Marc Mero (@MarcMero) is a retired professional wrestler best known for his time in WCW and WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Atlanta, GA to discuss how Dusty Rhodes created his Johnny B Badd persona, his other gimmicks like Marvelous Marc Mero and Wildman Marc Mero, jumping to WWE and being asked by Vince McMahon if he could do a Tarzan yell, negotiating the first ever guaranteed WWE contract, having his wife Sable as his valet, Steve Austin refusing to work with him, his work today as a motivational speaker, and more!

Get Marc Mero’s book “Badd To Good” here: https://a.co/d/0bzqassE

Congratulations on the book. 

“Thank you. It did really well. Ben Veal, who co-wrote the book with me, is someone that could take your words and make them into life, where people are reading and going, oh my gosh, I feel like I’m there.”

Your story is so amazing, and we’re going to dive into it throughout this episode. But I’m curious, do you think that life after wrestling has been more successful for you than when you were in?

“By far. It’s like finding your calling. Wrestling was entertaining, but what I do now is life-changing, and there’s no greater joy than helping another person. I found that joy through so much heartache and loss and brokenness and stories that people can relate to, and I think that’s why it’s been so successful.”

You’ve had so much loss, you’ve had so much pain, but you show up with a smile on your face, and you live in such a spirit of joy all the time. Where does that come from?

“Well, first and foremost, my faith in Christ. I’m a Christian, and he has changed my life. I grew up Jewish. A lot of people don’t know this, but I grew up Jewish, and my last name used to be Merowitz, and it was shortened to Mero. But when I gave my life to Christ, everything changed. But I went through, you know, I backslid. I went through some hard times, brokenness, divorce and death. My little brother and sister, they both died at 21, my mother died at 58, my dad died from lung cancer, he was looking right at me, and losing, of course, all the guys we wrestled with and against in the business that passed on, so many hit me hard. Eddie Guerrero was just such a light in the world, and having so many great matches with Eddie and so many guys, Brian Pillman and guys that we just traveled with and we’re with all the time, that next thing, they’re gone. It’s just you realize how precious life is.”

A lot of people focus on the things they don’t have. But you just have this light.

“You know what? I realized, because I do so many schools and so many presentations, you feed off the audience, but the audience also feeds off of you, and you got to come out there, and you just got to have a lot of energy and positivity. When they hear my story, they think, maybe my life isn’t so bad, maybe I should start spending more time with my family. Maybe I shouldn’t bully those kids or do this or do that, and it’s really changed a lot. After my presentation, we often see kids hugging each other, which is like, you know you’ve touched their heart in some way.”

Did you have any plan for what life after wrestling was going to look like?

“Oh, man. First of all, life after wrestling was really dark. That’s when I really fell into drugs again, walked away from God, just lived a horrible life. Just didn’t care. I let myself go out of shape, out of money, out of time. It was just where I remember that it came to the point where I just didn’t want to be here anymore, losing so many people in my life, and then, of course, going through the divorce and going through all that again. It’s just the depression got so bad, and I had anger issues also on top of that, you know, because you blame other people, and you live with this bitterness and this resentment, and all these things that come together just weigh on you, and you just feel it. I know someone out there is listening to this right now that’s going, I went through that, or maybe I’m going through that right now, and it came to the point where I just remember that I just wanted to end it. It was Christmas Day, and I drove to Cocoa Beach, Florida on Christmas Day, and I sat under a pier, and I remember the waves just rolling in and out and just thinking, I don’t want to be here anymore. I had no place to go. I mean, Christmas was always so big in my life, many of our friends have passed on through the wrestling and, of course, going through the divorce and all the heartache I went through, I remember just wanting to end it all, and then, if it wasn’t for me getting on my knees and asking Christ back into my life. I remember just begging him for forgiveness and thinking to myself, What am I going to do? I’m basically starting over again. So I get a job. That’s where I got a job at Gold’s Gym as a trainer, and started, and then this thing started getting better and better and next thing you know, when the schools thing opened up. But let me get back to that little office building I’ve bought for 200 grand, because it’s part of the story. So fast forward. Now, all these years later, I have this little building that I recently sold four years ago, but I held the note. I was the bank, okay, and they gave me a huge down payment, and they have to pay X amount of money for 10 years. And there’s a balloon payment. And the way the Lord works this balloon payment is $214,000, exactly what I bought it for all those years ago. So it’s an incredible story, but it’s just how my life has turned out, that those things, you wonder how this happened. I don’t believe in coincidence. I really believe that things are meant to be. So anyone out there that’s maybe going through a hard time, man, hang in there. It’s gonna get better. You got to believe that.”

