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The Godfather On The Gimmick He HATED, Ho Train, His Terrifying Papa Shango Voice
Charles Wright (@TheGodfather) is a retired professional wrestler and WWE Hall of Famer. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Las Vegas to discuss his wrestling career as Papa Shango, Kama and The Godfather, his first memories of working with The Undertaker and The Rock, why he hated The Goodfather and Right To Censor, why he missed his cue in the main event of WrestleMania 8, being Owen Hart's scheduled opponent for Over The Edge, receiving a Hall of Fame induction and more!
Quote I'm thinking about: “Dreams are not what you see in your sleep, they are the things that don’t let you sleep.” - Cristiano Ronaldo
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"In the last year I've had my hip and my knee replaced. When I started I was 310. Now I'm about 240-250 and I feel great. I hope I look great, but I feel great. But I've really changed how I eat, when I eat, what I eat, and have really changed a lot about my lifestyle."
"I try not to eat sugar and keep my carbs down. I don't eat past five o'clock at night. I don't eat till 10 o'clock. I keep the shots of Jack Daniels to a minimum unless Taker is around, I'll call him Taker not Mark. No bread, no fast food. Not because it's unhealthy. But for some reason as I've gotten older, I don't like red meat. Nothing about being grass fed. Every time I do these autograph signings on the weekends, we always look for barbecue spots. Everybody always wants to take me to barbecue spots, which is cool. But then I get turkey or I get chicken and they’re like, Dude, you gotta get the ribs, you gotta get the brisket, but I'm just it's kind of weird. I can't explain."
"I don't think you were there when Taker did his show here in Vegas. We talked about it, but I made a complete fool of myself drinking that day. Since then, I've had a different outlook on drinking Jack. So can I drink? Yes, I can drink a lot, unfortunately. But I tried to drink as little as possible."
"When I met him I was a full blown biker. When I met him, it was hard for me to understand why this big white dude didn't drink Jack, didn't listen to country music, didn't ride Harleys didn't have tattoos. I just couldn't understand it because the crowd of people at that time in my life, were hardcore bikers. And so I just tell people that I opened his eyes up to a different way of life. And that son of a gun took to it very well."
"I just worked a programme with Lawler they didn't know what to do with me. I'm as green as Kermit the Frog. Taker has been in the business a couple years now. So they said hey, we're gonna bring this big, tall white kid into work against you. He's been in the business a couple years. Maybe we can do something with you. So Mark's driving in from Texas. I never get a chance to meet him. Everything I've done so far is what Jerry Lawler has told me to do in the ring. I know nothing. Just what somebody's telling me what to do, which is a whole other story. So I met him in the ring. We have a match where I really think I'm like, Oh, here's another one he's big ass white boys I'm gonna have to deal with, so it was a little physical in the ring with me and him. He tells me to throw him out. So I throw him out. I go after him. I'm chasing him around one corner the other corner. I guess he found that chair which was what he was looking for. He hit me over the head with a chair so hard that you know the cartoons when you see the stars and little birdies? I swear I see that. And he looked down at me said do you want to do this easy way or the hard way? I said I think let's do this the easy way and from that point we became really good friends from that day."
"The best thing for me is Godfather. Because Godfather is me. Being a pimp or all that is besides the point. It was so nice to be able to just be you. And Godfather is me. I mean, you know me now, you been around me, I act like this all the time. I don't act hard. I don't act mean. I try to be funny. And I just enjoy life now which has made me a better person. So I mean, everything is basically come to just the pinnacle for me was being The Godfather and being able to be myself on TV. I don't know if you know this was never scripted ever. Back then they would not ask me what I was going to say anytime I had carte blanche. Isn’t that crazy? It's pretty wild. They just wanted me to entertain them."
"The WWE hired me. I had a tryout, I was in Germany for a year, when I got back from Germany they gave me a call and were like we want to give you a tryout. So I go for a tryout. Vince hires me and he says, You got a body of a monster, but you have a baby face. He goes, so we want you to just go home keep training because at that point, I had lost like 70 pounds trying to get in shape. He goes go home, relax. Then he called me one day and says Charles, I want you to go rent the movie Live and Let Die, there's a voodoo character in there. It's a James Bond film. And I already knew the film and the character. I was already familiar with everything. And he goes most importantly, I want you to get this guy's laugh down. When you address the people you [laugh]. Yeah, but that's where it came from. They wanted to hide my face because they thought I had a baby face."
"Papa Shango went through a very, very ugly divorce. My second wife. I went through an ugly divorce, I was in a very, very bad place. Biker Bear came out. Back then mind you, there's no social media, there's no laptops. I don't even think there was ESPN. So there's nobody taking pictures of you on your phone. But I was getting into a lot of fights, real fights and Taker was pulling me off for people, and it was getting ugly. So I went in there with Vince and Mark and we decided it would be best if I went home and got my mind right before somebody got hurt. I know that's wild, but I was a different person back then."
