Mark Henry Shares High Praise For Ricky Starks and Ethan Page

Mark Henry was interviewed recently by the Dallas Morning News about his new role in AEW as an announcer for the new show AEW Rampage.

“I feel like I have a lot left to give. I have a lot of understanding, a lot of knowledge, a lot of experience in different things and I was not doing enough of those things as a job. I had a lot of value and I had a lot of understanding, and I was not getting paid for those jobs and I wanted to do that. But if I couldn’t do it [with WWE], then I’d have to do it somewhere else. It just so happened that AEW needs a Mark Henry – somebody that wants to be an executive, wants to work behind the scenes and build the brand and have an imprint on the business.”

He went into detail about some of the coaching he's already done behind-the-scenes in AEW.

“Darby Allin, a lot of stuff outside of wrestling. Will Hobbs, in wrestling. He had a match with [Adam] Page two weeks ago that was the best match he’s ever had. All of the big guys, I want them to concentrate and focus on being big guys. There’s a negative stigmatism to being big in wrestling – you’re not athletic, you can’t move, you can’t flip or fly. There’s a place for it if you’re the big guy, and it’s my job to teach them and give them the understanding.

All of them know how, but my expertise is when and why?”

Henry also spoke about working alongside Dustin Rhodes and Paul Wight.

“It’s awesome. I never thought I was a teacher. I never thought I had those chops. My wife was a teacher by trade, and I didn’t think I had enough patience to be a teacher. I can’t teach math. I can’t teach English. I won’t be able to teach science. But wrestling is so much a part of the oxygen that I breathe that it’s very easy for me to do. If you are a pro wrestler, and you have a conversation with me, you’re going to come away from that conversation knowing more about yourself because I diagnose whatever your illness is, and then I give you the cure.”

But who in AEW has his attention currently?

“Man, Ethan Page. All ego. The dude is something else. Ricky Starks. I mean, Ricky, he’s been injured, he comes back one week and just murders the screen, just kills it. The Brian Cages of the world, the Darby Allins, the Britt Bakers – I didn’t even mention the [Young] Bucks or Kenny [Omega], the people that are fixtures on the show. You asked me about who struck me. And Ethan Page and Ricky Starks, they special.”