We’ll all remember Mark Henry’s faux-retirement speech for a long time. With tears in his eyes, the World’s Strongest Man cut an emotional promo dedicated to his friends and family, only to blindside John Cena and goad him into a title shot.
This wasn’t the first time that Mark had bared his soul to the public, however, as the former Olympian had delivered another heartfelt promo back in September 1999. Unlike the retirement speech, though, this one would result in fewer title shots and more incest and prostitution angles.
Mark’s sad story began in the summer of 1999, when his pal D’Lo Brown tried to get Henry (a babyface at this point) into shape. That meant eating healthy…
…and exercising.
Fitness wasn’t Sexual Chocolate’s thing, so, not foreseeing any negative consequences to being out of shape while under a 10-year contract, he turned against D’Lo at Summerslam, turning heel.
After losing to D’Lo at the next pay-per-view, Henry began coming to D’Lo’s aid, thus turning face again.
He then cut a serious promo apologizing for his actions as of late and admitted that he had an addiction. Now, addiction is serious business. Just recently, Kurt Angle very publicly entered a rehabilitation program for his own vice, which happened to be gutter sluts. I mean, alcohol.
But unlike Kurt, Mark wasn’t addicted to alcohol. Nor was he addicted to drugs or gambling (Jeff Gann having laid claim to that gimmick years before). No, the answer was far more shocking, as it turned out that “Sexual Chocolate” was, in fact, a sex addict. So maybe he wasn’t so much different from Kurt.
“Did he say, ‘sex addict’?” asked an astonished Michael Cole. No, Cole, he said, “sax attic.” It’s where he keeps his musical instrument collection.
Sexual Chocolate then explained that his addiction had cost him his money, his fiancée, and his best friend D’Lo Brown. Uh, do I really care to find out how exactly sexual addiction had cost him D’Lo? Besides, I thought they split up because the World’s Strongest Man didn’t want to go on a diet? Maybe Mark had some sort of bizarre, Costanza-esque intertwined desire for food and sex.
As Henry admitted to seeking professional help, the announcers did their best to explain how this situation was no laughing matter, which was absolutely necessary if the WWF was going to present a mature and informative look at a real-life problem.
Mark’s therapy sessions bega– pfffft! Ha! Oh, I’m sorry, but I just snorted out the juice I’ve been drinking from my Ultimate Warrior Suck-Cup™ just trying to read that last paragraph out loud with a straight face! I mean, right as the announcers were talking about the seriousness of sex addiction, they played Mark Henry’s Barry White-style theme song. Anyway, Mark’s therapy sessions began the next week with a sexy young psychologist.
When asked about his first sexual encounter, Henry reluctantly admitted that it took place at age eight with his own sister. Whoa oh! Mark’s therapist freaked out and demanded to know whether he was still having sex with his sister. Jeez, lady, I know that’s some weird stuff, but shouldn’t you be used to hearing those kinds of things from patients speaking under 100% confidentiality (except for the national TV audience watching the whole thing)? And why accuse Mark of still doing it? If he had admitted to wetting the bed or eating his boogers as a child, would you have acted horrified and wondered if he still did that as an adult?
Well, it turned out that her suspicions were correct, as upon her next question, our favorite nymphomaniac admitted to doing it with his sister just two days earlier. The doctor, however, took that shocking revelation in stride. It’s almost as if she were told to flip out in response to Henry’s outrageous answer, but she got confused and reacted too early. I wonder how she, as a trained psychoanalyst, felt about acting so unprofessional on television? By the way, I can only assume she was a real therapist, as no professional actress would have stumbled over the punchline like that.
Undeterred, Mark continued with his therapy sessions, but this time with a different doctor. She offered her medical opinion that he was “really screwed up” and suggested a course of “overstimulation.”
This meant that Henry would have to face The Godfather in a “Ho-Jack Match” where about two dozen sex workers surrounded the ring. Mark quickly lost due to distraction, then indulged in his addiction right in the middle of the ring (which also happened in The Young and the Wrestling. Uh, I heard)…
…leaving his shrink none too pleased.
