Mark Nash: WWE's Newest Ring Announcer, "Never Seen 17", John Cena, Cody Rhodes

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Mark Shunock (@MarkShunock) is a WWE ring announcer performing under the name Mark Nash. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Las Vegas to discuss his journey from the theater stage to professional wrestling, playing Timon in "The Lion King" Broadway show, how he went from announcing Top Rank Boxing to WWE, providing the introductions for John Cena and Cody Rhodes, the origin of his WWE name, winning the Stanley Cup with the Las Vegas Golden Knights and more!
 

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Quote I'm thinking about: “You cannot control the behavior of others, but you can always choose how you respond to it.” ― Roy T. Bennett

On growing up in Canada:

"We grew up on a border town, so there's a Sault Ste Marie, Michigan and a Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. So Michigan was a big part of my childhood. My mother is from Windsor, Ontario, so another border town, Detroit, Windsor. So pretty much every summer was spent driving 75 south. You'd cross the border into Sault Ste Marie, Michigan. Take 75 south through Michigan into Windsor. So I was a big Detroit Red Wings fan and a big Sparky Anderson, Kirk Gibson, Detroit Tiger fan, and that's back in the 80s, right? Late 70s through the 80s was my childhood. I'm aging myself. But Detroit was much different back then, and we'd go through the tunnel into Windsor. But yes, the answer is yes, going into the United States as a kid, growing up in Canada was always a big deal, and it's something that we always looked forward to as kids. But I'm a US citizen now, and I've been in the United States since 96 full-time, and I love it." 

On why he moved to the US in 1996:

"You know, chasing an acting career. So, like every other Canadian kid, I wanted to play hockey, and I made it as far as I could. But there's that tough choice. Do I go over to Europe to play and continue to chase the dream, or do you get crazy and pick a different career to chase that's even more difficult and go into entertainment? So I moved to New York City as a 19-year-old to chase a Broadway career. And I just got lucky man, I surrounded myself with some of the best in the business. Goofy kid. I was a goaltender. I was a goalie in hockey. So I think all goalies are a little kooky to begin with, but that gave me the sort of drive and the, I don't know what you call it, just the balls to go up to people and say, 'Hey, can I learn from you?' And I think that's something that I still carry with me today. If we're not learning, we're dead. But yeah, I literally surrounded myself with the best of the best in the theater world. In New York, Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts, a highly respected festival, went out there for a couple summers to just watch, and I'm watching stars on stage, and The Lion King came calling once. I was Timon in The Lion King, and that sort of changed the trajectory for me. And casting directors didn't need to be convinced that you could perform eight shows a week on stage night after night after night. So that was it, and I got lucky." 

On announcing for the Las Vegas Golden Knights hockey team:

"Crazy, dude. It is, to this day, one of the highlights of my life, and I would probably say my family's life as well. To have your name on a Stanley Cup ring."

On lifting the Stanley Cup:

"Fast forward to the sixth season. We make the Stanley Cup Finals for the second time. We made it in our first inaugural season, which is unheard of, but we made it into the sixth season, into the finals again. It was a home run. We knew we were winning. I flew my dad out, two of my brothers, game five, Stanley Cup Finals, and we win it all. It was over after like the first period, because we ended up winning the game like 9-3. It wasn't even close in game five, so I'm on the ice doing interviews with the players, the ownership group, management, trainers, all the staff, and then families and wives and girlfriends and kids are on the ice, and my producer just says into my ear, 'Hey, man, you're wrapped.' So I pop my earpiece and I'm just standing there with a microphone, just enjoying the moment. I see my family up in the stands, and one of the trainers says, 'Shunock, it's your turn.' I said, 'What are you talking about?' And he just hands me the cup. And I'm like, Oh my God. And there it was, over my head, this 33 and a half pound Holy Grail of all things Canadian as kids. I got this thing over my head and I'm screaming, and it's a moment that I'll never forget. Immediately after we celebrate that night, you got to plan a parade. So it didn't really set in that we won, because we got to go back to work, and we're planning a parade for 300,000 people to line the streets in Vegas, and it really, really didn't set in until about three weeks later, after the parade, all the dust is settled. My wife is away on a gig. She's doing an acting gig. I don't remember what it was, and just like everybody else, I look at my phone in the morning and there was an email from the team staff-wide saying, 'Please click the link and get fitted for a ring.' And that's when I was like, there were some tears, I'm not gonna lie. I'm not embarrassed to say it. I'm in bed by myself with a couple of dogs. And I knew at that moment that I was getting a Stanley Cup ring with my family name on it. And the minute I got the ring, it was in a FedEx box to Sue St. Marie to my dad."