Christmas Day, 2003 was that your rock bottom moment?

“I believe that rock bottom had a basement, and I went right into that basement, and that was it, that was gonna be the end of Marc Mero.”

Because you didn’t just think about committing suicide. You were ready to do it.

“Yeah. It was going through so much pain that when you don’t have anybody to talk to, we don’t have someone in your life that you could just share with. Not saying that there weren’t people that would have listened to me or whatever, but sometimes you feel like you’re more of a pain to people you know, they don’t hear sob stories and I held so much inside, and I think that’s the worst things because when I deal with a lot of students day too, they hold in these suicidal thoughts or self harm, or whatever it is, this pain. And when you hold things inside, it’s like a volcano, and sooner or later, that volcano erupts, and it often erupts in negative behavior, whether it leads to you hurting other people, horrible relationships, anger issues, bitterness, resentments, self-harm and worst case, those suicidal thoughts.”

So if that was the rock bottom moment, take me into your wrestling career. When did you feel like you were on top of the world?

“It had to be as Johnny B Badd. First of all, I am a boxer from New York. My boxing career was over 10 years of drug addiction, and then the next thing you know, I get off the drugs. I had a bunch of friends over at my apartment, and one of my buddies had the remote control for the television, and he’s flipping through the TV channels, and he lands on professional wrestling. I go, ‘Stop it there. Let me see this.’ I’m looking at the television, and I get this aha moment. Some people call it the aha moment, and I go, ‘Guys, I can do that.’ My buddies, who are still my buddies today, they bust out laughing. They go, ‘Marc, are you crazy? Look at the size of those guys.’ I think the Road Warriors were on TV. They had traps from their ears coming down. They go, ‘Look at the size of those guys. They’re gonna pick you up and just throw you around that ring.’ I said, ‘No, man, I’m telling you, I can do that.’ Because I was always a good athlete. Another friend of mine goes, ‘Marc, you’re 30 years old. You want to start a pro career now?’ I remember, and I use this to this day, and I said two words, I go, ‘I believe,’ and those two words changed my life. It’s always about taking action towards a dream or goal, and the action I had to take back then, I had to find out whether there was a wrestling school. I don’t know how to wrestle! I was living in Venice, Florida, and there was a wrestling school in Tampa, Boris Malenko, Dean and Joe Malenko’s father had a wrestling school, so I drive there after working on weekends. One year later, at 31 years old, is when I signed my first contract. But being at Malenko’s school now, and I gotta tell you, remember, I boxed, played football, hockey, lacrosse, all physical sports. Boris Malenko had me get in the ring, and they kind of have you just cross your arms and just fall backwards. I hit that mat, and I sound like a seal from Sea World. I was like [gasps]. I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t believe it. I thought to myself, how do these guys do this night after night and land on their backs like this? Because I didn’t know how to fall at the time. Of course, he trained me and taught me and got me ready to get a try-out. I was a job guy that would drive nine hours from Venice, Florida to Center Stage here in Atlanta, hope to get picked on television. And that’s when they picked me to be on television. After my match, is when Dusty Rhodes came up to me and said, ‘Hey, kid, anybody ever tell you you look like Little Richard?’ And I thought to myself, I thought he was talking about a wrestler. I go, ‘I never heard of Little Richard.’ He goes, ‘You don’t know Little Richard?!’ I go, ‘Oh, the singer? No one’s ever told me that.’ He goes, ‘Oh, I think I got a gimmick for you.’ That’s how I became Johnny B Badd. From making $23,000 a year digging swimming pools to becoming a multi-millionaire in wrestling was because Dusty Rhodes said, kid, anybody ever tell you look like Little Richard?” 