"I'm not sure. The thing about me is I always had the luxury of being either part of a strip club or part owner of a strip club. So I always had money coming in, that could have been one of my problems. Wrestling for me, the money's great, but wrestling for me was to have fun. When I was not having fun, I would go to Vince and say, Vince, I'm not making much money. I'm going through the tables every night with the Dudleys, I hate this travel. I could be at home looking at naked women making this much money. Vince was so cool with me, he would let me go and then they would call me back and I'd be like, Nah, I'm not ready to come back. And the reason they got me to come back as Kama is they offered me a Harley. I'm like if I could ride a Harley, I'll come back and then only had it for a short time he took it away from me because it was crazy. They were renting him at the time before Vince had access to a bunch of Harley's and said let's say took the Harley away from me as Kama. I was done. And as Godfather once they made me Goodfather I was done. Vince was fighting for me the whole time believe me, Vince like Godfather I’m fighting for your bro. But they were getting rid of the DX and the suck it and the puppies and the Val Venis's and they were going more and more PG. And finally they can only go so far with me so when Vince says Charles, we're gonna do this and that and all I said was, so no more Ho’s? All I heard was no more Ho’s. He goes Charles, no more ho’s. I'm like, well finish me up I’m done. He's like wait a minute. So we would work out a programme, we did that and then I was done."
"I wanted to be a mean pimp. Yeah I wanted to be a mean one. And then she's like, No, let's go this route. And she basically said, instead of trying to act to be something that you're not, just go out there be your high as crazy self and have a good time at this point of your life. And once people see that side of you, they're gonna love you because they're gonna see it's genuine. And you gotta love The Godfather. And that's why I went to Vince and I told him I'm like, Vince, these people see enough wrestling. They really do. I'm like let me go out there and just entertain them. And that's what I did."
"Yes. I was put in The Nation just because of him. I was put in The Nation to make it bigger and blacker and make it more strong. Because I came in I was supposed to be Papa Shango. And Vince literally called me to the office and says, change of plans. We're gonna do this, or we're gonna do that. And I'm like, what? And I'm like let me ask you a question. I make the same right? He goes yes, you do. Well I’m down! I didn't want to put that face paint on anyway."
"When it happened, like I said, I was done. I told Vince finish me up. Then the jokester that he is, he put the tag team belts on me and Bull and kept me there even longer. He was more poking fun out of them, he was hoping that maybe we can get back to The Godfather in some form. They tried to bring The Godfather back but it just didn't work because I was no longer a pimp, there were no longer hoes, you couldn't talk about smoking weed, just couldn't. People didn't want that, they wanted The Godfather."
"On a shoot, nobody hated it more than me. As much as Ric Flair is Ric Flair, The Godfather is me and it was just you took it away from me and it just like oh. It took the air out of it and I was done. I just I did my best and RTC just the music alone had serious heat. I did my best but that was the only time in wrestling that I really wasn't happy and I was just waiting for it to come to an end."
"All right, I'm Papa Shango. I'm just happy to be there. They're building me and I got thrown in that position. So they tell me, and I think it was in Indy? Wherever it was, was a long, long run. So they told me do not go. It was Gorilla Monsoon, God rest his soul, I'll say his name now. It was Gorilla Monsoon. That's why you always hear Gorilla Position. And he said, Do not go until we tell you to go. So I'm sitting here like, okay, and all I knew was what I had to do, when I got there, what I had to do, what happened before that after that I wasn't concerned with, I just knew what I had to do when I got there. So I'm sitting there like a track star and then all sudden he goes, Oh, go go! They gave me a late cue. They're not used to giving people cues. They are used to us being professionals and taking off on your own. So he forgot for a minute. That was that."
"I don't know. You'd have to ask them. But the funny thing is, I never heard about it ever from anybody until I was done wrestling, doing autograph signings, and people would be like, Hey, what happened? Why were you late? And I'm like, What do you mean was I wait? Because I never watched the match after I just knew what I had to do when I got there. And yeah, so I never heard about it until later. The reason I never heard about it was because it wasn't my fault. Gorilla was probably like I gave the cue late, dammit. Sorry. I ran as fast as I can, it’s a long run."
"Mark Corrano called me, I'm still under a legends contract with the WWE, I've been on it since 2003. A long time. Back then you'd go to WrestleMania every year, you might not see you on TV, but you were doing signings and what have you. So I was on my way to the gym and Mark Corrano called me. And he's like, you're coming to WrestleMania, right? And I'm like, Yeah, I'm coming. He's like, you bringing your family? I’m like, Well, why would I bring my family? No, I'm just coming by myself. He's like, Well, I just want to let you know, this is the first time you're on the ballot and Vince said definitely we're putting you in Hall of Fame. I’m like no way really? Yeah, that's how the call came. So that was really cool."
"I don't remember. I remember spending the day with Owen. I remember talking with the girls and then Owen was coming out. I’ve never seen it. But when that happened, I was behind the curtain with the girls going through it. [I said] 'Don't worry if you mess up, if you fall, I'll do this.' I was telling them that then whoever it was, it might have been Bruce Prichard, I don’t know who was sitting at the table. I know it wasn't Jim Ross. He goes 'Owen fell!' And then I'm like, what? He goes, 'Owen just fell!' We were looking at the monitors and then it all went down. I just remembered what Owen looked like when he came through the curtain. And other than that, I don't [remember]. I called my wife right away and she tells me a lot of things that I said that I don't remember. But she tells me you said this and you said that. And then I'm like well, I don't remember that. So it was a blur after that. I don't remember how or when I found out that there was no match or what's going on. I really don't remember."
"I remember more about the next night. They had set up matches and Vince said you guys I'm gonna set these matches up if you want to work, [then] work, if you don't want to work, don't work. But I got a show to do basically. I was matched up against Road Dogg without any rehearsal. So we went out there and we didn't know what we're going to do. We both basically said screw this man. Let's go downtown and smoke joint for Owen and let it go with that. And that's what we did."
"My family, my dogs and the fact I got to meet a lot of good people."
