Original subtitles

This is where the magic happened right here.

Oh my God, this place still look exactly the same.

Barnes, who's Barnes?

This is a Henry locker.

I was able to come in here and do something that very few

people have ever done.

Do things that nobody ever done.

From that point I felt, man,

I'm different, I'm special.

When you come from poverty and now you live in gated

communities with million dollar houses.

People see you and they judge you by that.

They don't know that house that I grew up in.

They don't know this.

They had every advantage to be better than me.

And they weren't.

- The World's Strongest Man, Mark Henry.

- There was a lot of people in the locker room that doubted

Mark that wanted to test Mark.

- This isn't the Olympics.

This isn't weightlifting.

- Mark Henry wanted to prove that he could be just as good

of a wrestler as he was a weightlifter.

- I'd like to welcome all of you to the Hall of Pain.

- You know, African American kids seeing someone like

Mark Henry, that was huge.

I've always viewed myself as being The World's Strongest Man.

Now, I get a chance to prove it.

Mark Henry breaking history.

- He puts his mind to be the best at everything.

- Mark had a great idea of what his gifts were.

- High five

- I love his ability to evolve.

- I am very proud of you.

Just shows you where there's a will, there's a way.

- Just good to know where you came from.

And know what you did mattered.

I was born in a little small town called Silsbee, Texas.

June 12th, 1971.

I'm one of those kids that grew up in poverty,

but didn't know that I was poor.

My mother, she always tried to make it peaceful for us at home.

Man, my mom was arguably the best cook in Southeast Texas.

Uh, my mom, uh, cleaned houses,

and cooked meals in people's house.

And that's what she did for a living.

I mean, she didn't make a lot of money, but she felt fulfilled

because she was always doing what she loved.

And that's cooking for other people and seeing

the smiles on their face

when they tasted her food, they would go,

"Oh my God, Miss Barbara."

And she would just start smiling and rubbing her hands together

like that was her passion.

And I learned at an early age, like, you need

to do what you love.

- Let's salute the strongest men in the world,

Vasily Alekseyev.

- Vasily Alekseyev was the first lifter that I ever saw, and I

just loved the fact that people threw roses at him and they

revered him and they loved on him, and I wanted that.

I figured that that came by being the strongest guy.

So, um, that's what I-I worked for my whole life.

My mother bought the 225 pounds concrete weight set.

And that's what me and my brother started on.

- Man, I was strong, but my brother was absolutely awesome.

- Andre a little bit upset now I think, ooh.

- As a little kid watching wrestling,

it just identified with me.

- Oh.

- Oh.

- Body slamming 300 pounds.

- Me and my brother, we would go outside and wrestle

in Miss Price's yard, the lady across the street from us.

There was a guy named Ricky Dixon who was a grown up.

Ricky was probably 20, 25 at the time and I was probably like 12.

It got to the point where Ricky was trying to break everybody

up, and he pushed me down and he was like, "Hey, back up.

You know, there's a new sheriff in town."

He's doing this whole shtick.

And I was like, "Don't push me like that again."

And my brother said, "Do something."

- It takes him forever to get mad,

but once he's upset.

- And I grabbed Ricky.

And man, before you knew it, he was off his feet and body

slammed on the ground and everybody was like.

"I see you, Mark," like that.

And it just felt good.

- Mark always had a smile on his face.

He would laugh and he would giggle.

He was tender hearted.

But when you pushed him in a corner, now leave him alone

because that bear is going to come out fighting.

- Boy, there's a lot of trouble happened in these hallways.

I tried to be good, though.

I was trying.

- He would tell people to leave him alone.

I mean, they were always agitating him.

And he told this one kid.

And he kept on and on and on.

And the next thing I know, Mark is throwing him on the lockers.

So, I'm sitting there trying to get him off the lockers,

and he turns around and tells the kid,

"She won't be here next time."

I went, "Oh, Lord."

But that was just him getting pushed, you know, to his limit.

I think that a lot of things was going on in his life.

He was growing very fast.

- I was a troubled kid.

I was very big.

I-I mean, just at ten years old, I was 225 pounds.

If it was big,

if it was black,

if it was derogatory.

Uh, that's what I got called.

Uh, I was Fat Albert.

I was Magilla Gorilla.

Uh, but the worst of everything is, you know, I was later found

out to have dyslexia, and the kids would call me retard.

Bro, like, that's the trigger word for me.

That's the word that'll get you smashed.

Which led to me in middle school being put in juvenile detention.

Uh, because of violent outbreaks.

They call it The Box.

You know, you get in trouble, you go to The Box.

Sixth grade, seventh grade.

I kept fighting everybody.

- All kids are kind of finding themselves.

You know, Mark was 350 pounds when he came into high school.

The guy was strong.

I don't think he knew how strong he was.

- Freshman year, Mark got moved to varsity and then his

brother Pat, you know,

"Come on, Mark, block him. Get him."

And he's like, "I know what I'm supposed to be doing."

They hike the ball and he took that whole defensive line out.

So he started getting little respect after that.

This room still smells exactly the same.

The smell of iron.

The smell of blood.

Craig McGallion, who was the strength coach at the time.

He was like, Mark Henry, "hey, you, uh, you got a past of

getting in trouble and all of that."

He was like, "It ends today."

He said, "You can be special.

I'm not talking about Silsbee special."

He said, "People will know you all over the world.

We just want you to stay out of trouble."

Boy saved me.

I remember that first meet, you know, the first competition,

and he just ran away with it.

I just saw a different Mark,

but he had that attitude, you know, like, you know,

I'm the [bleep] now.

So he took it and ran with it.

- The first year that Silsbee went to state, we won state.

You know, we went-we went to state and walked it.

- He started flourishing and got more and more and more.

- I totaled over 2,000 pounds,

squatted 832 pounds,

three time state champion, three time National champion.

Man, it felt good to be in the newspaper every week like man

Mark Henry the strongest kid in the world.

Nice little flat top fade right there.

When you do the right thing, you get the right rewards.

- In the late 80s,

we had heard that at the state powerlifting meet, there was

going to be this kid from Silsbee, Texas, and they thought

he was really going to do something big.

And sure enough, he came out and squatted over 800 pounds that

day as a high school student.

I mean, I'd never seen anything like it.

I ended up in the Guinness Book for about 15 years, and Sports

Illustrated and other people called me, you know, strongest

woman in the world and things like that.

I was married to Terry Todd, who was a pioneer in the sport of

powerlifting and also coached a number of athletes.

Mark was so natural an athlete and also so explosive that

he was ideally suited for weightlifting.

Although he was much too old to really be considered as an

Olympic weightlifter, if he had been in Bulgaria, they would

have had him lifting weights when he was ten.

But Mark potential was just unbelievable.

On the way home, Terry just said, "I just think we ought

to try to help him."

- Jan and Terry came to my house and explained to my mom that

yeah, Mark, he can go to college and play football.

He can be another football player.

