Ron Simmons Goes In-Depth On Evolution Of Farooq Character

Ron Simmons was recently a guest on Broken Skull Sessions, where he spoke about his career in the WWF.

“Here it was all of a sudden, I can go from being World Champion, World Tag Team Champion to now, you're going to tell me I'm among one of five guys, black guys, in the company, right? Then, with the success I've already had, there's nothing now, all of a sudden, that I can do?! This has to do with, in my opinion, that people that they had put into those positions now booking, they had no idea what they were doing. No idea what the business was, like, playing into all the backstage antics, right? So other than me giving into that, that crap, I took the route like I did, going back and forth to Japan. Two of my favorite guys on this planet are Bruce Prichard and Michael Hayes. Clearly, I'm sure were seeing what the hell is taking place down here, you know, in WCW at that time, right? Gave me a call. At this time, there were no more contractual obligations with Japan, so I said, ‘Okay, yes. Set up a meeting with myself and Vince.’"

Simmons continued.

"[Vince] and I were just talking, just general things are coming and nothing in detail about the character of how are we going to -- [he] softly alluded to the gladiator type of image. But in my mind, I'm thinking, the gladiator image of, this could work out pretty cool, the shiny metal and the real gladiator type of helmet. I mean, this could look really cool. Never in my wildest imagination could I have dreamed that the gladiator solider would be wearing a leather helmet, okay."

"I'm on the flight up, I'm gung ho. I'm excited about this thing when I'm going to be fitted for this outfit and this thing, right? So I'm all getting myself ready for the shiny metal and I envision someone putting it on me in the ring, and all of that, right?"

His enthusiasm would soon be dashed once he actually saw the costume.

"So when I got to the studio where the guy was fitting me for it, I'm looking around for the objects, normal [gladiator garb] and I don't see it. I asked the dude who was fitting me I said, ‘Where's the suit?’ He said, 'Well some of it is right over there. I was speechless. Literally, I could not say anything. I mean my first thought was, ‘I gotta call Vince about this.’ My better judgment prevailed.”

He revealed that even his wife laughed at it.

“So when I doing the research of this character and looking at this outfit, I'm like, ‘Okay, this is how this is gonna go man. It's either you're gonna step out there and you are going to be the laughingstock of this entire business. Or, here's how you're gonna have to do this. You're gonna have to take this guy and make him just kick people's ass.’ Okay, and that was the only other route that was left.”

Despite all this, Simmons says the Farooq character benefited from the Gladiator phase.

Well see. I'm thankful for that character. Okay, because what he did was that he set up The Nation Faarooq. That Faarooq had a slight bit of that belligerent arrogance in him, although he wasn't as vocal with Sonny being more of a mouthpiece writer, right. But his character was along those lines of militancy, but he actually set this guy up."

Finally, Simmons spoke about standing up for how he thought the character should be presented.

“Absolutely. It was a natural process for that guy to voice out some of the things that he had been holding in that had to do with racial injustice for real in the real-life," Ron answered. "Okay, that had to do with people in general, you know, white and black, how he really felt, in some ways about people. It was a process the way and they would come to me, you know, with some things to say, I'm like,’ Are you kidding me?’ This guy would never say, Oh, and by the way…’”