Ron Simmons was a guest on this week’s episode of WWE’s The Bump and looked back at how his his famous “DAMN!” catchphrase came to. 

On how it originated:

“People always tease me about it, but they never asked me the origins of it. And actually, that started when Bradshaw and I were tagging together, right? Acolytes, APA. And when something would go wrong in the ring, or I would get hurt, the people in the first six, seven rows could hear me say, ‘DAMN!’ And of course I was saying it in anger or in disbelief because something had gone wrong. And so each time we would come back to those different towns, the more I would say it the people would start chanting it, saying. ‘Ron, damn! Damn!’

“So looked at Bradshaw and said, ‘What are they saying?’ And he said, ‘I think they’re saying damn, because you say that each time something doesn’t go the way you want it to.’ And I said, ‘You’re kidding me, man!’”

On how it ended up on WWE television:

“And so the writers got wind of this. And so they said, ‘Well, let’s try this.’ And so John Cena and Booker T were having an exchange in Chicago, and they said, ‘Well look, we’re gonna try this. At the end of John Cena saying, you know, he’s gonna say something in the exchange with Booker T, we just want you to simply walk out, and say, ‘Damn!’ And so I did, and that’s how it was born.”