1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Mark Canterbury (WWE Wrestler Henry O. Godwinn): April 13th, 10am

Episode Date: April 13, 2022

Went to Wrestlmania this yearWhen he broke his neckHe did a round-table at WrestlmaniaAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Coming at you live from the couple Chevrolet GMC Studios, here is your host, Derek Pearson, presented by Beatrice Bakery, on 937 The Ticket and the Ticketfm.com. Thanks for hanging out for the next hour here on 937 The Ticket. Do you guys know the rules? 402-464-5-6-85. Start a hand-me-text line.

Do you want to text into the show? if you have questions, comments, or otherwise, the Honda Liggin Hotline is occupied. We have a guest today, and that is why. The video streams are up, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, so you can share those, join into those chat rooms, if you would. I want to thank folks from Beatrice Bakery for making this hour of sports radio happen.

Take a deep breath in. Breathe it all in. Rico, if you would, hit this man. music. Some of you will know them by Phineas. Some of you will know him by Henry O. Godwin. I know him as

Mark Canterbury, dear friend, and he gives the best hugs in the entire WWE. Let's bring him Mark Canterbury. Big man, how are you doing this morning? Thank you for doing this. What's up, D.P.? Good a while. It's good to hear

from you, brother. Long overdue. You've been busy, man. Every time I I poke up. I look, and there you are. You're with Undertaker. You're at WrestleMania. Brother, you look fantastic, by the way.

Job well done. Yeah, well, I appreciate it. Yeah, it's been busy, you know. It was probably around my birthday, the middle of March, the office called and says, you know, Undertaker's going to the Hall of Fame. And I said, yes, I know that. And they said, well, he wants you to be there.

He wants the BSK there. So, oh, man, I was ready to go. Didn't have to ask me twice. Oh, my goodness, brother. It's been fantastic to watch you kind of re-evolve in this thing, watching you be around the thing that you love so much. It's good to watch, but, again, through whatever health issues, and we'll talk a little bit about that.

But, brother, you look fantastic. You look like you can get it done again. I think if I had to, I could. I don't really want to, but I think I could if I had to. Right. Oh, man, my goodness. So let's go back, and some of our listeners know your story. They know our story.

Mark and I, same Little League, same. And it was just to tell you it was unfair for Mark to be in the same Little League as most of us. Mark, even then, was just a giant in talent and size and stature. Multi-sport athlete did the thing, great in the community. From West Virginia to Arlington, Virginia, you, sir, are an incredible athlete. How did that, tell me this thing. What would you have done if you had not been a wrestling? Oh, my gosh.

I don't know. I don't know any. After 30 plus years, a little over 30 years, it's just, I don't know anything else. It was always a big part of my life even when I was in elementary school. But I'd say if I didn't get into wrestling, maybe football or maybe just, hell, I'm a hog farmer now, so I may be doing that on a bigger scale. You never know. Mark, it's funny, right?

That often, I mean, we talk about the great characters. And that the fact that life imitates art and art imitating life, you actually are a pig farmer. Like that doesn't happen for everybody that way. But it's not how you started. What was the first character you developed as a pro wrestler? Well, in the Indies, it was, of course, mean Mark Canterbury. But after I started going to WCW to be an extra, a job,

extra enhancement match, whatever they call them now. We call them jobbers. Right. But, you know, Dusty Roads liked the way I work. Eric Watts, you know, it just graduated from Louisville. He was a quarterback up there, and Cowboy Bill Watts. His dad was running the territory down there at WCW. So they liked the way I work, and, man, they just asked me when I could start.

And I said, well, any time, I guess. And I was at TV, had no clothes with me, and Warren Anderson and Italian Stan were giving me clothes to take on the road. And I thought I was going to go home and get my stuff together. They said, well, we want you to go now. Right. So, but it was the greatest thing that ever happened. You know, at the end of that week, I was on the road.

