Former WWE Superstar Marc Mero recently appeared as a guest on the Noonan Speaks podcast for an in-depth interview. Featured below are some of the highlights.
On his relationship with Rena Mero (Lesnar): “Meeting my ex-wife Rena, who became Sable, we were married when I was Johnny B. Badd at WCW, and then, of course, I brought her into WWE with me, and she became very successful, and we did very well with that. And then, of course, live doesn’t always go the way you plan that way either. We ended up getting divorced and both going our separate ways in life. But, gosh, the thing that I admire about Rena and the thing I’m so proud of myself about, is we never said a bad word about each other. We never dogged each other out. We have a daughter, Mariah, and a granddaughter, Sophia, and I would never want them to feel like their parents are out there fighting with each other. I have nothing but, gosh, admiration for her, and I wish her all the best in the world. I mean, she [has] got kids with Brock now and they’re doing well. I couldn’t be happier for those guys.”
On Mero’s infamous guaranteed WWE contract: “It was in ’96 when Eric Bischoff took over [in WCW], and I was renewing my contract, and he gave me a sweet deal, but WWE gave me an amazing deal, and not only did they give me an amazing deal, but Vince [McMahon] gave me everything at the time. I got a signing bonus, a guaranteed contract, and he allowed me… well, one of the things I wanted in my contract was that I wanted my wife to fly everywhere I flew, which was unheard of in [pro] wrestling, like, taking your wife on the road. Remember, [at the time] she’s not even part of the show. She’s not even part of the WWE – she’s just my wife, but I wanted her with me because I did not want to go through a divorce. I watched too many people ruin their marriages being on the road and I had already been into drugs, and the women, and all of the craziness in life. I did not want that to happen to my new marriage, so I put that as part of my contract. I said, ‘I want guaranteed money, I want a signing bonus, and I want my wife to go everywhere I go.’ And Vince said, ‘I have never heard that before’ and he gave me everything I wanted.”
On McMahon knowing he wanted to put Sable on TV as soon as he met her despite claiming otherwise: “A funny story was that to sign my contract Vince wanted to fly me from Atlanta [Georgia] to New York [New York] to talk about the new character and going from Johnny B. Badd. They sent me my plane ticket and I noticed it was only the one ticket. In other words, it was just for me. And I called Vince, I go, ‘Vince, we made a deal – my wife goes everywhere I go.’ And he goes, ‘to sign a contract?’ I go, ‘she goes everywhere,’ so they sent me another ticket. And I said, ‘Vince, what about this? Why don’t you have my wife be my valet? I mean, she’s very pretty and I think she’d do very well.’ And he said, ‘well, let’s just concentrate on you.’
“Anyways, we fly up to New York and we walk into Vince’s office with my ex-wife, Rena. And he looked at her and he just goes, ‘I have got to put her on TV.’ I mean, it was like he just knew that at this moment he saw this character, Sable, and we had all these names that we were trying to decide from and we chose the name, Sable. And that’s how her [pro wrestling] career started. And, of course, was huge and did so well. I’m just so proud of her going from never doing anything like that to becoming a major superstar in the business. So that’s how that happened.”
Check out the complete episode of the Noonan Speaks podcast featuring the Marc Mero interview at SendSpace.com.