The Godfather On Being Papa Shango: Vince McMahon Said I Had The Body Of A Monster, But A Baby Face

Charles Wright (The Godfather) was the latest guest on Stone Cold’s Broken Skull Sessions. 

During the interview, Wright discussed his earliest days in the wrestling business and forming a friendship with The Undertaker. He also chronicled his road from the USWA to WWE and how it took him all over the world, including a tour in Germany where he worked with and learned from a number of eventual-industry legends. Once hired by WWE, Wight shares what Vince McMahon said to him and how it lead to him becoming Papa Shango in 1992. 

“Taker went to Japan. When Taker came back, I went to Japan,” Wright explained. “When I came back from Japan, Taker went to WCW. Then I went to Germany and worked with Otto Schwanz. Listen to who was on that card, God rest so many of their souls; Owen Hart, Fit Finlay, Dave Taylor, Scott Hall, “Cannonball” P.N. News, Rambo. That’s the people that were on that eight-month tour with me, and I learned a lot there. When I got back from Germany, Taker was in WWE and so they called me and say, ‘We’re going to give you a tryout.’ I got a tryout in Arizona and Vince [McMahon] hired me. He says, ‘We’re going to hire you,’ and here’s the part that nobody knows, they hired me and he says, ‘We’re going to put you on payroll.’ He says, ‘You have the body of a monster, but you have a baby face.’ He goes, ‘We got to figure out something to do with your face.’ A couple months later, they called me and said, ‘Hey, go rent the movie Live and Let Die.’ I already knew the movie. He says, ‘We’re going to do a voodoo character off of the guy,’ and that’s where it came from.”

Wright would perform as Papa Shango for two years before returning to the USWA. He would come back to WWE in 1995 as Kama, but perhaps had his most memorable run upon his second return in 1997 when he joined the Nation of Domination and eventually transitioned into The Godfather. 

In 2016, Charles Wright was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.

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