On moving to Vegas:

"I got a call to do Rock of Ages, the big Broadway musical out here in Vegas, that's what brought us here. So my wife and I were living in LA, I love telling this story, because Vegas has been so good to me with opportunity. 13 years ago, on Halloween, I moved to Vegas. 13 years ago, a week ago, I was bartending downtown Los Angeles, chasing an acting career, and I got a call saying, 'Hey, you want to do Rock of Ages in Vegas?' And I was like, Yeah, let's go. My wife and I looked at each other, we're like, we'll do six months. We'll do a year. We've been here 13 years. I'm in my dressing room one night, I got the 80s wig on, and Rock of Ages changed my life, essentially, because it brought us here and I was introduced to this incredible city, and what makes Vegas so incredible are the people. We're still here, but I'm in my dressing room, and at 7:45 I'm about to walk on stage, and I had a great room, TV, bar, It was awesome. Bill Foley, our owner of the Vegas Golden Knights, goes on the news. And at that time, it was just an idea. And he said, I think I want to bring professional hockey to Vegas." 

On how he landed the gig at Top Rank Boxing:

"Todd duBoef, president of Top Rank Boxing, Top Rank's based in Las Vegas. It goes right back to season one, three weeks into season one. This is now nine years ago. I'm doing my thing in the stands with a microphone, acting goofy, getting the fans going crazy. And he literally said to his agent that represented Top Rank, Hey, we should call this kid. He should probably come and work for us. So a few weeks later, I get a call from Kirsten Pauley at CAA Sports, who is Nick Khan's assistant, saying, 'Hey, we represent ESPN and Top Rank Boxing. Would you be interested in coming to meet with us?' I looked at my wife, and I said, Absolutely. So we still have an apartment in LA. Flew back to LA. I go to Century City, go to CAA sports. I walk into the mecca of agencies, and at this point, I've been in entertainment almost 20 years, and I'm like, I can't believe I'm walking into CAA, the agency, right? I walk down the hall, and I get to meet Nick Khan for the first time. I walk into his office, and I was blown away. And he said, 'Hey, man, we love what you do. Would you be interested in working in boxing? 'And I was like, 'Absolutely. Do you want me to work in boxing?' He was like, 'Yeah, we think you should work in boxing.' And so my career started immediately with the Golden Knights, Top Rank, ESPN. And I got to say, I loved working for Top Rank. It was an unbelievable experience, some of the best people in the business working for that company, and they really held my hand. And I don't think I'd be where I am today if it wasn't for that incredible group of people who really brought me on and nurtured me and shoved with love, as we say in entertainment, you know, to get me to where I am today."

On how that led to WWE:

"Well, we all know Nick Khan is the president of WWE, they lost a ring announcer, and there was an opening. I got a text message out of the blue from Triple H, and I looked down at my phone, and it was right around the time of the election in last year. So I looked at it at first, and I don't even know if he knows this, but I looked at it at first. I said, Oh, this has got to be a solicitation text for a candidate, right? It was just numbers, and it started out, 'Hey, it's Paul Levesque, Triple H with WWE.' So it was like when you see that, you know they're not really texting you. That's a bot texting, right? Like 'Hey, it's Morgan Freeman. I want you to vote for me for the Screen Actors Guild' or whatever. Yeah, that's what I thought it was when I first glanced at it, and I looked down, whatever. But my phone, like many people have, is connected to my computer, and I was working on my computer and I could see the text message also pop up on my screen. I read the first bit, and I was like, Oh this is actually him. This isn't somebody pretending to be Triple H. And I read the text, and it was like, 'Hey, man, we're big fans of your work over here. You got time for a call?' Yeah, hold my beer. Of course I got time for a call. The greatest mind in wrestling of all time is texting me, and I'm like, wow. And that's how it started. We started a conversation, and the timing was perfect. My contracts were up with Top Rank, and I graciously said, 'Hey, I think I'm gonna move over here', and I will say this about Top Rank. Brad Jacobs, who was my point, is probably one of the most incredible human beings on the planet. His words to me when I called him were, 'It sucks for us. This is incredible for you. Congratulations.' To this day, I have the utmost respect for Brad. And I'm sure, I don't know for a fact, but I'm sure Nick had something to do with this when that vacancy presented itself. Because he's the one who brought me over to boxing, and I'm sure he had something to do with bringing me over to the WWE. And you know, Joe Tessitore is with the WWE, and he was the voice of Top Rank forever. So we have a wonderful relationship. And I can say that Joe has been remarkable in holding my hand. Everybody has been. So again, kid in the candy store, humble as hell, grateful for everything."

