Getty Shaquille O'Neal and Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka share a laugh during the Lakers' preseason game against the Golden State Warriors at T-Mobile Arena on October 10, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
WWE Hall of Famer, Mark Henry has been a Dallas Cowboys fan all of his life.
“Man, I was born [a Cowboys fan] and raised from 1971,” Henry told me on the Heavy Live With Scoop B Show.
“I was since Tony Dorsett was busin’ out but, I guarantee you about by the time I was 6 or 7, all I had was #33 jerseys. I was a Tony Dorsett fan in his heyday and in his prime. Like, all these new fans – you know I see a lot of Chiefs stuff out now. Everybody’s a Chiefs fan now…whatever. When my team went 1-16 and I was crying…I was a little junior high kid crying that my team lost; oh yeah, I’m the WORST loser of all time. That’s why I was great at a lot of times. The only human being walking the planet that’s been a World Champion three different sports that have nothing to do with each other, and a multi-time champion in another sport because I hate losing. I hate it with a passion. And the teams that I’ve supported, they lost. And the greatest feeling was to see my team win a division championship. To see my team, win Super Bowls and NBA Championships.”
Oh yeah, by the way, he’s also a Los Angeles Lakers fan.
“In ’79 when I became a Laker fan was because of one dude. It wasn’t because I respected Kareem and all of the…Jerry West – I didn’t know the history of the Lakers; back then, I don’t even think that I remembered other than the Houston Rockets playing. But once I saw Magic [Johnson] the first time, it was over! Muhammad Ali and Magic Johnson are the two greatest sporting figures in my opinion of all time because of what they did for me; not for what they did for you and I’m not saying that for everybody else…I’m saying for Mark Henry; they did the most.”
While on the Heavy Live With Scoop B Show, Henry shared the time Lakers legend, Magic Johnson made him cry.
GettyWWE legend Mark Henry during a 2011 Smackdown Live event in South Africa.
“Now that ended in me crying because I told him the reason why I got my first job was because I wanted the [Converse] Weapons,” he recounted.
“It was when Magic Johnson and Larry Bird came out with these Converse shoes in 1980 called Weapons and I wanted ‘em man. I wanted ‘em bad. And I come from a really, really poor family and my mom worked in houses and made $25 a day. So, my mom never made over $15,000 in a year; like with two boys that ate her out of house and home. I don’t know how she did it. She said, “I’m not paying $75 for some shoes that you’re not going to wear to church.” And I had to come up with a way to get that money. I started cutting up boxes and cleaning off cans in a convenience store down the street. And I started cutting yards and raking and pulling grass from around houses and washing cars…everything that I could do; and I ended up making about $385. A kid with $385 when I made more than my mom did. My mom was like, “Listen. You get them shoes and you give me the rest of that money! I’ma hold on to that for you. I don’t want you to work like that. If I wanted you to work like that, I wouldn’t send you to school. You go to school and do what you’re supposed to do over there and let me pay the bills.” Ervin and I both crying on the plane going to the Olympics crying because he inspired me to greatness and that’s all it takes sometimes. One conversation with the right person, or one meeting or putting somebody on a pedestal and saying I wanna be like that and you actually go and try it. I actually went and tried it and I succeeded.”
A Texas native, Mark Henry was a WWE Hall of Fame inductee in 2018. Henry joined the WWE in 1996 after a successful career as a two-time U.S. Olympic weightlifter. During his professional wrestling career, he’s been the WWE’s World Heavyweight Champion, European Champion World Heavyweight Championship.
Henry is currently a WWE producer.