During the latest episode of Insights with Chris Van Vliet, former WWE commentator Todd Grisham talks on how he got hired by WWE, his biggest blunder in the company and the unenthusiastic call when Christian made his return.
On how he got the job in WWE:
“I was working in Tucson, Arizona as a local sportscaster, used to do similar stuff for the CBS affiliate, and I was covering the Arizona Wildcats and the Diamondbacks. I was there for game seven when the Diamondbacks beat the Yankees after 9/11. Crazy, great experiences. This guy that I know, said, ‘Hey, WWE is hiring. You should send an audition tape in.’ Because at the time we would do this Friday night high school football show me and this guy named Scott Killbear, and we do these outlandish skits where we do funny things, dress up like The Matrix or cheerleaders, crazy stuff. I was like, I’ll send a tape in. Sent a VHS tape in, and I forgot all about it. Six months later, out of the blue, I get this phone call on I believe a Thursday afternoon, ‘Hi. This is Sue from WWE. We like to bring you in for an audition.’ I’m like, Whoa, cool. When? And she goes, ‘Monday.’ I go, ‘Like, in four days?’ She goes, yeah. And at the time, I wasn’t watching WWE. I grew up loving it, of course, but I was 27 at the time. I’m like, wow. Okay, well, sure. So I’m just crash-coursing and I’m watching reruns of SmackDown and Raw, and I’m buying the magazines at the grocery store, and I printed out all the bios of every wrestler on the roster, made a binder, because I had to call matches on this audition and do these things. I did my research. So they flew me into New York City. This guy picks me up in a limo in New York City. I’m a small-town Alabama boy, so this is incredible. So I go to the audition, and I remember there was like five other guys on the audition at the same time. I was like, this sucks. But they were all taking it as a joke. They’re like ‘This is stupid.’ One of the guys I remember worked in Anchorage Alaska as a sportscaster, and he was like, ‘I’m not even gonna take this job. I just did it for a free trip to New York. ‘I’m like, bro, you could be on a worldwide TV show juggernaut like this, but you’re working in Anchorage Alaska, and 40 people are watching you? Anyway, so they brought me in and Hacksaw Jim Duggan was there, and he was the guy I was playing off of. They’re like, ‘Interview, Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Do this with Hacksaw Jim Duggan.’ So we did that. And then I called matches, and I called it with Josh Matthews. I remember the first match. They were like, it’s Val Venis versus Stevie Richards. So hold on. So open my binder. I find the Stevie Richards page, and I find the Val Venis page, and they were blown away that I had done that much research, and I felt like I nailed the audition. Michael Cole called me the next day and said, ‘You killed it. I’ll get back to you, but I’m just letting you know we work at a snail’s pace sometimes. It may be a while.’ It was like four or five months, I didn’t hear anything. And then he called me and said, ‘Bro, the fact that you haven’t called and checked up on it is a good thing that you’re not driving us crazy. Just stay patient.’ And then a month later, they called and offered me the job.”
On his biggest blunder in WWE:
“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, io 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 the unenthusiastic “It’s Christian” return:
“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 him, and like 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, like 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?”
All quotes are courtesy of Insights with Chris Van Vliet.
Grisham also talks on Jim Ross, getting slapped by Mickie James and more.
You can watch the full interview below: