How Chris Farley Influenced WWE's Otis & Mandy Rose Angle
Being nervous around girls has some benefits...
Otis was a guest on the latest episode of Corey Graves' WWE-produced 'After The Bell' podcast, and the SmackDown man shared some backstory behind his ongoing angle with Mandy Rose.
According to Heavy Machinery's finest, it was Chris Farley's performance in 1995 flick Tommy Boy that first inspired his nervous behaviour around Mandy. In the movie, Farley's character is super-shy around women, and Otis could relate. He'd grown up never knowing what to say around girls.
So, when he was looking for storyline pitches he could make to WWE, the ham-loving babyface decided to use some of Farley's magic. The whole thing was something he and Rose were quietly working on social media in NXT anyway.
WWE loved it.
The stutter Otis uses on TV was also influenced by Farley's lovable buffoon from the mid-90s, but that's not all; as a teenager, the WWE star would stammer his way through conversations with the ladies in his life. Basically, he could identify with Thomas Callahan III's tentative, comical approach towards being friendly.
Without Tommy Boy and Farley's OTT performance, there might not be any Otis and Mandy dynamic. Perish the thought.