Fed up with attractive female doctors who only distracted him and exacerbated (there’s a funny word) his condition, Mark hired a male therapist. Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that this new doctor was a real queenie. You know what I mean? A fairy cake who was kind of fruity? Gay, that is. He was gay. And we knew this because he kept touching Mark’s pectorals, which sent the World’s Strongest Man running (and later inspired his theme music by Three 6 Mafia).
Also, noted the announcers, he had a lisp, which any speech pathologist will tell you is a sure sign of male homosexuality. Aside from the fact that he didn’t actually have a lisp, that was a pretty strong case.
By the way, why didn’t more announcers call Mark Henry either simply, “Sexual” or, “Chocolate”?
Chocolate, having figured that all male therapists were aggressively homosexual, hired an older woman for his fourth session. Wanting him to realize that not all touching was sexual, she invited him to join her in a friendly hug. Would you guess what happened next?
That’s right, she turned out to be a Sexual Chocoholic herself, throwing herself on top of her patient and moaning.
For those keeping score, by now Mark had hired and fired two fine pieces of ass, a gay man and a 60-year-old woman.Excuse me, let me rephrase that so it doesn’t sound like Mark considered the dude and the older lady, “pieces of ass”:
Mark had hired and fired two fine pieces of ass (comma) a gay man (comma) and a 60-year-old woman. That’s four shrinks total.
Thanks again, Oxford comma.
“No problem.”
Hey Kama, while you’re here, could you stick around for the next half a dozen panels or so? You brought your other hat, right?
Anyway, Sexual had at last had enough, joining up with the Godfather and embracing his appetites (the sexual kind, although I’m sure Mark was also wondering what kind of bird Godfather got those feathers from and whether he had any leftovers).
This pairing lasted six days. See, the Godfather had been having problems of his own with Mideon, who admitted to deviant acts that would make Sharmell-era Kurt Angle and Katie Vick-era Kane blush. I’ll never look at Phineas I. Godwinn the same way again, that’s for sure.
When the fun-loving prostitution agent faced off against Mideon’s partner Viscera, Big Vis challenged him to a Winner-Take-Ho match and offered Mark Henry 24/7 access to the sex workers if he helped him win.
When he said, “twenty four hours a day, seven days a week,” was he implying that he would own the Godfather’s women for life, and they couldn’t quit? Disturbing. Also disturbing: imagining Viscera back in his Men on a Mission days doing this rap.
Henry cost the Godfather the first-ever Human Trafficking match and took possession of his gaggle of prostitutes while Viscera stayed behind to beat up two of the remaining women.
Can you believe that some idiots at the time thought the WWF was less than morally upstanding?
Now a heel again and aligned with Viscera, Henry helped himself to Big Vis’s employees/property, who appeared to be completely different prostitutes from the ones he won from the Godfather. We can only assume that Viscera already had his own pimping business independent of the Godfather’s operation.
Some of these new workin’ girls did not exactly meet the peak standards of beauty and glamor normally associated with women who rent their bodies out for a living. This really hurt the realism of the angle. What’s next, a hooker with missing teeth? Or who abuses drugs? I mean, we’ve all seen Pretty Woman. Don’t insult our intelligence, WWF.
This alliance lasted for one day (three, by TV time) until Mark Henry got distracted by Terri Runnells and cost himself and Viscera a match with the Hardy Boyz. Vis put the boots to our protagonist, who was thus turned face again. It’s hard to believe that Vince Russo had already stopped writing for the WWF weeks earlier.
Sexual Chocolate then disappeared from television for a few weeks and reappeared only as a jobber to up-and-coming stars like Kurt Angle and Chris Jericho.
At last, he famously hooked up with Mae Young, who could finally satisfy his needs. And just as he was getting an air of legitimacy by fathering a rubber hand with a 72-year-old woman, the romance was dropped and he was sent down to OVW for two years to get in shape.
He really should have listened to D’Lo.