Vince McMahon Loved Mark Henry’s “Sexual Chocolate” Character

The World’s Strongest Man, Mark Henry, is mostly remembered for his near-infinite strength level. There are several remarkable moments from his career which will be remembered for a long time, such as Randy Orton’s iconic toe touch after delivering an RKO to him. However, he also had a very unusual gimmick with his Sexual Chocolate character during the Attitude Era. Apparently, Vince McMahon totally loved it despite being initially dismissive towards it.

In his appearance on the latest episode of the Kurt Angle Show, Henry opened up about how the Sexual Chocolate character was born. He said that The Nation broke up, and after that, everyone had a shtick but himself. That’s when he watched Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America, which inspired him to create Sexual Chocolate.

“Sexual chocolate was my invention. 100%. Not one writer. Nobody. Me and D’Lo were driving after The Nation, and The Nation broke up, so everybody was starting to go and do their own things and trying to figure out what was next. You had the Godfather go his way. You had Ron Simmons go his way and just be Ron Simmons. D’Lo had the chest protector. I was fu**ing kind of just like out in the cold. I was like, you know what, man. I just saw this movie “Coming to America.” They had this band called Sexual Chocolate and I just loved the name. He’s like, ‘Sexual Chocolate’, and I say, ‘You know what, man? I’m gonna kind of be a ladies man and I’m gonna do this.’

Henry had first pitched the idea to D’Lo, who was dismissive of it given how Henry wouldn’t get permission to say the words on live television. However, the World’s Strongest Man was determined to pitch it to Vince McMahon. After a lot of convincing, McMahon gave Henry eight minutes, which he used to convey the direction he’d chosen with the idea.

“I went out there with Val Venis, Sean Morley. I said, ‘Hey, man, anytime that I down you and leave you, just stay there. I’m going to do enough to put you down, but I’m going to leave you. It’s going to feel like a long time, but it’s really not. They’re gonna be looking at me.’ He was like, ‘Oh, God’, like he didn’t want to do it either. We’re wrestling around. We do our normal sh*t and then about that time, he fires up and I give him a power slam. Bam, he’s down and I jump up and I look at the hard camera like, ‘Hey, what’s up.’ I get out of the ring. I go and I started talking to this girl in the front row. I said, ‘Can I have a hug’, and she gave me a hug. Then Sean, you know, I told him, the referee came, ‘Morley, you got to get back in the ring.’ ‘Tell him to come stop me.’ Then Sean comes out. He was like, bang, bang, and I turned around, boom, boom. I press him and throw him in the ring, and then I go back to talking to the girl, ‘Hey, you know, maybe later on we can do this and this.’ Man, we finished the match. I come in the back and Vince is like, ‘Come here you big son of a b*tch.’ Done. He loved Sexual Chocolate. He loved it and Sexual Chocolate is one of the most memorable characters in WWE history.”

Earlier this year, the WWE Hall of Famer explained on the Attitude Era podcast that his gimmick wasn’t the punishment that many fans still believe it to be. He said that during the Attitude Era, there had to be gimmicks that caught people’s attention. Henry further emphasized this by saying that those who stayed mere wrestlers didn’t go down in the history books.

Currently, Mark Henry is awaiting the release of his upcoming documentary, which will focus on his remarkable character as well as the journey of his life. The documentary will drop sometime in 2024.

Were you a big fan of Mark Henry’s Sexual Chocolate character? What did you like most or hate most about it? Leave us know in the comments.