The BEST Wrestling Moment Every Year (1989 - 2026)
14. 2013 | Mark Henry’s Retirement Speech
This was one of the single greatest acting performances in wrestling history.
Mark Henry, soaked in tears before he even grabbed the microphone, interrupted a John Cena segment and said that he needed to address the people and the locker room. That Cena was stood there should have acted as the most blaring angle alert klaxon imaginable. It wasn’t. Henry’s facade was simply too convincing.
He sniffled as his voice cracked. He hadn’t wrestled since his Strap match defeat to Sheamus at Extreme Rules - a result typical of his standing in WWE, a couple of years removed from his very late peak. He announced his retirement, and spent that sacred moment paying tribute to his supportive family. In a superb bit, responding to a heckle, he said he wasn’t going to shout out Mae Young. This improvisation was wonderful, because a retirement speech is the exact time to look back and laugh at one’s more embarrassing moments. Henry spoke to his little girl, the daughter who cried every time he left, shouting “Baby, I’m comin’ home!”
It was at this perfect moment, Henry, having conjured a convivial, even beautiful atmosphere, dropped Cena with the World’s Strongest Slam, setting up the WWE title match for Money In The Bank. This angle was so sensational that the event out-drew its more iconic 2011 counterpart (223,000 Vs. 205,000).
The use of the salmon jacket here was perfect. That is the only appropriate word. It was perfect because it was so thoroughly disarming. It looked like Henry just wanted to dress nicely for his big moment, and might have overdone it with a very bold choice, but it was endearingly naff. For perhaps the first time in his adult life, the ridiculously proportioned Mark Henry did not look intimidating. That was the genius of the ruse.