But Mark is the best in the world at something.

She said, "Well, you know, I'll let him come up there

with y'all.

But he's a good kid. Don't mess him up."

And she meant it when she said that too.

Then, Terry was like,

"We want him to work to his potential, I think

that Mark could be the strongest person to ever lived."

[yelling]

I had to make a transition first from powerlifting

to Olympic lifting,

which are completely different things altogether.

Olympic weightlifting requires athleticism, flexibility.

You're pulling weight at a high rate of speed.

- Whoa.

Whoa, my God.

- You have to be able to control that.

That was something that had to be taught.

And it took about three years for most people to learn that

art, and I was able to pick it up in nine months,

because of my strength and make the Olympic team in 92.

I had to train so many hours and I was going to school at the

same time I was working at the YMCA.

In my city,

they banded together and said, "Man, we don't want you to work.

We just want you to focus on the Olympic Games."

- It takes a whole community to raise a child.

A child need to know that it's love.

Mark know he's loved by the people in Silsbee.

- It's undeniable how much that town,

means to him and how much he means to the town.

ou know, whenever he would come back home.

When he showed up in town, the town shut down.

And still to this day,

people trying to see Mark Henry, or talk to him.

- 'Cause I'm just glad to see you man.

I remember, you were about here.

And walking like this.

- They all raised a little over $25,000.

They all raised that money for me to go to the games.

That place is special.

I know it happens in other places, but it happened to me.

In 92, I came in 10th place.

I still had more to prove.

- He didn't do fabulously, but he was American Champion

by that time, and he held most of the American records

in weightlifting.

And the idea of going back to the Olympic Games in 96 was

a huge motivation for him.

- I like to stop and talk, but I got an appointment with history.

I was focused man.

Oh my God, man, you don't know the fire that was lit under me.

This is Jana giving me static about making a mistake.

- I met Mark in 93, one of my best friends from childhood.

We were driving across the country and stopped

in Colorado Springs.

- They stopped in at the Olympic Training Center to meet

a friend of mine.

I come to Jair Lynch's door and I get ready to knock

and I hear two girls laughing.

And I stop and I'm like

"Oh, this is a great moment. I finna to get 'em"

[door knocking]

- We hear this knock on the door, "Open up security."

And I'm like,

"Oh my God, we're gonna get Jair kicked out."

I mean, it was scrambling, you hear me?

She she she hid in the closet, to not get in trouble.

- I come out the closet, and I look at him and I'm like,

"You're biggest human being, I've ever seen in my life."

He was kind and he's fun.

And we were fast friends.

But he would write me poems and sing.

And I was like, "Yeah, this is the dude."

- When you find somebody that you would like to spend the rest

of your life with.

You know, it was pretty damn cool.

- Go inside, stay in there.

- To see him as an athlete was so much fun, and I remember him

calling me and he was like, "Jana, I think I'm gonna win

at the Olympics."

- Mark Henry just got the world record

at 800 pounds, exceeding the previous record by 7 pounds.

- You haven't seen this in a long time.

So this is your Barcelona jacket.

That was your warm up top from 92.

And I actually have a shirt from that contest.

- I can't believe I was ever that wide.

- You were wide.

Can you see that?

Like, look at that on you now.

- Good Lord.

- When I think about you and, like, proving how important you

were in the 1996 Olympic Games and how famous you are,

it's these, you know, because like, this is one of their main

posters for the games, people they're really focusing

on as their celebs.

And you're not the diver over here, but-

- No.

- But you are over here.

- Oh, wow.

- There you are.

After Barcelona,

we're just trying to figure out a way to, like, make him have

a nice life so that he can train and focus on the next Olympic

Games, which he wanted to do.

Terry had the idea that they would go talk to Vince.

Terry met Vince back when he was working on a long article that

he did about Andre the Giant that ran in Sports Illustrated.

Terry called Vince and explained to him that there was this

really unusual young man and that he'd been to the Olympic

Games, and he loved the WWE.

- Anytime you want some, you can get some.

I ain't going nowhere.

- Mark had a lot of charisma.

Mark has a dynamic personality.

Mark's smile lights up a room.

Mark had dunked a basketball at 400 pounds.

Immediately, it was like,

"This guy's made for the WWE."

From there, we sponsor Mark Henry's trip to the Olympics.

- Go ahead and get your gear on.

- You know, I wore WWE merchandise.

I wore the logo when I competed.

It was pretty cool, man, to have the WWE be a sponsor.

- Vince agreed to support Mark for the next several years,

with really no obligations on Mark's part.

Other than,

If at the end of the Olympic Games in 96 you want to wrestle,

I want to ask you to come and talk to me.

[yelling]

- Seeing him lift like I don't know, it was 500 pounds.

It was some heavy weight.

And then lifting up his foot to showboat.

And I was like, "Oh, you've got that thing in you."

- I was covering the 96 games in Atlanta, and I don't think there

had been an American weightlifter who had generated

this much excitement and anticipation in a generation.

- Mark was a very likable presence.

He was the embodiment of the jolly big man.

You know, he just seemed very good natured.

- Mark became the de facto spokesman for the Olympic team.

He was all over the place.

He got photographed by Annie Leibowitz.

He was on every late night talk show.

- How do you do 5000 calories a day?

What does that mean?

- I love bacon and sausage, man,

- Right.

- He did a lot of daytime shows like Oprah.

- Oh my gosh.

Geez your big.

- That's for you.

You gotta taste the gumbo.

I was able to go and get a level of notoriety that very few

people will get to have.

But I tell people all the time that I competed in a sport that

was corrupt, not making any excuses, but I was not going

to trade my health for a gold medal.

- The whole question of anabolic steroids was a big problem

for Mark because Mark didn't use drugs.

- Do you take performance enhancing drugs?

- No.

- Have you ever?

- No.

- And so in 96 in particular, there had been some weightlifter

who had been banned by the IOC for drug use.

And so the next thing we knew, he was allowed in the contest.

The positive drug tests that show up.

The penalties for those are really not enough

to deter somebody.

And so for Mark, that was really disheartening.

- I'm hoping that the Federations of Lifting will get

rid of some of these guys that are dirty.

It's like a slap in the face to me,

so I don't respect them at all.

The city of Atlanta, home of the Olympic Games.

- Mark Henry USA.

- I was focused, man.

I was there to compete.

The US team had not made a top ten finish in the Olympics

since like 1972.

I tore the muscle in between my ribs.

I was like, "You know what, man?

I'm going to lift anyway."

- Mark Henry had a great work ethic.

He didn't have to perform, but he went out there and lift just

enough to make the team place.

It shows a Mark Henry isn't just a great athlete.

He's also a team player.

- I cleaned it.

It felt like lightning struck me when I jerked that way.

I finished the competition.

And my team got the points

And we came in 10th place.

I'm the most proud of that of anything in my athletic career.

- He stood up.

And I was proud of him because he didn't do drugs,

so he didn't try to cheat.

