As noted, former WWE Superstar David “Gangrel” Heath recently joined his former Brood members Edge and Christian on an episode of their podcast, E&C’s Pod Of Awesomeness, for an in-depth interview about his career. Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview.
On Vince McMahon originally telling him his Vampire character wouldn’t fly with WWE: “Vince McMahon told me himself I’ll never use the vampire character, like, ‘get rid of the fangs’ because I was an idiot. I had fangs bonded in. That’s probably why they only let me be The Black Phantom to hide the fangs. Like, ‘this guy’s an idiot! Like, he bumps real good and will do a good job, but cover his head! Let him wear the mask! So make sure you trim down, grow the hair out, and we’ll definitely give you a job, but just not a vampire.’ And they did. I was sitting home [for] a week, sitting home. Vince Russo called up. I don’t know if it was when he got that creative control thing, that brief 30 days or whatever it was. I’m real fuzzy on that kind of stuff. And he said, ‘hey, are you still doing that vampire thing?’ I said, ‘are you kidding me?’ So on a Friday night, I got everything ready for that Sunday to debut against of all people, mi amigo, Scotty 2 Hotty.”
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On The Brood being based off of The Lost Boys vampire movie: “I was really big on The Brood because of The Lost Boys. I came up with it through The Lost Boys. And I said, ‘man, they don’t even [have] to win! It’s going to be cool. When they get their asses kicked, I’m telling you people will like them.’ And they were like, ‘no.’ I said, ‘old man, I’m telling you nobody hates a vampire.’ And I heard everybody say they hate vampires.”
On struggling to pitch the vampire concept to Vince but eventually getting it over with Vince Russo and Bruce Prichard: “I never heard anybody heel on vampires besides Vince McMahon. He didn’t like it. So I just kept giving them research through all these years and then, at that time, when I was in the camp and stuff too, like, I [brought] up, ‘look, it’s such an underground thing and it’s like Dungeons and Dragons, roleplaying.’ I gave them stuff from White Wolf Masquerade. I was just trying to show them that there was a community out there. ‘This isn’t going to go anywhere like vampire movies, they’re coming and people don’t hate on vampires. It’ll be cool.’ And they were like, ‘naw, naw, naw, we don’t get it. We don’t get it.’ Then, eventually, Vince Russo was like, ‘ah, I kind of get it!’ Then it clicked in Bruce Prichard’s head, ‘oh, I get what you’re saying.'”
On Stephanie McMahon suggesting that he change his look: “After The Brood, I kind of just drifted off. I got hurt. I didn’t get hungry. I didn’t pitch ideas. I was friends with Stephanie. I was sitting, hanging out with her all the time, and she goes, ‘maybe you need to change your look.’ She was always trying to smarten me up, but I was just like, ‘ah, I’ll just go with the flow. Whatever. I’m just grateful to be wrestling’ and I’m still wrestling today and I’m grateful. But if I would have maybe asserted myself and the stuff that I do see and do know and let them know that I know that, or let them see that I see, maybe I would have been looked at in a different way.”
Check out the complete episode E&C’s Pod Of Awesomeness featuring the Gangrel interview at Art19.com. H/T to WrestlingInc.com for transcribing the above Gangrel interview quotes.
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