So that gimmick changed your life?

“It changed my life, man. And not only that, but it also opened the doors to meeting so many people. Oh my gosh. It was like all these celebrities wanted to meet me. They obviously knew who Little Richard was. First of all, they all thought I was black, you know, being so tanned and a Little Richard gimmick. To this day I’ll go to a place and someone goes, ‘What character were you in wrestling?’ I go, ‘I was Johnny B Badd.’ ‘No, he was a black guy.’ ‘No, that was me.'”

So when you became Wild Man Marc Mero, Vince McMahon asked you if you could do a Tarzan yell?

“Yes. Okay, well what happened was, I think they were thinking they would get kind of a knockoff of Johnny B Badd, something similar, like they do with some of the characters. But because the lawsuits were really going back and forth. Now, remember, guys are jumping ship. You’ll see one guy on Raw one week, and next week he’s on Nitro or something. So it wasn’t going to happen. So they had to completely change my character. Of course, I’m trusting them. Whatever they’re going to come up with is going to be great. I mean, they made The Undertaker, they made all these great characters, right? I remember they flew me in to talk about what they’re going to have me do. We sit around a table, and Vince looks at me and goes, ‘Marc, what do you think of Wild Man Marc Mero?’ I go, ‘What’s a wild man?’ He goes, ‘Can you do a Tarzan yell?’ I thought they know what they’re doing. I go, ‘Vince, I don’t have a very strong voice, and I cannot do a Tarzan yell.’ He goes, ‘All right, we’re gonna go with Wild Man Marc Mero.’ And I go, okay, am I from the jungle? What am I? I’m doing this Tutti Frutti character in WCW, coming out now, where am I from? So it was very hard for me to relate to, which the audience doesn’t relate to. So it was very hard. And not only that, they hired my wife, Sable is my valet, and now you got this beautiful woman going to the ring with you and who they’re going to cheer for. So it was very difficult right off the bat, but they really wanted to push me and give me some momentum. So they have me enter this Intercontinental tournament where I had to beat Owen Hart, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Ron Simmons. I mean, these are some top guys that you’re they’re putting you over to win the Intercontinental title. So I was thinking now they’re really going to start giving me that push I always dreamed about, why I went to the WWF or WWE. The next thing you know, I’m wrestling the fake Diesel, the fake Razor, TL Hopper, The Goon. Wonderful guys and good workers, but they’re not the guys that is going to take you up the ladder in the WWF.”

What shifted? 

“That’s the thing, maybe it’s a great question for Vince. I don’t know, maybe my confidence wasn’t there. I thought it was very hard for me to work with guys. First of all, this is really kind of hard to talk about in the sense that I wasn’t well-liked. My whole life, I had a lot of friends. I was always popular in sports, Captain on my teams, and then you go into this new organization where you’re not very well liked, and you didn’t really understand why. Well, come to find out, later, I got this guaranteed contract. I have my wife flying everywhere I’m flying, so I’m not hanging out with the guys, not going to the bars. I’m not staying up and doing things with those guys, or hanging out with guys. I’m with my wife all the time. And then I start realizing that no one really wants to work with me, you’re kind of an outcast, and it’s the worst feeling in the world.”

Is it jealousy?

“You know, part of it is. I guess, when you think about Stone Cold Steve Austin and Mick Foley just came in months before me for an opportunity. Next thing you know, I’m the first guy that gets this, not only a guaranteed contract, a big signing bonus, on top of it.”

So how did it come about that you were able to convince him to do this?