He'd rather finish 10th and lose, then to cheat and win.

He wasn't scared to speak up against things that are wrong.

- Tamás Aján

He told me in Atlanta,"Hey, you got to stop talking about drugs

and weightlifting.

You're going to get the sport kicked out of the Olympics."

And I told him, I said, "No, you getting the sport kicked

out of the Olympics."

And I knew from after that conversation that I was never

going to do weightlifting again.

- You can't make a living in many Olympic sports.

- There's Carrie.

- People may admire the competitors, and they may pay

close attention to almost anything that's under the banner

of the Olympics, but you can't make a living at it.

So if a guy like Mark Henry is going to make a living,

especially with the Olympics being a springboard in terms of

their notoriety and popularity.

- The World's Strongest Man, Mark Henry.

- Then the place to go is into professional wrestling.

- Yeah.

The closing ceremonies, baby.

As soon as I left the Olympic games.

Terry Todd acted as my manager.

He said, we're going to go to meet Vince.

They want to talk to you about being a full time wrestler.

I didn't even know that that was possible.

But Vince had bigger plans than I did.

He is the newest member to our family,

The World's Strongest Man, Mark Henry.

- I signed a ten year multi-million dollar deal,

but the one thing that was different is I had the first

guaranteed contract.

Whether I succeeded or not, you know, I was going to get

paid the money we negotiated and no wrestler had that.

- Look out.

- I think Mark was in the neighborhood of $250,000 a year

for the ten year deal.

Mark Henry was the first major developmental contract that we

ever did in this company.

The feeling was, if Mark could come in to our world, and

adapt that it was limitless what Mark Henry could do.

- Oh wait a minute. It's a backbreaker.

It's a backbreaker.

- Ring the bell.

[bell ringing]

- The match was so much fun.

On television in a pay per view when I had no wrestling

experience whatsoever.

I thought, man, I had died and gone to heaven man.

- So in Mark's head Mark was already there.

"I'm a star.

You know, these other guys were working all this time,

and they can't even get on the card.

I'm featured.

Mark Henry, World's Strongest Man."

- Well JR, I am here with the World's Strongest Man,

Mark Henry.

- Most of the stars at the time had spent years and years in the

territories, and they had to scratch and claw for every spot

for every payday.

- Can you believe the strength of this human being?

- And then for this guy who's not from the wrestling world to

sign a mega contract, then be expected to perform

at a high level?

There was a lot of people in the locker room that doubted Mark

that wanted to test Mark.

- Some guys are like, I could care less.

And then there's other guys that are like, "Man, why this guy?

This guy hasn't even taken a bump.

He's getting a ten year deal?"

- This isn't the Olympics.

This isn't weightlifting.

- We didn't care where you were.

We didn't care what you had done.

We respected what you had done,

but you had to prove yourself with us.

Mark, I don't think, understood the business well enough

to know what was given to him at the time.

- I needed to learn.

Learn to take bumps.

Learn to run the ropes.

All the fundamental things that young wrestlers have to learn.

So I moved to Stamford, started training with Doctor Tom.

- The idea was in 1996,

to have a training system in place where we could

start training guys with potential.

I was fortunate enough to be picked and chosen to come in and

do that with Mark Henry and a young Dwayne Johnson.

- We came up together.

We starved together.

We were working out in the ring at that time

in Stamford, Connecticut.

Mark Henry was coming out of the Olympics.

He was legitimately one of the strongest men in the world.

- And then Dory Funk Jr came in with a Funking dojo,

and we started that crew.

Mark Henry versus Dwayne.

- Tom realized

that being in aerobics sport that wrestling is

and me being a weightlifter and powerlifter, which is an

anaerobic sport that I was going to have

to start training different.

- You know, the strongman and lifting was very different

than wrestling.

And he was humbled.

And then he had to grow and learn.

- Oh, so we started training different.

And then puttin in the reps

- I kept getting hurt because I didn't know what I was doing.

There was a setback of me

tearing the ligaments and breaking my ankle.

I didn't want to fail.

on top of the fact that I didn't want to let everybody down.

- You know, when you have such huge expectations put on you,

it magnifies the pressure.

- In the beginning, Mark was resting on his laurels, when in

reality it was the company that put him in that position.

We needed to see whether or not this investment was going

to work out for us.

- A lot of the wrestlers thought that there was a level

of arrogance that hadn't paid any dues.

I got a lot of heat from wrestlers about that contract.

I got hazed, you know, you call it ribbing and having a good

time, but it wasn't fun for me.

- Somebody had messed with him, and it's crazy as that sounds,

World's Strongest Man, but just about everybody gets picked

on at some point.

- I went through it with one of the wrestlers over joking and

ribbing, and I got mad and I told him that I was going

to hurt him when I healed up.

And Bret Hart just happened to know about that situation.

And he said, "You know what, man, come to Calgary.

There's a lot you need to learn, not just about wrestling, but

but the culture of wrestling.

And you need to learn how to coexist in the locker room."

- I don't think anyone

disputed the value of guys like, Mark Henry.

It's a really complicated business.

Sometimes mentally, emotionally, physically.

- You could tell that he really wanted to learn,

like he was trying to soak everything up.

- He was really conscious of getting better.

He wanted to learn right.

- A lot of the reason that I'm still in wrestling is because of

Bret Hart, and I befriended his brother, Owen.

To be able to hang out with him and him tell me what I did right

and what I did wrong and what I need to do better.

The pure power of the man,

woo, I'm a legend in my own time, baby.

I came back and they could see the growth.

- Mark Henry broke his ankle in training,

has rehabbed the ankle, has come back,

got himself in great shape.

- It's been a very long road for Mark Henry.

- Well, after all of the training that I did with Dwayne

Johnson, you know, we started talking about working together.

- The Rock is in the ring.

Mark Henry, the newest member of the Nation in the ring.

- The Nation of Domination is made up of superstars like D'Lo

Brown, The Godfather, the Rock and Ron Simmons AKA Farooq.

- The Nation,

we were rock stars.

We were militant black guys that wanted to take over

professional wrestling.

It was good television.

Through the Rock's tutelage and all he did for me,

I thought it was even more special

to get master's class from Ron Simmons.

- Go ahead and tell him, Mark

- Now that I'm a member of the Nation-

- Just hold it right there.

You're not a member until I say you're a member.

Then you can talk.

Now, he has some mat skills, which has given him

the versatility that he needs.

And I think that's one of the reasons why they did want

to put him with us,

oo it would take some of the pressure off him,

and at the same time learning the process of everything.

Tag team wrestling, singles wrestling,

character, and it was a good fit.

- Aww this nation five members strong.

- Look at this.

- I wouldn't have been the wrestler that I am today

without Ron Simmons.

I thank my lucky stars of being in the Nation.

- This was known as the Attitude Era.

WWE superstars were pushing the boundaries further than they had

ever been pushed before.

- The Rock is going to lay the smackdown on your candy ass.

