“The Godfather” Charles Wright was on this week’s episode of “Insight with Chris Van Vliet” to talk about the inception of The Godfather gimmick, Right to Censor, his thoughts on the Hall of Fame, and having women walk with him to the ring.
Godfather said his wife came up with the Godfather gimmick:
“It was not pitched to me. My wife came up with it,” he laughed.
“It wasn’t that I should be a pimp, but she said, ‘If you can make people see you for who you really are. You’re not a voodoo man, you’re not an Ultimate Fighter, you’re not a Nation member. Just be who you are.'”
“I didn’t want to be a pimp. I hated pimps, but everything she asked me to do that I didn’t want to do, it worked,” Godfather said.
“At the time, I was in the Nation of Domination and they were building The Rock. Me and D’Lo Brown are just walking to the ring with The Rock, and when it was time for Undertaker or Steve Austin to do the finish, we were feeding into it. That’s all we were doing. My contract was coming up, and I’ve got to come up with something different. I’m still under contract with WWE to this day. We grew out my hair, built this character, it kind of just took off.”
Godfather said he hated the Right to Censor gimmick:
“I hated it. As soon as they told me what I was doing, that was why you would see me come and go all the time,” he shared.
“I always had the strip clubs here in Vegas, so I always had means of making money. So when I was not having fun and not making money, I would leave. I would go to Vince and I would say, ‘Hey Vince, it’s time for me to go.’ He would just laugh and say, ‘Okay, Charles. We’ll call you in a year or so and see if you want to come back.’ That is how it would go.”
On if he thought The Godfather would be a Hall of Fame character:
“It depends how you look at it. Money wise, yes. Even though it was a mid-card character, it was over like a top character. It sold a lot of merchandise, still sells merchandise, and when I go to these signings, there are still people who want to see The Godfather, which is so cool.”
On when the girls first started appearing on TV:
“Vince said to me, ‘Charles, do you think you could go and get girls?’ I’m like, ‘Vince, are you joking? Me and Taker are in the strip clubs every night.’
“So I go and grab The Undertaker, and we go to the strip club, this is during the day, we grab 3 or 4 girls and take them back to the WWF, they sign them, pay them, we take them on TV and they (WWE) doesn’t ask me anything, just tell me to do what you do,” he said.
“I swear I went from walking through an airport and maybe some people noticed you, to the next day, people are like, ‘Godfather, where are the ho’s?’ It got over the second it got on TV.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Chris Van Vliet with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription. Also, be sure to subscribe to “Insight with Chris Van Vliet” on your mobile device by clicking here if you have an iOS device or here on your Android device.