I was riding with Barbarian, Harley Race, and Hercules Hernandez. And I was scared after death sitting in the car with all these. knowledgeable guy over 100 years of talent you know so it was uh it was pretty exciting who was the biggest influence on you in this profession oh my god i got to say um in wc wc w had to been arn i just posted a picture we'd seen arn at russomania uh last week so it was good to see him and Barry Wyndham helped us a lot and of course Dusty

you know Dusty is the one that put the whole thing together the Texan Shanghai Pierce Dusty loved old Westerns and he got that off the gunfighted okay growl so that's how our gimmick started in WCWG that's so good

that's so good it was funny because the original and the mean mark and then I like the slick down version of Mark Canterbury because it was like, okay, that's Mark. Like that, right there, kind of the ultimate badass. That seemed to fit you very well. Yeah, we, of course, we won the belts twice as Henry and Phineas,

and the office wanted us to go in a different direction, so they'd come up with Southern Justice and put us in suits, and, you know, we were with a couple different managers, and we were with Jeff Jared and Colonel, Robert Parker. It was a good time, you know, and unfortunately I broke my neck up there, and we were going to get the belts for a third time against Road Dog and badass Billy Gunn, but they sent me home, and I had spinal fusion done.

It was a big hiccup for our tag team, you know, Phineas went on to be Midian for a little while, Undertaker, but, yeah, I mean. I mean, things happen for a reason, you know, and I got to coach my boys a little bit when I come off the road in football. And, you know, of course, I lost Jordy in 2003, my youngest son. Yeah. But Shane's still in the oldest son, Shane, you know, he was in, he was down, wrestled in for Vince and Orlando at the school for about a year. And then, but he's still in Tennessee. He's a real estate agent and a licensed besides therapist.

He's enjoying life down there and everything is good right now. Mark, let's talk. I mean, you so have talked about this, but it's the first time we've gotten to talk about it. Let's talk about the injury, right? That you were next to Invincible. I mean, for guys in our circle, like you and Batista were the icons for being just invincible Arlingtonians. Like, we felt like, okay, those are our guys. and then it happened

go through the injury and then the rehab the things that happened because of the injury well we were working the road warriors it was Monday night they wanted me to take the superplex or the clothesline off the top and you know something went wrong

I won't point no fingers or lay blamed to anybody we were all in the road together Right. You know, I came down on my neck, cracked my C-7. This was in Binghamton, New York, live TV. Of course, my family's freaking out. I'm bad watching.

But, yeah, that really, they wanted me to take 14 weeks off and have another MRI after 14 or 15 weeks. Hell, I was back on the road in seven, wrestling again. Vince had a trainer with me working on me every night. I thought, man, I can do this. Right. Right. Superband. I wrestled seven weeks with a, you know,

cracked C-7. Finally, I had to come off the road and had a spinal fusion in Nashville. And Vince paid me to sit around for a year and do rehab. And then they let me go. it wasn't too bad a rehab matter of fact as soon as I had the surgery done

I gained about 75% of the strength back that week I mean it was crazy but there's just all that pressure in there and they relieved it

and thank God I can still go to the gym and do a little bit of stuff but yeah it's all good Well, you've never really carried venom about it. I try to explain it, folks, that the nature of the business is that there's no healthy people in this business. Yeah. And if you are healthy, you're not healthy long in this business.

Right, right? Like, this is, I mean, the work for all of the things that go on within it, this is a meat grinder, man. This thing is tough to do. So we need to shout out, my goodness gracious, God bless you, forget. getting through. You know, Big E. just broke his neck two or three weeks ago. Right.

I mean, you know, he came off of that. And, you know, we start to pay attention to the storytellers, right? That, oh, this is what happened and now here's what's next. But we really, we forget the people behind the gimmick. Yeah. That this affects lives and livelihoods, man. We're talking about checks. And remember, it's an entirely different deal now.