- After the Nation of Domination, Mark Henry being

the strongman was not going to be enough to make

Mark Henry a star.

- I told Vince that I want to call myself Sexual Chocolate

and he busted out laughing.

He said "No."

And I'm like,"Vince, you said you wanted us to entertain.

Like, I want to entertain."

- We are-

- I'm nervous.

- Oh, a little flot.

This is nervous.

- Hi, we're spinning.

- I told Vince that I had this idea for a character,

and the character didn't have to win.

Chyna, hey baby.

The character had to woo the women.

- Just get this over with, Mark.

- Your flowers.

And Vince was like,

"Listen, we-we spent a lot of money on you."

- Here we go, let's try one more.

- We want this to be a success.

And I said, "It will be a success."

You're going to be thanking me by the end of the night.

Yea, yea, yea, yea, yea, yea.

Woo.

- Mark was a charmer.

Mark loved the ladies and the ladies loved Mark.

Sexual Chocolate was born.

- Sexual Chocolate.

- He loves the ladies.

- It was really a joke at first.

We would drive around and laugh at Mark Henry

and go, "Hey Sexual Chocolate."

Word of that got back to the office.

And the next thing you know.

Mark took it to a whole different level.

- Sexual Chocolate

We're ready for you.

- As much as

my children were under direct orders to turn off the TV,

soon as Sexual Chocolate came on the airwaves.

- Oh yeah.

- Sexual Chocolate was dynamic.

- I'm the kind of chocolate that melts in your mouth,

not in your hand.

- Oh my God, that character.

We love Sexual Chocolate.

- Suck it.

- Mark came under the Attitude Era

- Come on girl, let's go.

- It was a crazy time.

- What in the world?

- You could just do anything you want.

- Oh my God.

- To watch him have fun and use his big personality.

It was easy for him to do because he's naturally that.

He's really kind of naturally Sexual Chocolate, I think.

- Baby, are you ready yet?

- Oh, sweetheart, here I am, your Valentine.

- Ah.

- Oh Lord.

- Oh boy.

- The storyline of Mae Young should have told anybody.

Mark is willing to stretch the envelope.

He embraced it.

- How could you not laugh?

There's this big 400 pound black guy soaked in sweat, you know.

[moaning]

and there's Mae Young smoking a cigar like she done

wore his ass out.

- Is all your sexual tension relieved now?

- Oh, I'm so spent.

- It may be juvenile humor, but I thought it was fantastic.

- I'm a sex addict.

The creative team during that time, they were on their game.

I get on base more times than Mark McGwire

and Sammy Sosa together.

I never came up with one of those sagas.

They kept trying to outdo each other and out top each other.

I was willing to 100% wholeheartedly pour my soul

into that character.

Sexual Chocolate got over and it's still right now, one of the

greatest gimmicks, I think ever.

- Sexual Chocolate, he hangs out with those babes.

- I don't think his mother liked it too well.

Matter of fact, I know she didn't, but you know.

- A little discipline on the way for baby Mark from Mama Henry.

- She got him by the ear.

- How embarrassing.

- Around that time, my mother was really, really sick, and-

Uh, I did my best to try to be there for her as much

as I could.

Um, with, uh, you know, the cancer that she had, and-

There was about a month stretch where I was in the hospital.

She would be like, "You need to get out of here.

Like, go do something I'm- I'm not going nowhere."

I'm like "All right mom."

I get a call from my cousin Regina, and she was like,

"Hey, uh, you might want to come back to the hospital.

Your mom passed."

My mom on the end.

She had her glasses on.

She'll take them off.

Trying to be cute now.

My mom passing away.

I mean, it was the worst thing that had ever happened to me

in my life at that point because she was my cheerleader.

She was my reason for

being the guy that I became.

I was depressed.

I was in a emotional state that I had never been in before.

I'm in a time of mourning.

And it didn't help none that people were calling me out.

- There's only one strongest man in the world.

He's Mark Henry.

- One of the strong men said.

"Why is Mark Henry calling himself the World's

Strongest Man?

He don't compete in World's Strongest Man."

Them bastards knew that I was the Michael Jordan of lifting.

It was their only chance to poke the bear because they knew that

the bear was in a different territory.

I called Vince and I told him I was like, "Listen, um,

I'm a little bit pissed.

You know, I want to compete again."

And Vince said, "Well, do you think you can win it?"

And I got angry and I told him, "Yeah, I can win it,

I'm going to win it."

And he said,

"Well you're putting your career on the line, because we don't

have a place for the second strongest man."

Now I got the pressure of

if I lose, I'm gonna lose my job.

Show you where I grew up in my mom's house,

which, you know, I own that property, but

I haven't probably have't done as great a job as I needed to

to keep it up.

This is it, man.

The basketball goal is still up.

But, this is it.

You look and you see, like, all of the experiences

that happened.

This magnolia tree,

me and my brother and my mom planted that

when I was probably,

6 or 7 years old.

You know, it's just a lot of memories, you know?

I don't want to tear it down because every dollar she ever

made, she put into

uh, building this house.

You know, I have cousins that, you know, do real estate

they like,

"hey, Mark, you want us to fix it up and rent it out?"

Um, no.

I don't want to rent it because then I would have to like

basically rebuild it, which would require me

tearing it down.

Every idea requires me making a decision to, you know,

move this house.

And-and I just can't.

Fix myself to do that.

When I'm able to deal with it is when something will be done.

- Barbara Jean was amazing.

Mark adored her and understood the enormous sacrifices that she

went through to support him and Patrick, and gone way too soon.

And it left a big hole for him.

It left a really big hole.

- The only thing that I could do to take my mind off

how much pain I was in was put my headphones on

and go to the gym.

I wanted to show them that I was who I was known to be.

And I told Terry that I wanted to compete in Strongman.

And uh he said, "Well, I mean, we have a contest that we're

putting on in Columbus, Ohio at the Arnold Classic."

- This is a fitness expo that we have every sport possible

that has anything to do with strength or with fitness

or endurance.

All of those things.

- On your mark, and get set

[whistle blows]

[yelling]

- It's not your functional, normal strength training,

your Olympic lifting, your squat, bench, deadlift.

You have to move around all these crazy different objects,

and the whole aspect of it is finding

out who the strongest human being is.

- You can do it, Mark.

Come on.

- It was awesome to get back to working with Terry.

[yelling]

- Yes.

- You got it, you got it, you got it.

- It was the best medicine that I could have gotten.

That was when I realized that, you know,

I needed some counseling.

Getting all of that negativity and the ill will that was

in my heart out.

I had to forgive myself for the things that I had done

and said in my life.

And I had to forgive God.

for taking my mother from me.

There was a lot of messed up stuff going through my head

at that time,

and I appreciate the help.

Gotta work, man.

They don't-

They don't just give out them Strongman titles.

You gotta earn them.

Imma just go ahead and go to the heaviest dumbbell they got.

- So in Mark's case, he had never competed

in a Strongman contest.

He actually was not in lifting shape.

You know, being on the road doesn't make you stay

in competitive shape.

And so we didn't really know if he would win it or not.

- They're saying that Mark Henry shouldn't call himself the

World's Strongest Man unless he was.

You can't mess with a guy that's that strong and doesn't know

how strong he is.

- I'm training like a wild man.

Because I just want to prove to these guys that not only was I

better than them, but there was a reason for me not being there

in the first place.

And that reason was wrestling.

I took on another life to make means for myself and

to get kicked like they kicked me,

now, I wanted blood.

I wanted them to know who I was.

- We have literally eight of the

strongest men on the face of the planet as we staged the

first annual Arnold Strongman competition.

- I'm not going to let nothing stop me.

I want to be able to go down in history as being

somebody that's done something.

That nobody's ever done.

That's going to happen this week.

- That big hunk of metal right there,

it's 365 pounds.

- Them Apollon Wheels, fixed train axle,

three inches in diameter.

You can't grip it.

You can't put straps on it.

It'll break both of your wrists.

And I love that because I didn't want help.

- Which of these strongmen today are going to take these

wheels and put them overhead?

[yelling]

- Woo.

Hadn't been done in 50 years.

Mark Henry literally bent over to the ground, grabbed 365

pounds with both hands, went like this and went like this.

And I was just like, "What the-"

- Now, only four men in history to that this thing overhead.

Two times by Mark Henry.

Breaking history.

- There's so much that goes into it.

and he just made it look like a paperweight.

- Down.

Three times.

Such an incredible feat of strength as we've never

seen before.

- It was an unbelievably historic moment and it also

demonstrated how amazing he was.

It's one of those moments that people still talk about.

It was by far the highlight of that contest.

- I was so angry that my mom was gone, but I had a wristband that

had my mom's name on it.

- This is our final competitor.

- Let's stay in first.

I gotta do it under 20 seconds.

- He has dedicated this performance to his mother

who recently passed.

He feels that she's watching him,

she's with him.

- Here we go.

- Let's go.

- This is one of the mosrt difficult events ever.

Grab that 800 plus pounds,

and head up the ramp with it.

- Mark Henry.

- You're looking at the strongest man.

- Nobody on the planet

could have beat me that day.

I was invincible that day.

It was about proving who I was and who I became.

Legitimately the strongest man on Earth.

That's what I'm talking about.

Still the man.

I told you when I was 18 years old,

"Am I strong enough to be in one of your movies?"

And you said, "How much did you lift?"

And I said, "740."

You said, "Not yet."

Well, I'm the strongest man in the world now.

- I know, I know, you know, something really unbelievable.

what you can do just shows you

where there's a will, there's a way,

- There is a way.

- And I'm very proud of you.

- I think now the guys understand that he's somebody

who could have competed at their level if he'd wanted to stay

in it, but he already had a better gig.

- My mom was helping me again, you know, she gave me life

more than once.

She gave me life at birth.

And she gave me life again-

in my career.

Making his return the newly crowned World's Strongest Man,

Mark Henry.

- After about six months away, Mark Henry returned to the WWE

with a new level of confidence and credibility.

- I was back as the World's Strongest Man

in wrestling again.

And legitimately the strongest man on Earth.

- Well, I can't wait to see what this is all about.

This is that-that feat of strength of Mark Henery

- Mark's embracing the feats of strength.

Kind of gave him a different attitude and gave him

a newfound confidence.

- He's gonna back up against that wall.

He's going to hold this big black ass limo in place for 30s.

- There were challenges literally every week

they have in the locker room.

"Oh, yeah. Can you do this?"

- Kid is an animal man.

He's strong as an ox.

- Can you believe Mark Henry is doing this?

- "Oh, yeah. Can you do that?"

[yelling]

- That's what I'm talking about.

That's what I'm talking about.

- There were some things that we had Mark do.

One of them was was rolling a, uh frying pan.

Now, when we did it, asked Mark,

"Okay, what kind of pan do we get?"

- Of course, in the process, the ribbin started again.

Vince just knew that, you know, he going to get a big kick out

of seeing me get angry.

And one of the feats of strength not working.

So he had them go out and get this frying pan.

- They brought out an iron skillet.

I said, well, what's the deal here?

They said, well, no, we're going to use this with Mark.

What-what the hell are you talking about?

- See this pan.

- Bet is that you can't bend it.

- Hey, man, wait a minute.

What's wrong with you?

Can't nobody do- bend it.

- I saw the red light, and I was standing

in front of it with this pan and

when I first started to try

It wouldn't It just wouldn't bend.

And I remember looking up and seeing everybody's faces start

to turn to each other like, "oh man, this is embarrassing."

And,

man, I cranked back down on that thing and I the metal screamed

it was just like-

uh iron bending sound that I had never heard in anything that

I've bent in my hands before.

[grunting]

Fear of failure just was too much for me.

- Is that the world's strongest man or not?

- It is bsolutely impressive.

When I watch that, and believe me,

I had a new found respect for his ass, okay?

- Oh my God.

- He- look at that he did it.

- I can't believe he did it.

- Oh my God.

- I can't believe it.

- So around that time we started thinking about,

you know, having kids.

And I said, "Well, I'm waiting on the right woman

to propose to me."

And she was like "Oh, stop it. Nobody's proposing to you."

I said, "Well, if you want to marry me, you have

to propose to me."

And, um, of course, that didn't go off very well.

I ended up doing the proposing and we got married.

- We got married at Jan and Terry Todd's beautiful estate,

and it was time.

And then he's like, "Are we going to have some babies?

Let's go."

- Jacob was born October 12th, 2005, and Joanna was born

December 30th, 2010.

I don't know if I've ever loved anybody

like I love those kids.

- Mark is an amazing dad.

And he's just proud.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- And so he wants to be the daddy.

Like I want to be the dad.

I want to be in the stands.

I will help you out.

- You just got to feel it like, come off those three fingers.

Woop.

And we just got to practice.

There you go.

It's been great watching the kids succeed in sports.

But they also realize that they come from it.

On defense you did good.

- Defense was better.

- Oh my gosh.

- I'm still getting the offense together.

He wants me to be the best and I want to be the best.

So for it to come from him, it means a lot to me.

- And at the end of practice, when you're tired and you don't

want to do it, that's when you practice stuff like that.

- He's one of the best coaches I've ever had,

and he's a great dad.

- I was always in awe of him being that strong.

One time I was arm wrestling my hand against his pointer finger,

you know, and I still lost if he can beat me in arm wrestling

with his pointer finger, like that's a whole other level.

I see my dad as an inspiration

and definitely brings the whole family joy to see him

in his element.

- On a scale of 1 to 10, how hard was this compared

to everything else?

- This is about like a 900 pound squat.

- Okay, what do you think about the hair, y'all?

- Uh, I don't hate it

- I loved it.

I've had at least 50 to 100 people in my life

come up and go,

"Hey, how did you do that?"

Like, "I went, I went home and I tried to lift

my mom's Ford Taurus."

- I love that, I love that.

I love Ron hugging you.

Oh, my gosh, it's so sweet.

- Somebody's doing something inhuman like this.

There's going to be fans that are going to be like,

"Nah, what is he going to do next week?

I want to go to see that."

- Yeah, Here we go.

Here we go.

Walk that, walk that dog.

There you go.

- He's had these different seasons of his career.

- Who's the strongest man?

- Me.

- Who's the man.

- Me.

- At that time, like we did the strongman gimmick.

We did the Sexual Chocolate.

You know, I think they were trying to figure out, like,

"What we do with Mark next?"

- Here's this charismatic, 400 pound World's Strongest Man.

That you know has the ability to be a mega star.

He's got "it."

We just got to get "it," out of him.

- That brings back some memories.

- Talk about old school.

- At a certain point, I think fans started to feel like they

had seen everything Mark Henry had to offer, and I think WWE

was under the impression that they had gotten almost

everything they could out of Mark Henry, and that's why

his career starts to kind of slow down.

- The "Hey Kool-Aid Era" is what I called it.

Where I was wearing red and it wasn't, you know,

I wasn't being really serious and mean.

Vince wanted to, you know, make me angry and push the envelope.

And Vince McMahon played a practical joke on me

that went bad.

- After SmackDown had gone off the air.

Mark Henry was headed to the ring for a non-televised match.

Customary in the WWE.

- Here's how that started.

Vince sent him out to the ring by himself.

And so when Mark got down to the ring,

he was just down there by himself.

But nobody never comes out.

- Just because they wanted to poke the bear.

They leave Mark Henry standing in the ring with nothing to do.

- If you want somebody to come out here,

bring somebody out of here.

I paid my dues.

I don't need this bull.

Where's the microphone?

- And he was given the microphone.

- I suggest you hand me-

- And the microphone wasn't on.

- You want me to get fired?

That's what y'all doing?

- He was so angry.

And then they were like, "Mark, it's over."

- We would like to thank you all for being a part of this

evening's event.

We certainly hope that you enjoyed yourselves and looking

forward to coming back here sometime in the near future.

Thank you.

- Now I'm pissed.

I just felt that it was- it was a disrespect,

not just to me as a man, but to the business.

Like, we don't play in the ring.

I don't play, man.

That's my office.

- He got so [bleep] mad out there, man.

Uh, until everybody that was in the gorilla position up there

with Vince and everybody left, they didn't even want to be up

there when Mark came back, okay?

- I come to the back.

It's a ghost town.

Nobody's there.

And I just start destroying and tearing [bleep] down

and pulling the lights and punching the walls and just

Darth Vader [bleep].

I just wanted everything to melt.

- It made him so mad.

Once he gets to that thing and I try to don't get him there

because as a child he got there.

Thus he was at juvie.

- Mark, wanted to destroy Vince McMahon.

But that's the night that Vince actually saw the real

Mark Henry come out.

- Vince just told him, "That's what I want.

That, you see how you are now?

That's what I want."

- And after that-

I portrayed that anger and hatred that I had when I came

from the ring as a character.

- Mark Henry just fury and anger

like we've never seen before.

- That's when he really, uh, felt like he was in control of.

You know who he really was.

- What does this do?

Now it don't don't nothing.

I was angry and it was real.

And, everybody's out here trying to get

in the Hall of Fame.

Every last one of those people I will put in the Hall of Pain.

- The Hall of Pain is by far my favorite Era of Mark Henry,

and I think that's when Mark Henry really came into his own

as a WWE superstar.

- Look out.

- Oh my God.

- He had to remind us.

The fact that you're still in one piece is my choice.

- He's got a switch.

You know, when that switch goes off

you're going to get mowed over.

- Oh my God.

- Wow

- You fire him up and that's what everybody wants to see.

They want to see that the nice guy is great and everything,

but you want to see that darker side where he's just-

he's unpredictable.

- I don't get no respect.

Ain't nobody gonna get no peace

around here as long as I'm doing this.

- I think he finally understood how to channel anger.

How to become a mean dude.

- Mark wanted to be the man, and in doing so,

finally that light bulb clicked.

To where Mark was willing to find that aggression inside of

him and be able to bring it out in the ring.

Mark Henry became that guy that we were looking for in 1996.

- When you're loving something, it's not work.

I didn't feel like I was working.

I was just living.

The next thing I knew, I was in a World Championship match.

- You only get one chance to be great in this business.

Mark Henry is going to have to take it tonight.

- Mark Henry.

A world's strongest slam.

Mark Henry, Mark Henry.

Mark Henry is the World Champion.

- To me, winning the title was special.

It meant a lot to me.

We're all working for each other.

We're working for that validation from our peers,

and I love the fact that my peers thought that I was worthy,

that they thought that I was good enough.

- Mark takes a huge amount of pride in what he does.

I think that kind of solidified for him that, you know,

he really had arrived.

Uh, I was really proud of him.

- The 15 year odyssey is over, Mark Henry

is World Champion and all doubters and cynics be damned.

- The emotion that came out of Mark that night that he won was

absolutely incredible, because that's the real Mark.

And he-he knew how hard he had worked to get to this point.

And he finally proved it to everybody.

- I'm going to be the most dominant

champion of all time.

- Oh, I lost it.

I lost it.

Jacob lost it.

It was fun.

And I was proud of him.

Isn't that awesome?

- I love the people's faces.

- Yep.

[laughing]

- They did not expect that.

They didn't expect it, mhm.

- Wow you can feel it.

- You could feel it, mhm,

- I welcome all of you to the Hall of Pain.

And I'm just sitting there thinking to myself like.

"Man, I'm World Champion."

- It's so dope.

"I cannot believe this."

Everything felt like-

like it all had came together.

- Yeah, I was going to say-

- Like, man, what a- what an unbelievable ride.

- From Silsbee, Texas,

He is the World Heavyweight Champion.

The World's Strongest Man, Mark Henry.

- Man, I-

I hope this ring is reinforced.

- Look out

- Oh my-

Oh my Lord.

You got to be kidding me.

- Mark has a really strong desire to do well,

to exceed people's expectations.

- Mark Henry is still the World Champion.

- My spirit in my career helped validate the title.

I feel like I helped the title and the title helped me.

- Mark Henry is more confident than he's ever been

in his career.

- This is World Heavyweight Champion.

It meant the world to me to be champion because of the way

that my kids looked at it.

and not just my kids, but all kids.

And, I wanted people that look like me to be proud.

- Mr. Henry,

- How you doing?

You got a responsibility to people that look like you.

To go out and set a standard,

and not mess it up.

And I took that to heart.

- Thank you.

- You're welcome.

- Mark had already did the work.

Young African American kids seeing someone like

Mark Henry could grow up and aspire to be like a Mark Henry.

That was huge.

