Snitsky (@therealsnitsky) is a professional wrestler best known for his time in WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Indianapolis, IN to discuss his memorable WWE debut angle with Kane and how it led to further appearances, punting a baby on Raw and how that has become part of his legacy, his shaved look in ECW, the foot fetish storyline, the brutal Paul London Royal Rumble elimination, his recent appearance on WWE Raw with Chelsea Green, what he is doing now, if he has stopped wrestling and more!
Quote I’m thinking about: “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it” – Thomas Jefferson
On having an emergency landing on his way to the convention:
“I had an interesting trip, basically a two-hour flight from Philly to Indianapolis turned into a whole day of hoping that I make it to Indianapolis alive, because we had a fire emergency landing in Pittsburgh. That’s the last thing you really want to hear when you’re flying somewhere. I was actually watching Varsity Blues, the movie. I have my headphones on just chilling. I can see the stewardess doing these brace for impact things. I’m like, they don’t usually do that. So I pulled my earphone. They’re like, Oh, we may be having a crash landing and blah, blah, blah. I’m like, what? So, your mind starts racing, it was crazy, dude. Never in all my life I thought I’d be in that situation on a little two-hour flight. We literally took off from Philly, emergency landed in Pittsburgh. I texted my wife, she’s a mess.”
On what could have happened if he didn’t get injured playing football:
“Well hindsight is always 2020. I mean, I considered myself an elite athlete at the time. I was playing offensive tackle, I went to NFL combines, the whole nine yards. I was moving pretty good. I played a lot of basketball, so I always had good feet, and actually got a lot of Division One offers for basketball too. But I figured with my size, six-six, have a better chance of going pro football and pro basketball because I played in the Keystone State Games. I was a starting center for the Northeast region of Pennsylvania, believe it or not, as a six-six white guy. So I could hoop. I was always really good at basketball. Just came natural. I was always good at basketball and baseball and football, but I always wanted to be a professional athlete, so I was like, well I’ll stick with football. It’s my best chance. But I mean, not to sound arrogant or anything, but I could have probably went pro in all the sports, because I was pretty good. I just got inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame in 2018.”
On getting to WWE:
“So like I said, I trained at the Wild Samoan person Training Center in Allentown. Pops, Afa, was my mentor. He brought me up to Wilkes Barre at the time for a house show, myself and another gentleman had a dark match. Tommy Suede, he was also training at the Samoans, and him and I had our dark match. That was October of 2003. May of 2004, Johnny Ace called me and he’s like, ‘Hey, we’re going to bring you in. We’re gonna have you move to Louisville…’ Blah, blah, blah. I was literally sitting in my underwear and I was like, Ah! I’m running around the house in my underwear. My mom’s like, ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ I’m like, ‘I just got signed!’ It’s like winning the lottery. It’s crazy. I can still vividly see it in my head, sitting there in my underwear on the phone with Johnny, and running down the steps and around the house. So then June, I moved to Louisville. Started Louisville as Mean Gene Mondo. I was Mike Mondo’s little brother, and we did a gimmick together. Then just one day, Fit Finley came down to OVW on a Wednesday and worked me in the ring. I wrestled probably 30 matches that day. One as a heel, as a baby, work the arm, work the shoulder, work the neck, every single scenario you could think of I had a match to show Fit what I could do. So Fit, I guess, apparently liked what he saw, went back to the office and gave me the thumbs up. That weekend, Howard, the awesome Howard Finkel, called me and told me I’d be traveling to Seattle. I was like, sweet. I didn’t know what I’d be doing. I had no idea. They just told me I needed to be at T,V so that’s what I did. I went to TV, hung out at catering, waited till somebody came to get me. Dean Malenko came over, and he’s like, ‘Vince needs you at the ring.’ I’m like, Okay. Go out, it’s kind of cool. So it’s me, Lita, Kane, Vince, the producers. We’re walking through this scenario, the match, and blah, blah, blah. ‘Then you’re going to hit him with a chair. He’s going on Lita, she’s going to miscarry.’ I’m not thinking anything of it. I’m happy to be there. I’m like, This is great.”
On whether the appearance was supposed to be a one-off:
“They never came out and told me that. But in the past tense, that’s what I had heard. But it probably was because the next week I’m at training and we’re doing our drills. Tommy Dreamer is like, ‘Hey, Vince just called. They’re wondering where you’re at.’ I think he’s ribbing me. Why the f*ck would Vince want to be calling looking for me like, that’s what I’m thinking. He’s like, ‘No, you got to get to Raw.’ I’m like, Yeah, okay, so I’m still doing [drills]. He’s finally come up to the ring. He’s like, ‘You have to go.’ I’m like, ‘Are you f*cking ribbing me?’ He’s like, ‘No, you got to get to the airport.’ I’m like, Okay. So I go. We’re staying at this hotel, I shot back to my room, got all my sh*t together, and I’m literally through the airport running. I’m soaked through my clothes. I get to the door, and they’re starting to close the door. I’m like, I gotta get on that flight! So I get on that flight, which I got all sweated for nothing because I ran there. Get on that flight, that flight’s delayed, so we’re sitting there. I’m soaked through my clothes. I’m like, I’m not going to make my connection, so I’m calling the office, ‘Hey, I don’t think I’m going to make my connection in Dallas.’ They’re like, ‘Okay, well, call us when you get there.’ I’m like, Alright, I get to Dallas. I call them, missed the connection. They’re like, take the shuttle over to the private jet area, they’re going to fly the WWE corporate jet to get you. I was like, sweet. I’m glad I missed the flight. Here comes the WWE jet.”
