I guess at that point, and I remember all the guys that were on TV that day were surrounding the ring because they knew what Torito could do. I knew what Torito could do, and they're all like, 'Yeah, fat [Hornswoggle] is going to get in there and blow up'. But then I remember specifically working with Torito before the show and seeing Kofi [Kingston] and Dolph [Ziggler] in the corner of the barricade, and everyone's kind of blown away because I'm doing okay with him. And then to them just kind of nodding their heads and smiling because I had people who kind of believed in me and didn't want me to fail, and it was a good moment. It was a really good moment as friends. He and Dolph that day were– it really proved our friendship a lot."
When he finally got the opportunity for the match, he was told the match needed to be more comedy, and he was excited that they were able to turn some heads that night. He also recalled Drew McIntyre willing to flip over the ropes and through a table to help get the match over.
"So then we get to WeeLC and we are told that, essentially, it needs to be gimmicky and it needs to be 'haha', but essentially 'do whatever'," Hornswoggle recalled. "We did, and our goal that night was to literally blow people away because we knew we were going to be in New Jersey where they're one of the toughest crowds. They're just like Chicago where they just want to see wrestling and that kind of stuff, and we just kind of surprised everyone I think. And I think that's what's even better because people were expecting a lot of a– biting and rest spots, and we beat the hell of each other.
"At one point, Drew [McIntyre] does a flip over the ropes to the table for no reason," Hornswoggle said. "I remember before the show, he's like, 'I think I'm going to flip through a table', and we all look at him like, 'Why?' and he goes, 'I don't know', and it was that moment where everyone had that mindest of, kind of, 'Screw it. Let just blow them away.' I'll never do anything better, so that was a really special night for me."
Hornswoggle went on to talk about his reveal as the Anonymous RAW General Manager and said the original plan was for him to have a New Jersey accent, however, he was not able to pull it off in a believable fashion, so the plans were changed.
"They called me the Saturday before RAW and they said, 'Hey, you're going to be revealed Monday as the Anonymous General Manager'," Hornswoggle said. "They said, 'Can you do a Jersey accent?' and I proceed to say, 'I don't think so – I don't know. I can try.' The only thing I can think of for a Jersey accent was the baby on Roger Rabbit, because he had that weird mafia thing. So I just kept watching that scene over and over at home.
"So it failed so much in rehearsals, and I just kept trying backstage, and then finally, the writer Nick– I forget what was his last name even was, but that was my name on the show. It was just pulled up by the writer. He finally comes up to me and he goes, 'Not happening. You're just going to come off on the ring, Lawler's going to say it was you, and you're going to bite him in the a–' or something, and that was it. That was the big reveal for the Anonymous General Manager."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit the Feel The Power podcast with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Mehdy Labriny contributed to this article.