On his first introduction being Cody Rhodes:

"My first hit was, 'Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome The American Nightmare, Cody Rhodes.' I'll never forget it, amazing. I was scared sh*tless. And you know, I had been to the O2 with other events, but not with the WWE Universe. And after that show was over. Man, the fans were awesome, and if I could have, I would have hugged everybody. That's how much of a high I was on, because they were so gracious, and they all wanted to know who the hell I was. And that's just wrestling. Yeah, it's just the WWE Universe man, they want to know, and I'm happy to let them know. So having this opportunity, this is so cool, dude. Thank you."

On the origin of his WWE name:

"There's a process there, and it's awesome. That's a big part of wrestling is finding out who this person is now, and where this name is, or how they're finding that name. So it didn't come overnight, and there was a lot of conversation about it back and forth with options, and Nash was, believe it or not, something that I came up with. It's my mother's maiden name and my father's last name squished together. So my father’s name is Shunock, as everybody knows, S, H, U, N, O, C, K. My mother's maiden name is Nassr N, A, S, S, R. So I took N, A, S, H, put it together, and I just threw it in an email. I didn't even need an explanation. I said, Hey, what do you guys think about Mark Nash? It's my mom's name and my dad's name squished together. They’re like, awesome. So again, as much as it's not my real name, it is. So when I walk out, I am so proud of Mark Nash on that screen, because you're allowing me now to tell the WWE Universe that that's my mom and my dad on that screen with me, and I'm just like you and probably all of your listeners. We all have families. We all have mothers and fathers, and I love mine just like everybody else, and they're with me every Friday night."

On his never-seen 17 John Cena introduction:

"I'm gonna just say it. This [Stanley Cup] ring is pretty special, and that's an iconic moment from the Stanley Cup. I don't know that I will ever be a part of a moment. Let's knock on wood that they keep happening as amazing, I don't have another word for it, just unreal, amazing, incredible, as this last three months that I've had with John Cena. Again, what is life? He points at you and calls you into the ring and tells you, 'Your announcement sucks. Read this instead.' And then I'm like, okay. I get this elaborate ring announcement for John, and it goes bananas and viral, and everybody loves it. And I've had the privilege of now repeating it for three months, and you know that came to an end two weeks ago, his last appearance on SmackDown, and I had a moment with him where I just, I literally just looked him in the eyes, and I said, Thank you so much for this incredible opportunity. Again, I don't even know that we'd be sitting here if it wasn't for that, right? Because it propelled me in the WWE Universe in a pretty cool way."

On using cue cards at the start of his WWE run:

"Well, that's a boxing thing, right? And I'm glad you brought that up, because like you mentioned, some fans are not so friendly. It's a safety blanket for me, and has been. A lot of ring announcers will write things out and they'll have an actual big binder book. When I was doing boxing, I would have two cards per fight, I would have the introduction card and the results card, just crazy prepared. Because at the end of the day in boxing, if you mess up a split decision announcement or a majority decision. There’s six ways you can announce a fight result. If you mess that up, you're done, right? There's no reason to try and risk memorizing a result in boxing simply because you want to memorize it and not hold a card. Read it, because again, it's not about you. It's about telling and still, and new, so don't screw it up. Read it. Here, there's no scores, so it's a little easier to announce a result, much easier, but to answer the first part of your question, no, I'm still learning there's a lot of talent in the WWE, NXT, and Raw, Smackdown. I think this is now my sixth month with the company. I'm starting to feel comfortable with the blue, right? And it's funny that this room is blue. SmackDown, I'm starting to feel comfortable. I'm a perfectionist, right? And I want to be perfect for you. I don't want to be perfect for me."

On whether he wants to know the results ahead of time:

"No, no, no. Why would I? I want to live in that moment with the fans, right? And then hopefully that my read for the result sounds even more authentic, because, holy sh*t, he won! I don't want to know the results."

On never doing the high-pitched Chelsea Green intro:

"I'm gonna just throw it out there for the world to know that is never coming out of my mouth. Because also, Chelsea is badass, and she deserves to be introduced as a badass. So I think that fans will start to resonate with the badass announcement of Chelsea. Michin, she's awesome. And then The Miz has been wild, Melo, they're all great, man."

What is Mark Nash grateful for:

"My mom and dad, my family, my wife and health."

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