Former WWE commentator Todd Grisham was once a staple of weekly television and was involved in many segments on “SmackDown” and even as play-by-play commentator for the “ECW” brand for a brief tenure. During an interview on “INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet,” he looked back on originally signing with WWE and the backlash he received from those around him.
“There were a lot of people that thought I was an idiot,” he recalled. “Because I was pretty good, everyone was like: ‘You’re gonna be on SportsCenter one day!’ Because I was kinda different.”
Grisham added that he didn’t want to do what everyone else was doing, and joked that he’d have covered a dog doing free throws just to be different.
“I thought, even if this WWE thing doesn’t work out? I’ll have to – what – go back to working El Paso? So, what,” he continued. Despite what some people might have thought, Grisham explained that WWE doesn’t hire you for specialized roles, and claimed he was brought in to do general things instead. “I started doing the Bottom Line, which was a show that recapped the events of Raw and SmackDown,” he explained.
Todd Grisham eventually transitioned into backstage interviews, but claimed that he was given no direction with his first interview with Booker T.
“I thought, usually when the wrestler gets in your face, you know, you gotta act scared? So that’s what I did,” he explained. However, despite Booker not directly addressing him, Grisham admits that he overdid acting scared, and looking back on his performance, decided to change his approach. “So, I kind of worked on acting scared but not ‘scared to poop my pants’ scared/ I’m worried here, but he’s not going to put his hands on me, because I’m a professional.”
Grisham Had To Work With HBK
Outside of becoming secure with standing next to larger-than-life pro wrestling stars, Grisham also had to deal with backstage hazing. During the same interview, he recalled how he once had to endure an elaborate prank where the Brooklyn Brawler told everyone backstage that he believed pro wrestling is fake, leading to him almost getting a Batista Bomb.
While he escaped the Batista Bomb, he ended up in a segment with Shawn Michaels and Edge, where he had to take a bump, but nobody in management explained how he was supposed to sell it until Shelton Benjamin approached him backstage.
“He goes: ‘You just can’t flinch. Whatever you do, don’t flinch.’ I said: ‘Okay?’ and right then, he throws a fake Superkick to me,” he recounted. Grisham eventually figured out the trick behind it and was told the same thing by Michaels. However, things didn’t go too well in the segment, and Grisham ended up too far away from a Superkick from Michaels, which got him some heat from Mike Chioda.
“Mike Chioda was so mad at me, he was like: ‘What the eff are you doing kid! You gotta feed into that, you’re too far away, you’re making Shawn Michaels look stupid! What are you doing?'” Grisham recalled. “I said, ‘They told me don’t move,'” he recounted, noting that Chioda simply lit up a cigarette and grumbled under his breath.
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit “INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet” and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
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