“Well, what happened was, three years before this, Vince flew me to New York after my second contract with WCW was up, and we had dinner together at his house and had a great conversation. He said to me, ‘What’s it going to take to bring you to the WWF?’ I said, ‘Vince, I got a three-year guarantee contract waiting for me at WCW, and a signing bonus, and I would need that if I’m going to come to WWF.’ And he says, ‘Marc we’d love to have you, but we don’t give guaranteed contracts. We give opportunities.’ I said, ‘Well, then I can’t come.’ We shook hands. There was no arguing. There’s no animosity. They took me to the airport and I left. Three years go by, and next thing you know, my contract is up again. And Vince says, ‘what’s ‘What’s it going to take to bring you to the WWF?’ I go, ‘Vince, you got to give me a guaranteed contract.’ He goes, ‘I’ve never done that before.’ I go, ‘Well, that’s what I got to have, because I got another three-year guaranteed contract with WCW.’ He goes, okay. I go, ‘Well, I also have a signing bonus there.’ He goes, ‘Okay, is that it?’ ‘Well, Vince, I’d like my wife to fly everywhere I fly. I just got married not too long ago. We just got married two years before this, and I’ve seen so many divorces in the wrestling industry.'” 

Was she in the business at this point? 

“No, she was a stay-at-home mom for her daughter, Mariah. And he said, ‘Wait, you want your wife to fly everywhere you fly?’ Well, yeah, Vince, I see too many divorces, and I just want her to go where I go, but since she’s going with me, why don’t we make her my valet? He goes, ‘No, no, let’s just worry about you.’ So he agrees to all the demands I had, guaranteed contract, signing bonus, and my wife would fly where I flew. So we’re excited about this. And then he sends me the ticket to fly to New York to go over the new character, but he only sends one ticket. So I call him. I have a cell phone. I call him. I go, ‘Vince, I got the ticket, but there’s only one here.’ He goes, ‘How many do you need?’ I go, ‘Well, my wife’s supposed to fly everywhere I fly.’ He goes, ‘To sign a contract?’ I said, Yes. So he sends another ticket. We fly in, and that’s when he said, when we’re walking into his office, he goes, ‘I got to put her on TV!’ And that’s when we came up with that name. That day, we went through a bunch of names, we came up with the name Sable.”

You go out there with her. They want to cheer for her. What does this do for your character?

“Here’s the thing that a lot of people maybe don’t realize, when you’re married and you’re in love, you’re a team. I’m thinking, I’m getting guaranteed money no matter what. If she gets hurt, she starts building her character up, she’s going to make a lot of money in merchandise and so on, right? And sure enough, you know, the more I did to lower my profile, the more her profile raised. Of course, things like have her come out in a potato sack or something. She ripped it off and have a bikini on, we were doing this over and over again, where she was always one step ahead of me. Until we came down to actually having to wrestle against each other, and she Sable bombed me. I was ready to go into a program with Steve Austin too, which that’s top of the top of the food chain, right there. When she Sable bombed me, now she’s a good athlete, but I basically Sable bombed myself. But it took me out of the program with Steve, because Steve thought, if a girl’s going to do that to him, I’m not going to let him get in the ring with me. Which people would be like, Oh, you blew the opportunity. But remember, now I’m raising her profile. We’re living at home. They’re backing up the Brinks truck to our house at this point. So when you’re a team like that, I’m going to make the same amount of money whether I get really popular or not. So I took that move or that opportunity and did that.”

How quickly did you realize she was much more popular than your character?

“Very quickly. But it was fun, because when I became Marvelous Marc Mero, became the heel, it was all perfect. But the Wild Man character, even though I’m going to the ring and they’re basically cheering for her, it’s like, wow, how am I going to get over with this? So we changed it up. It worked out perfectly. And then had to teach her how to wrestle, because now Vince wants to put her into wrestling and bring the women’s title on her.”

You wrote in your book that you think Sable should be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.

“Oh, absolutely. The woman’s division, they didn’t really have a woman’s division so much back then at all. But she brought eyes to the channels. The ratings and everything were very high because of her.”

Did she talk to you about the storyline with Vince?

“No, I mean, she just thinks it’s just acting. I’d have to do this if I was in a movie or something like that. So, yeah, but it didn’t sit right with me, you know, didn’t sit right, and just was not good.” 

Was the door open for you to go back to WWE? 