- Mark is such a good ambassador because you can't help

but love the guy.

You get in the room with him, you can't help but love him.

- I love you Mark Henry

- Well thank you very much.

The thing is really not about us.

It's more about them.

And just to see them smile, they get the same reaction out of me.

- Confidence is very important,

and I see him when he was talking to young people.

He talks to them about being secure in themselves.

- I hope that every last one of you respect each other.

- And then he'll laugh with them and he'll joke with them.

- You look at me and you say,

"Man, that dude, 400 pounds ain't nobody bullying him."

Well, you would be surprised.

- Mark became a really big part of the WWE's

anti-bullying campaign.

- He doesn't like injustice, so he's the one who stands up

for the bullied.

And so what's been hard for Mark is watching

Jacob and Joanna be bullied.

- You all right.

You'll get it.

- Being a child of the world's strongest man puts an extra

pressure on the kids to do well.

- People expect so much from you.

People wouldn't see me for who I was as a person,

and he really helps me with that.

- You got a target because you Mark Henry kid.

You got to be ready for that and know that it's coming.

It's inevitable.

- You've gone through bullying.

Jacob's gone through bullying.

And I've definitely gone through bullying, too.

- They're going through some things that the schools need to

do a lot better about.

- In my class, this boy called me a gorilla

and it was terrible.

I went to a teacher and I told her it almost seems like they

didn't believe me.

- The people at the school, they don't-

they don't realize what I went through and what other people

that I know have gone through.

I got picked on a lot.

And, you know, I retaliated.

I'm teaching my kids to handle it differently than I did.

- We asked, how can we keep you safe?

Because my concern for you now, what did dad do?

- Dad had to fight.

- I probably would have wild out.

- And I'm not going to fight.

And I'm starting to feel better now that I'm not in such

a bad environment.

- We are here to share that with to for us to give

you some direction.

Just not feeling like you're alone in the matter.

I've enjoyed every minute of the relationship

we have with our kids.

- I don't know if we could have done a better job.

They are tough as nails.

Good.

And that's after a workout.

- Aight Jo.

- At the end of the day, they've taken those

negatives and made positives like we raised them to.

- Done. What's my time?

- 11 seconds.

- There you go.

[yelling]

[laughing]

- So good.

- Wait till your grandmama see that.

I love being an ambassador for

the sport that I love so much.

But I was missing being at home.

I didn't get to see my kids compete, and I wanted to be

closer to them, and I couldn't do that wrestling.

I went in Vince's office and I said, "My body's beat up.

My kids cry when I leave."

- Mark kept playing with the idea of retiring, but he loves

professional wrestling like he didn't want to retire.

- I remember when my dad was talking about he was like,

"You know, I think I'm going to come home."

- Well, wait, wait, wait, look at this.

There has been rumors running rampant over the past 24 hours

after cryptic messages that perhaps Mark Henry is going

to retire tonight.

- The things that last in Sports Entertainment are the things

that make people believe.

- Well, Mark Henry the World's Strongest Man

and the rumors have been running rampant over the past 24

hours that Mark Henry is here tonight to retire.

- I don't think that is a rumor.

Those are his boots he's putting down.

- That's the old cliche.

Hanging up the boots.

I tell you, if the rumors are true, this man right here,

Mark Henry, has accomplished a lot of things here in the WWE.

- John, I want you to stay.

There's sumpin I want to tell you.

I want to tell the boys and the girls in the back.

And all of y'all.

- I'm at home watching TV, crying like a damn baby 'cause

he didn't tell me he's retiring.

- To my beautiful wife, Jana.

I think you'll see more of me than you want to.

- You didn't tell me about the retirement speech.

I cried.

Jacob cried.

- I'm texting him like,

"I can't believe it, man.

Good luck.

Go out there tonight.

Enjoy this.

Take it in."

- But I stand before you a proud,

proud, man.

- I was just shattered.

This is a good guy,

and it's way too soon for him to walk away.

- I respect all the people that work for this company because I

know how difficult it is.

- Mark was authentic.

He was real.

And-

Vulnerable and genuine.

And he's dressed up.

He's not usually dressed up like that.

Like it all kind of made sense.

- To my son Jacob, to my little girl, Joanna,

who cries when I leave home.

Baby, I'm coming home.

[crowd cheers]

- I was trying to figure out how am I going to wrap this up?

What am I going to say about about this man and his career?

How can I do Mark Henry justice?

And obviously I didn't have to

[laughing]

- Wait a minute.

- What?

Oh, my God.

- I think I called him a mother-

I was like "Dude, you could have warned me."

- Biggest double cross I've ever seen.

- I went from tears of confusion to anger and I was like.

"All right, you got me.

That's-that's messed up."

- I got a lot left in the tank.

- That's what this is all about, man.

Being able to, like, take people on a ride

and make them believe, right?

I can't imagine how swerved everybody else felt.

- I want that son of a bitch.

You got me.

I called him and told him what a good angle, brother.

That was poetry

That was beauty.

- And that'll be mine soon.

- Mark put on a performance that was so good we were talking

about it now, a decade later.

- That's, what I do.

When I think of the retirement speech,

I think about how real that speech was because I originally

wanted to retire, but once again, I went in there in the

office and talked to Vince.

He said,"We need you in this business."

And I came out with a three year deal.

It was so special to get the love and respect from the fans,

but it took another year and a half

of me still wrestling.

at a high level and being able to say, without a doubt,

I've done enough.

- Mark would never retire, ever, if he didn't have to.

But the body starts to, you know, not be faithful to you.

So it was hard for him.

Moving on was hard.

- You ready?

Y'all gonna start with the first.

We gonna hang down.

Stretch hamstrings.

Oh, man, woo.

The whole point of doing this is to get your body ready to do

something explosive, because athletes move suddenly.

If your body is not stretched out and pliable, it will tear.

Oh, man.

Woo.

On Sunday, you got a call on Jesus.

Woo.

I don't lift nothing heavy.

I do my workout, and some days I can,

some days I can't.

My body just don't feel right,

Go.

But I feel more at home, more comfortable with myself when I'm

working with young people.

I'm trying to help build a human into being something better.

That's the best. There's no greater feeling.

I've been blessed to be a World Champion in three sports.

But a lot of people consider me crazy because

I did everything the hard way.

I didn't cheat.

Wouldn't even take no drugs.

We got God, our family and our teammates.

When I say that, I hope to live to see somebody break my

records, I mean it.

Family on three.

One, two, three.

["family"]

Because I know how much work that person put in to being able

to beat what I did.

- Congratulations to Mark Henry, the latest inductee into

the WWE Hall of Fame.

- Man, I wrestled in this building probably 50 times.

The Hall of Fame meant a lot to me because I feel a sense of

accomplishment and validation

from my peers.

I'm gonne be crying like a little baby.

- I know, man, you will.

- Stop it.

Oh

Oh.

- I love you, man, get over it.

That night was one of the biggest nights of his life.

