Sean Waltman Talks Infamous “Blackface” Skit & Why He Didn’t Congratulate Mark Henry on WWE HOF Induction

Way back in 1998 at the dawn of the Attitude Era, Degeneration X was involved in an infamous in-ring segment where they impersonated the already-controversial Nation of Domination faction. Waltman drew the unlucky straw and had to dress up as Mark Henry, including full blackface on live television.

Even though Henry was fine with the skit at the time, and allegedly remains fine with it to this day, Pac noted on the most recent edition of his podcast X-Pac 12360 that because of social changes over the years, he’s become embarrassed by the angle. So much so that he didn’t publicly congratulate the World’s Strongest Man on his induction into the WWE Hall of Fame.

“There’s so many people that congratulated Mark on Twitter. I purposefully avoided it just so people didn’t bring up me dressing up in blackface like Mark. Not that I’m afraid, I just didn’t want to insert that into the Hall of Fame conversation. He was fine with it. Even later on when I saw him, Godfather and Ron Simmons talking about it on a Table For 3. I’m not fine with it now, that’s all. There was nothing bad meant by it, but the things I know now I’m a bit embarrassed by it.”

Waltman also talked at length about Daniel Bryan being cleared to return to the ring full-time after three years away from doing what he loves. When asked if there was any hope now for Tyson Kidd, who was forced to retire after a legitimate life-threatening neck injury, Pac claims that the two situations are basically apples and oranges.

“We’re not talking about concussion issues there. I broke my neck twice, I’ve got titanium screws in my neck to this day that cause me problems still. What we’re talking about here with Tyson Kidd’s injury – most people that get that injury die from it. He was almost decapitated. I know that sounds crazy, because when people think decapitation they think of getting your head completely cut off. Did you ever see the [x-rays]? It’s a whole different level of neck injuries. It’s not going to happen.”

Check out more from Sean Waltman on X-Pac 12360 available now on iOS and various Android podcasting apps.