10. D’Lo Brown On WWF Officials Putting Both The Intercontinental & European Titles On Him, His Chest Protector Gimmick & More

During a recent appearance on The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling podcast, WWF Veteran D’Lo Brown talked about being the Intercontinental & European Champion simultaneously, who gave him the chest protector gimmick & more. Below are the highlights:

On holding the Intercontinental & European Titles simultaneously:

“I will tell you I remember sitting in my hotel room that night and having both belts and being like; ‘My God, this is really happening’. It is something you always dream of, you dream of. You dream of an opportunity to get out there and try to connect with the people and be put in the spotlight and sometimes you don’t see it happening. I remember sitting in that hotel room with both belts laying on the other bed and thinking to myself that this is real and this is really happening and I’m really getting the opportunity to go out there. The next night Ron Simmons saw me and said that they are really putting some trust in me and he said; “Don’t let me down.” And that is all I needed to hear. I tried my best from there to go go go and never take a night off and prove that they made the right choice in putting faith in me.”

On his chest protector gimmick and whose idea it was:

“I was sitting in catering and Jim Ross came and sat down next to me and said; “Kid, you are a talent and you can wrestle and you’ve got some character but we need to get you something that separates you and makes you stand out.” I thought okay but he said he needed time to think on it. The next week at catering he sat down next to me again and said what about doing something like Iron Mike Sharpe with his forearm but something different and because you do a frog splash lets do a chest protector. My initial thought was to just nod and walk away and hope he would forget but inside I thought about it and no way would that work and I’d be the laughing stock of the locker room.

At first people still didn’t get it and they didn’t understand it and it really didn’t become part of the consciousness until Dx did that parody of The Nation and Road Dog played me. When he came out he was shaking his head he was wearing the chest protector and he was overdoing me and to a point where people thought that I didn’t do that and two seconds later I came out and it was like, okay he really does do that and wear that.”