There's a whole lot more money in it now than it was when you were doing. Oh, hell yeah. It's totally different. And the guys are doing crazier things. And being at WrestleMania watching that stuff, I was like on my, you know, just you don't sit on your hands. You're definitely moving around and wondering, you know, if something bad's going to happen because they do some outrageous stuff now. And I don't know. It's just different for me.

We can tell a story and not do all that crazy. stuff and risk each other. Yeah, I mean, and we're smarter now. Like, we know what the risk is. We're talking to Mark Canterbury, who wrestled under Henry O Godwin. I thought along the way that what impressed me about you was your commitment to family and connection to family above all. Let's talk about your parents, because I know what a powerful story this is and how much

they mean to you and who you are and then how in turn you raise your sons. Let's talk about mom and dad a little bit. I, yeah. You know, they're both from here in Monroe County, West Virginia. My dad was a sheriff here. Mom just worked in the town in a little store there for a while. And they moved up to Arlington in 62. I was born in 64.

loved it back then, loved Arlington. Yeah. It's just a great place to grow up. Multi-culture back then. You know that, the Black Knights week. Sir, baby. Yes, sir. What a great time, man, just to be with different people and grow up

and not have a thing to worry about. But mom and dad got me in sports, you know, black nights, down a four-mile run. Yeah, baby. I felt like we should have just had a tent down there because I was there all the time. They knew where to find you. They knew where to find you.

Yeah. They supported me from age six on up to the day they left me. So they loved coming to sports. And they were just good people. They raised me right, taught me respect. and respect to other people. And it's worked for me.

You know, the BSK, the group, we're multi-culture, and we're way ahead of our time, I think. And we still have that same connection and love for each other. It's not a group. It's a brotherhood. Yeah, man. It was funny. So just in a recent book, they asked me to write about impact,

things that impacted him. And I picked the Black Knights because it was unique in that space. that we had everybody, every culture, every background, every financial group, every race creed color in that space. And we just loved each other. And it was unique and special. And I want to get praise. I mean, think about, let's give a shout out to the Wakefield Warriors.

Because two of the wrestling greats come from the same building. Like you and Batista coming from the same building is pretty remarkable. Yeah. To get the world of me and him got, you know, he's went a lot farther and been more successful, but, you know, who knows if it wouldn't have broke my neck, what would have happened with the Godwins or... With Henry? Well, with you, I mean, let's be clear, your match with Triple Age is still one that people talk about because it broke down several barriers and it highlighted really excellent in the game that you're in, man. What do you remember most about that match? Oh, my God. We were so hyped up, you know.

When they told us the idea, I was all excited. Hunter was a little confused because he's a city boy. Yeah, right. I was happier to picking shit, no punting. Right? Right. But we had a, you know, Vince says,

I'm going to leave this up to you all. Here's what, here's the setup. all come up with the match. So me and Hunter come up with everything ourselves. All the events did was had somebody build the little pin

and put the pigs in there. And me and Hunter took it from there. And that year, me and Triple H were up for a Slammy award for the top match of the year. So it was impressive. And when you, you know,

Hunter was bleeding, got 15 stitches in his back and we all covered in all that stuff that was in the hump in. Right. We come back through the doors and come by Vince's office and we go in there and he says, hell, I can't believe you boys

pulled that off. That was a hell of a match. Man. Because I think a lot of them thought it was just going to be a little ha-ha match and cutesy, but we beat the piss at each other. You really did. They really did. And to tell the story, man, brother, that like for all of that,

that it was a respect. That's when I thought that you you legitimately, without injury, can make the singles run. Because you checked all the boxes for personality, size, athletic ability. You were good with the microphone, even when given the opportunity. And I thought, man, this is going to be it. I would be remiss in saying, I mean, you recovered from that section of it, and you were still active.