They sent the jet just for you?
“I don’t know if somebody got fired over that, but it was a very costly mistake for not getting my travel that week. But yeah, so I get on the WWE corporate jet, Dave Lagana was the agent they sent to get me. So he’s going over all the stuff we’re going to do, blah, blah, blah. So I ultimately get to Arizona, and I just do an interview with JR, and that’s kind of where the catch phrase started. Because he was like, ‘You’re in a ring, don’t you feel bad that Lita lost her baby?’ I’m like, ‘No, it’s not my fault she was in there. She shouldn’t have been in the ring.’ Literally, that’s just off the top of my head. [It wasn’t written?] No. And then that just took off. Stephanie came to me the next week. She’s like, ‘We’re gonna have you cut a promo every time before you do a match and always say “It’s not your fault.”‘ I’m like, okay. That’s literally how it started. It’s crazy. Now every day of my life, I get it at least 10 times a day. I wish I had $1 every time I heard it. Seriously, at the shop, people will come, ”It’s not my fault.’ So it just kind of took a life of its own.”
On punting a baby:
“Well, here’s the thing, going back to like I was saying about football and all that, I was actually an all area punter my junior year of high school. I averaged like 37 yards as a junior in high school, so I had always had the leg to do it. And ironically, all these years later, that’s one of the things I’m known for. It’s kind of funny.”
Did they know this when they were setting it up?
“No, like I said, I sat in catering and just waited for somebody to come and get me. Dean Malenko came and got me and said, they need you to ring for the first shot. But when we were doing a baby thing, Vince was there as well with that. A little bit of a funny story, we’re walking through it, Vince was like, ‘Then you’re going to kick the baby into the crowd.’ I’m like, Cool. I’m thinking to myself, I’m going to try to kick it as high as I could to hit the Tron thing up top. Then they give me the baby. I’m like, man, it’s gonna be kind of hard to do. Have you ever tried to kick a baby? It’s not easy.
You think it shouldn’t be that hard, but it’s actually pretty hard to kick a baby, though. But anyways, so in my head, I’m thinking I’m gonna whack this sh*t out of this thing. I’m gonna kick it as high as I can. And then Vince is like, ‘Whatever you do, don’t miss the baby. Make sure you kick it.’ I’m like, ‘Listen, Mr. McMahon, I was already a punter in high school. This is gonna be f*cking amazing.’ And he just looked at me and just left it at that. Then we went out. We did it in the whole spiel, and then back through the curtain, he gives me a big hug, he’s like, that was great. I’m like, I told you. I don’t have a confidence issue. I’m pretty confident in my ability, so I knew it was gonna be great.”
On whether the fan might still have the baby:
“If you watch the footage back, I’m kind of giving Lita the evil eye, and I kind of go like this. He threw it back at me, and it skimmed right over top my head, so he didn’t like it.”
On the baby punting being part of his legacy:
“I don’t really know how to respond to that. When I got into wrestling, I never in a million years would have thought that whole storyline, just being thrown into it, because I had never done a dark match. Nobody knew who I was. I was just there, and then all of a sudden I’m the biggest heel on the show. It’s crazy, literally that quick.”
On his foot fetish storyline:
“Well in real life, I like ladies’ feet. It’s funny because my wife, when we first got together, I was like, you gotta take your shoes off. I have to see your feet, because there will not be a second date if you have ugly feet. I get right to the point, there’s no beating around the bush. I’m not going to stay with somebody who has ugly feet.”
On how it made it to WWE TV:
“I went right to Vince, because they were like, come to us with ideas, come to us with storylines. I know Vince, he’s kind of off the wall. He’s a little wacky. So I was like, Yeah, I’m gonna tell him about the foot fetish and see if we can incorporate it in the characters. I was like, ‘Mr. McMahon, I got this idea.’ Told him my idea and in a second, he’s like, That’s great. We’ll do it. Literally, that quick. So that’s kind of how that started, just trying to be different, trying to stand out a little bit. Because at the time, it was just kind of like a revolving door. Guys were coming and going. I mean, I was there for five years, but I saw a lot of guys come and go. So just to differentiate, and the baby thing was kind of off the wall. So let’s keep it going. Then I did the tag team thing with Goldust for a while where, like all the oddities and all that kind of stuff, got the suck Mae Young’s toes at WrestleMania. She loved it.”