That meant a lot to him.

- Congrats man.

- Thank you bro.

- The highest honor he could achieve was to be recognized

worthy enough to be in the Hall of Fame.

Handsome.

- You got a smile, you know, you got a smile.

[crowd chants "You deserve it."]

- Thank you.

- Seeing him appreciated for all the work that he had done,

I was star struck.

- I'd like to thank my beautiful wife, Jana.

My little girl, Joanna.

My son Jacob, who's over there dressed up like me.

With my tie on.

- Oh, my God. I'm so cocky here

Oh my God.

- I know I wasn't at home as often as I would have liked to.

But I was doing that so you can have more than I had.

But before I go, there's just one more thing I need to do.

Oh God.

The lyin ass jacket.

[laughing]

- That's what the boys referred to it as.

Some of y'all might think that I have a lot left in the tank.

And you're right.

Nah I'm just playing, y'all.

I'm just playing.

- It was hard for him to transition out.

It's hard not to be on the road.

I think it's hard not to walk through the curtain.

So we have to think about, like, what do you want to do next?

- Welcome-

to Busted Open

- Dave LaGreca and my tag team partner, Mark Henry.

Mark, how the hell are you?

- New York city.

Top of the world, man.

- I asked him, did you ever want to do radio?

Because I think you would be perfect for it.

And he actually said it was always a dream

of his to be on air.

- I'm still tied in my heart to the WWE and contractually

I work crew and talent and I just have an eye for talent.

- You do?

- I see it and I'm like, listen, this person could do it.

They have it.

Come on now.

Push yourself.

Keep it movin, keep it movin.

It's a hard life, but it's worth it.

- I think you look at the WWE roster right now and you see

a lot of the influence of Mark Henry.

- I started doing CrossFit and

Mark Henry commented on one of my photos.

It was a big deal that Mark Henry was reaching out to me

saying that he saw something in me.

He opened the doors for me.

Uh, E-S-T has arrived.

- You know, when you have someone like Mark Henry

backin your name.

- Look at the power.

- I have to follow through with this.

I have to prove that he was right.

- We have a new champion.

- The Monster Among Men, Braun Strowman.

- There is no Braun Strowman without Mark Henry.

I mean, it's that simple.

Mark took a shot on this kid that no one else ever did.

And, uh, put his name on the line.

Man, I'm not going to get emotional about this right now.

Uh, he put his name on the line for me.

Uh, because he saw something in me, and he paid

for my plane ticket.

He went to Vince and said, "You need to look at this kid.

He's got something."

- A 335 pound Frog Splash.

- You have got to be kidding me.

- I feel like a proud papa actually.

I feel like they're my kids.

What I look for is when the people walk in the room,

and you go, "Oh my God, who is that?"

They have an energy.

That's who I want to make wrestlers.

That's what Vince did with me.

- At a certain point, Mark Henry had gone through every challenge

that WWE had to offer, and I think that Mark got to a point

where he had to show what else he could do.

For the first time in years, a a new national wrestling

promotion was created, and all of a sudden,

Mark Henry was at a crossroads in his career.

- AEW wanted somebody to help teach the young people because

they're such a young company.

As much as I respected

Vince McMahon.

It was a hard decision.

But, you know, it was one I had to make for my family.

- It was sad.

It was sad for him because I'm going to tell you what,

he loves him some Vince McMahon.

That's who took a chance on him and who believed in him.

But sometimes you got to leave home to prove yourself.

- You work your ass off your whole life and you know you can

afford to take a day off every now and then,

and just enjoy yourself,

the family.

Um, you know, I've owned this place for over 20 years, and

it seemed like we the only ones to come to the park.

So it's kind of like the Henry Park man.

It's pretty cool.

We fish, like we just played with the dog,

walk the trails.

- I want to go paddle boating.

- Me too,

- I want to-

- Y'all go ahead.

Tell me how it was.

You know what I do find myself having a lot less time

in the day right now.

In a lot of ways, I'm busier than when I was wrestling.

I'm raising two kids with my wife.

I work in coaching and producing and

announcing in pro wrestling still, and-

I wouldn't have no other way.

Because I get to teach.

Not only do I get to teach,

I'm fundraising for my own events.

I'm doing something I never did before.

If I could go back in time and me be the representative of

weightlifting from the executive side to them and say,

"Guys, this is what I see."

Everything came out.

- Yeah? You're happy?

- This is what could happen if we do this.

And that's what I'm trying to do.

I got the opportunity to not do it for myself and for my

teammates, but do it for the other

teams that are coming along.

- Please welcome the big man himself, Mark Henry.

- I got away from weightlifting because of the corruption,

and now that the US is fighting and trying to make it better

than they got me, I'm on the team.

That's what I do.

- Mark has a lot of influence elsewhere and does a lot of real

good things and uses his identity and uh

his reaches for a lot of great stuff.

I respect all he's done in the weightlifting community,

all he continues to do for USA weightlifting.

- Now, I need to ask uh my friend Mark Henry

to come back to the stage and help me with something

we're doing tonight.

Each year, the United States Weightlifting Foundation

presents the Strengthening Humanity Award.

There was a unanimous vote for our friend Mark Henry

as this year's recipient.

How about that?

- When I joined the board of the US Weightlifting Foundation,

I was there to raise money that I didn't think that they were

going to give me an award.

Y'all suck.

I'm very proud that good work is being done, and I love them and

thank them for that.

I come from a little small place.

There's no reason that I should have been able to do all the

things that I've been able to do.

When it's not about me.

I'm stronger.

But I appreciate-

the coaching,

the uplifting.

I've had a lot of people in my life not believe in me.

And I have to thank all of those people.

Because it drives me.

- Mark Henry is the World Champion.

- You don't always get to see the good guy win.

You saw it tonight.

Thank you.

- Mark wants to leave a positive legacy.

Legacy is huge.

I think he's done a pretty darn good job, especially from such

meager beginnings.

Seeing his growth, it makes my faith stronger.

- They say pressure makes a diamond,

if it doesn't burst the pipe.

As a big brother and as a man, I am so proud of him.

- The World's Strongest Man, Mark Henry.

- Mark went from the guy who was being teased backstage,

whose life was made more difficult than it needed to be,

to being one of the most respected guys,

to being a leader.

- I love his ability to evolve.

His ability to take chances.

- You're looking at the strongest man.

- I think Mark had a great idea of what his gifts were.

I don't think he realizes how they might have

affected other people.

- Good luck to the athletes.

And let the games begin.

- One of the things that Mark should inspire

the younger talent

to say, "It's okay to be a star.

But don't forget where you came from."

- Our big boy from Silsbee, Texas.

- A kid from Silsbee who nobody ever expected to do the things

that I've done.

- Mark Henry a human demolition machine.

- My mother always used to say it takes a village of people

to raise one kid.

- Mark Henry.

- That's right.

I'm very proud of my career.

I feel accomplished.

- I am the living embodiment

of yes you can.