I mean, you were still active around it, and then you had another accident. an accident that I can honestly tell you this one scared me for you like I I was worried about you um yeah the the the the car accident yeah oh gosh yeah that was in uh 2011 i was going to my buddy's house to watch football as in november and uh i come around a curve here on a country road two lane road but it's country you're right and uh i've seen two sets of headlights coming at me so I swerved and that was it. I got on the road and flipped my truck four times

and it had me pinned severed my female artery, broke 14 ribs, ruptured my spleen, de-gloved my left leg. They were going to cut my leg off for the first week in Roanoke, Virginia to hospital.

And man, it was horrible. And but, you know, the big God stairs had his hand on me and pulled me through it. I was in a coma for 12 days on a ventilator, and here I am. I still got my leg, and I can still get around. So thank God for that. Not only get around, but you've gotten back in the ring.

Yeah, I wrestled three times last year for international wrestling cartel, IWC, out of Pennsylvania. I had three matches up there, which is a good little organization. I love them guys up there. But, yeah, really, I think I'm done now. It's getting to be where it's too much of a job and not enough pleasure. Right. So it gets like that. It's time to get out.

But real quick, going back to WrestleMania, you know, just what a great time. When I flew down there Thursday, last Thursday, when I got in, they had us doing some stuff. So we were all excited. They said, we're going to have a WWRound table, which was going to consist of me and my partner, Phineas, Undertaker, Rakishi, and Godfather. Well, Texas flight got, my partner's flight got messed up, so it was just us for me, taker, Rakeasy, and Godfather. I mean, what a treat this is going to be. You know, the production said, you know, go about an hour. We went an hour and 45 minutes.

We were sitting at the round table, and they said, you know, we wanted no scripts just to be raw. I was thinking, you know, you're asking the wrong people. You want wrong. But we had a sandwich in front of us. I mean, it's a nice set up in a glass of wall. or whatever we wanted to drink. So there's four little shot glasses in front of us.

And Rakeha goes, what's the shot glasses for? So Undertaker reaches down on the table and pulls out a fifth of jack. So I knew then we were in trouble because we had to sort of PG our stories, but as we drank more, the stories got better. So at the end of this round table, oh, my God, it is so hilarious. I can't wait until it comes out and you can see it. But just for the fans to see us open up together and laugh and talk about old times, because you see Taker coming to the ring, it's dark.

He never says nothing. It's dreary. But in this round table, man, we let it all hang out. We laughed. We played dominoes like we used to. I mean, it was just a damn blast. And for the fans to see that is going to be an awesome experience for them, I think. When is that supposed to be available?

I haven't heard, but me and Tracy will definitely let you know when it's going to be available. How is that lovely wife of yours? How is Tracy? She's good. She's at work, and you couldn't run her back to the city for nothing. She loves the country. Hey, man. My next trip back, I'm going to come up to the farm.

We're going to hang out a little bit, and we'll come down for a weekend or something. Yeah, man. It needs to happen next trip. I was just back there. It's funny thing you mentioned four-mile run because now where we, where the 12 and 13-year-old, 14-15-year-olds play, now GW has a baseball stadium there. That's where they play. That's where they play. And I was there last weekend. You wouldn't even recognize Barcroft. You wouldn't recognize it. It's got a full college baseball stadium at. No way. Yeah. Fully turfed, top level. Like amazing. amazing. Yeah.

So, but the next time through, next time you guys come back for a reunion and other, you got another one coming up. Next time we do that, sir, yeah, we need to hug it out a little bit. Do you, by chance, do you have another 10 minutes? Yeah. Okay, because I want to kind of do a little round the wheel with certain wrestlers. We did our tag team championship bracket to figure out who the greatest tag teams of all time are. I'll ask you who your Mount Rushmore of tag teams are, and then your Mount Rushmore of wrestlers.

So we'll do that next here. Mark Canterbury, Henry O Godwin from the WWE here on one-on-one on the ticket. Download our app by searching 93.7 the ticket in your app store. You're listening to One-on-One-on-One with DP on 937 the Ticket in the Ticketfm.com.