“I had no desire to go back there. I thought I was [done], but then I did do some stints at TNA for a little while. And then, of course, I was friends with Hulk, so they started the XWF, and we tried that for a little while. And then I had my last match in 2006 and then hung up the boots.” 

Do you think you’ve had a Hall of Fame career?

“You know what? If you want to look at my WWF stint, no. But if you want to look at things I’ve done with WCW as Johnny B Badd, they were very entertaining.”

I feel like you’d be the perfect recipient for the Warrior Award:

“Something like that would be wonderful. If I ever did, DDP would be the guy to induct me.”

An interesting fact about you is that you were part of The Rock’s WWE debut match at Survivor Series, 1996

“Yes, I was the captain of the team. The plan was, obviously, Rock was going to win the match and stuff. But it was great. Rock is such an amazing guy. I mean, we got along so well. He’s brand new in the company, and I was there for just a little while longer before he was there. But a lot of people might know this about him, though, but he used to come and grab me and we pray together before a match, which I always remembered was a really cool thing. His faith was really strong, and I hope it continues to be strong. I hope it is. I haven’t talked to him in a long time, but I know he’s obviously doing amazing.”

Do you remember what the original pitch was for Brawl for all?

“I don’t even remember what it was. All I remember was I got a call from, I don’t know if it was Pritchard or Vince. I think it was Vince that called me, and he said, ‘We’re gonna do this thing now where we’re gonna have the guys fight, kind of like a tough man contest.’ And he said every time you do it, I think it was five or $10,000 extra on top of your salary. And I didn’t blink at it. No problem, okay.”

But perfect for you with the boxing?

“Well, you would think so, but remember, I’ve already had five shoulder surgeries, five elbow [surgeries]. I didn’t have the speed or the power I had as a young, 20-year-old boxer. But the thing I did still have was I had an amazing ability to slip punches. No one could really hit me, so the only way I’m really going to lose is if I get taken down. Well, they put me in there with the take-down king, Steve Blackman, and he took me down over and over. I remember that son of a gun, never got hurt or anything like that, but he blew out his knee. So next thing I know, I got my money for the fight, and they call me back. They go, ‘Guess what? You’re back in the Brawl For All.’ I go, great, it’s another 10 grand or whatever, and they told me I’m wrestling Bradshaw, which I’m gonna be really honest, I couldn’t stand Bradshaw back then. I didn’t think a lot of people could, because he was a bully, and when we wrestled each other, he didn’t like me, and he would take liberties on me. He would Power Bomb me so hard where I thought my lungs were to come through my chest, it would hurt so bad. I didn’t like him, so they told me I had to fight Bradshaw. I was like, Yes, I want to fight that guy so bad. Bradshaw calls me and says, ‘Hey, man, if you bow out, I get to fight this guy, you’re kind of out of it anyways.’ I go, ‘No, I want to fight you.’ So he knew I had no fear of him. So obviously, it’s three rounds. We do our three rounds. They call it a draw, he took me down, but I hit a better shot. So they call it a draw. Then, remember, they’re ready to take off the gloves and everything and put the gloves back on. We’re going one more round. So we had to fight one more, we’re the only ones that did four rounds and not three, and they gave him a decision, which was in Cleveland. I remember the place was just booing, thinking that I won the fight. I want to say this to Bradshaw. We couldn’t stand each other back then. I love that guy. I mean it when I say that. What he has done after his wrestling career with building wells in Africa, I believe he’s helped so many people. If I see him now, just give a big hug or something, you know, like there’s no animosity or no bitterness. But back then, and what I love about going to wrestling conventions is like guys you may didn’t like back then or didn’t hang out with, it’s like everybody’s like we did something that not many people in this world could do. So it’s this camaraderie that you have, this unspoken word, that you just see someone, you go, ‘Hey, man, how’s it going?'”

So how long did it take you to get to that point with Bradshaw?

“Yesterday [laughs]. No, years ago. We kept in touch through social media and wrote some nice letters to each other.” 

What is Marc Mero grateful for?

“My relationship with Christ, my wife and my health.”

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