On his shaved look in ECW:
“It wasn’t really pitched. It’s kind of weird. I’m out at the ring, working out, and Vince was on the way over. I’m like, ‘Hey Mr. McMahon.’ And he’s like, ‘Hey, go home and shave all your hair off, even your eyebrows, and go over to the makeup lady and see if she could get something to make her teeth look nasty.’ I’m like, Okay. I wasn’t feeling it, but you don’t tell Vince McMahon no.”
There’s no explanation for this?
“No. I guess maybe because of the ECW thing coming up, and he knew they were going to be drafting me to the ECW, that’s the only thing I can think of. Because I got a whole new character. I got a new action figure, whole nine yards. So I was like I’ll go with it. But I literally had to dry paint the sh*t on my teeth every night.”
On the segment with Heidenreich:
“I don’t know. They came to me, you got this segment with Heidenreich. I’m like, sweet. Paul [Heyman] was with Heidenreich at the time, and we’re going towards the angle with me and him and Glenn and Mark and, I don’t even know, it just turned into this creepy homoerotic sh*t, but it got the point across. It did what we wanted to do. I didn’t think anything of it, but watching it back, I’m like, That’s kind of creepy, but that’s what we were going for so but it’s funny, because he’s like, ‘I like what you do to babies.’ I’m like, ‘I like your poetry.’ This is funny, though. And then the poem I did for Edge and Lita’s wedding, that was pretty good, too. [Do you still remember it?] Oh yeah, most of it. But another funny story with Vince, they get me this tuxedo to wear. So I’m like, Well I can’t just wear a tuxedo that’s too plain. So I rip the arms off it. They’re like, well, we have to clear it with Vince. I’m like, okay. So we go in, and it was a rental but he’s like, okay, so off with the sleeves. There goes the rentals. So I don’t know what that ended up costing the company, but it was pretty funny, because it was a rental tux and they cut the rental sleeves.”
On the Paul London Royal Rumble elimination:
“I dare say it’s the top elimination ever, in my opinion. Not because I was involved in it, but because just the crowd reaction, the bump. All things taken into consideration, I don’t think anything else really matches it. So Paul and I, he took me off to the side, I’m like, ‘Hey, what do you want to do?’ [He said] ‘Well, you know, this, this and this, let’s try this…’ and then it evolved into that. And he’s like, ‘Well, just clothesline me’, because I wanted to somehow to make it impactful. He’s like, ‘Why don’t you just clothesline me off the apron?’ I’m like, ‘Okay, well, how do you want to do it?’ He’s like, ‘Well, I’ll miss something, and then just hit me and I’ll flip off the apron.’ I’m like, ‘Sweet, but I’m going to have to clothesline you hard, pretty much in the face to get the momentum.’ Because if I was lower, he wouldn’t have room to flip. So I had to hit him high so he could get up and still rotate. So it’s almost like physics, I dare say. So I was like, ‘Well, it’s gonna be probably in the face or the throat area or the head.’ And he was like, fine. I f*cking crammed him, dude. I ain’t gonna lie, I hit him hard! But that f*cking bump. The crowd, they thought he was dead. It looked unplanned, that’s how vicious it looked as a fan watching it. Even watching it back, I still Ooh, because it’s like, if you slow it down and see where I hit him, I hit him square right where your nose meets your forehead, and I f*cking hit him. He took it like a champ. He’s awesome. Paul’s great. Another guy they could have done so much more with. I always loved working with Paul. But yeah, that was pretty awesome, even all these years later, looking back on it, because that was 2005, 20 years ago.”
On whether he is done wrestling:
“No, I still wrestle here and there. I just got stem cell shots in my knee though, on March 29. I’ve been dealing with a little bit of a meniscus issue. So I went down to the great people at Lifemed Institute in Maryland, and they gave me an injection with that and did some vitamin infusion with the wife. It’s freaking amazing, that stuff. I don’t know the science behind it but I’ve had the best freaking workouts the last few weeks since I went down there.”
On his recent cameo with Chelsea Green:
“It just happened. Daivari is one of my best friends. I traveled with him at WWE. He’s one of the road agents now. So he was like, ‘Hey, are you stopping by the Wilkes Barre show?’ I’m like, ‘Well, I wasn’t planning to, are you going to be there?’ He’s like, Yeah. I said, alright, we’ll take a ride up. So me and my wife took a ride up, and we’re just sitting and catering with Daivari, John Cohen comes up to me, he’s like, ‘Hey, they have an idea for a backstage segment with Chelsea Green.’ I was like, Oh, cool. I’ve known Chelsea forever, plus I think she’s awesome, the character is great. So I was like, hell yeah, I’ll do it. And then literally one take, and that was it, it was crazy. She’s just so good. It’s funny, just trying to stay in character is half the battle sometimes, because it was funny.”
On some fans thinking that the baby that was punted was real:
“There were a lot of people who thought that the baby was a real baby. I don’t want to by any means talk down about wrestling fans, but there is a small majority of them that see things on TV and whatever they see, they think is real. I’m telling you, as I’m sitting here right now with this amazing beard and ruggedly handsome good looks, I’m telling you, it’s crazy. I’m just like, this TV show is fake. We’re not kicking real babies.”
What is Gene Snitsky grateful for:
“My health, my wife and still having my mom.”
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