Show: Wrestling Epicenter
Guest: Henry Godwin
Date: 01/30/2026
Your Host: James Walsh

From a "Texican" as Shanghai Pierce in WWC to the overall wearing, slop dropping country boy from the WWE, the career of Henry Godwin is one to behold. A true talent who has a career that deserves higher praise than he gets, the legendary Mark Canterbury joins us for the first time ever!

Henry Godwin, Phinneas Godwin, Hillbilly Jim, The Headbangers, KISS Demon, Asya, Jerry "The King" Lawler, Chic Donovan, Lord Humongous, and so many more will all be in town for Grapplecon 4, Return to Lutz in Florida on April 11th! VIP packages and other ticket information can be found at the link below! 

Tickets Link: https://www.tixtree.com/e/glory-days-grapplecon-4-419dda20093a

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HENRY O GODWIN:

On the upcoming Glory Days GrappleCon event in Lutz, Florida on April 11th:
"I'm excited. I always loved working with Nick and his Captain's Corner. On April 11th, at Return to Lutz, we will have the Headbangers making an appearance. It is always good when Phinneas and I are back with those guys. Jerry "The King" Lawler will be there! Lord Humongous will be there. The KISS Demon, Dale Torborg. There will be lots of great guys there. Chic Donovan will be there! He's amazing. To be whatever age he is and still look like a mini Lex Luger? (laughs) And, I'm even trying to get Hillbilly Jim down there too. Hillbilly hasn't been with us in 27 years. So, I'm trying to get him down with us and at another event I'm doing in March as well."

On Jerry Lawler recently saying he wants to wrestle another match:
"Does he? Well, I saw him not all that long ago at a signing and he looked a lot better than when we saw him last year at WrestleMania in Las Vegas. He looks like he's doing good. I'm happy for him."

On how he got into the business:
"Oh my Gosh! Well, I always loved it as a kid. I would watch it with my paw-paw. He loved it too. But, I always had a thing for this lifestyle. And, I finally got my big break with George South and the Italian Stallion, they had trained me and they brought me to Atlanta to do some extra work. That is where I met Erik Watts and Bill Watts. Erik and I had a good match. He had just got there from Louisville. We got back from the match and they came and told me to speak to some guys from the office, I can't remember what they said exactly. But, they sent me to talk to Dusty Rhodes and Jody Hamilton. They asked if I could go and have matches with Erik at some of the house shows. I was like, "Oh my Gosh!" You know? Of course I can. "When?" "Well, can you go tonight?" (laughs) Of course I did. I had gone there with George and Stallion. All I had was the clothes I wore down and that night's gear. But, they put me on the road with Arn Anderson. That was my first experience traveling with him. He gave me some zubaz (pants) and Stallion gave me some shirts and I was on the road doing it. I had a hankering to do it and finally got to go and do it!"

On if he was Master Blaster in USWA as online bios claim:
"No! I never wrestled as the Master Blaster. I did go to Memphis in 1996 when they were working with the WWF. But, I was not the Master Blaster!"

On getting given the name Shanghai Pierce:
"That was Dusty Rhodes for sure. Somebody was asking about Dusty the other day. He was like a big brother, Uncle, and dad all rolled into one. Dusty came up with the name. Dusty loved the movie the Gunfight at the OK Coral, the original one. There were two characters in that movie named Tex Slassinger and Shanghai Pierce. That is where he got the name. Barry Windham told us that. He was there helping out. Him, Mike Graham! We were good friends with them. Hell, Barry used to come and stay with us when we were living in Marietta. But, yeah, Shanghai Pierce was definitely a Dusty gimmick."

On the name "The Texicans":
"(laughs) Jesse Ventura came up with that off the hip. He would say it all the time, "... And the Texicans!" and it stuck!" 

On Maxx Payne saying some of the best times were with Godwin in Marietta:
"(laughs) Yeah, we had a place in Marietta. It was me and Tex, Kevin Nash lived two floors above us. For a few months, Sid Vicious lived beside us. Barry Windham, Mike Graham, and Greg Gagne lived in the penthouse. Steve Regal moved in at one point. We had a pretty good crew of wrestlers living there. Well, Maxx Payne could play the Hell out of a guitar. He could. He would play, Brian James, Road Dogg, would sing. And, we would get together and get our drink on and get our smoke on. We'd play music, we'd sing. It was a good time! Excellent!"

On Maxx Payne's new movie due out this year:
"Has he shown you the movie yet? No? Well, I've seen some of it... I'm in there a lot! Whew! It is good. It is going to be something!"

On if the movie will make headlines:
"(laughs) Well, if it doesn't, we're all going to be lucky! (laughs)"

On his favorite match from WCW:
"I do have one. It was Beach Blast 1992. Blackjack Mulligan was our agent. It was me and Tex against Marcus Alexander "Buff" Bagwell and 2 Cold Scorpio. It was snug... Oh, it was just a great match. If you haven't seen it, look for it and watch it! One of the best matches you'll ever see. We really got a lot of praise for that match. Blackjack loved it, Dusty loved it... It looked like we were killing each other. That is how it is supposed to be."

On if he wishes he had gotten a tag title run in WCW:
"Well, we were working. We were working Flair, Paul Roma, Murdoch... "Dirty" Dick Slater was teaming with us against Arn, Roma, and Flair. So, we weren't just working undercard people. We had title shots against Ricky Steamboat and Shane Douglas. But, Arn Anderson told us, "You guys have got to go up north because they are just going to keep using you guys to put people over because you're so good at it." We were young. So, that made sense. But, Flair came back and he let all the young guys go. Me, Hunter (Tripe H), and Phinneas got let go. WCW was a good learning experience. But, it was a stepping stone as far as I'm concerned."

On what company had more politics, WCW or WWE:
"WCW had more politics. Believe it or not, I didn't really see as much politics in WWE."

On the Henry Godwin character being born:
"I went up to meet with Vince McMahon. He asked me all about the jobs that I had done and what I did. I mentioned that I grew up on a farm and you could see the lightbulb go off in his head because he's a country boy at heart, really. He grew up in North Carolina. Phinneas and I, we used to call him Ridge Runner. He got a kick out of that. Anyway, he asked me about what kind of farm it was and what kind of animals we had. I mentioned we had all kinds like cows, hogs, chickens... He asked what I had to do to feed the hogs and things like that. I told him they're a lot of work, you had to castrate them and take care of them, slop them. Everything I said, it was like a bell would ring in his head. Bing, bing, bing. (laughs) And, my middle name, Orpheus, that was Vince's grandfather's name or Uncle or something like that, someone in his family. I loved it. I really did. It was a good experience."

On his view of Vince McMahon now that he's no longer the guy in charge of WWE:
"He was always good to us. You know, we were always respectful to him. But, we cut up with him a lot. We really did. As a matter of fact, Shane McMahon was the one who did my vignettes when I was coming in. And, I remember we were at Undertaker's house for a cookout. Vince and Shane were both there and they were like one of the boys. Of course, at TV they were office and professional. But, at Undertaker's house, they were one of the boys and it was refreshing to see them in that light. But, Vince McMahon was a genius. I don't think he ever slept. He was always thinking. Always coming up with ideas. Always working. I always thank him for the opportunity he gave us. I still am grateful."

On his feud and Hog Pen match with Triple H:
"I loved it because it led to me against the Blue Blod, Hunter Heast Helmsley. We had such great chemistry. We worked together for 6 months prior to the Hog Pen match. I was slopping him just about every single night. He was a trooper. He'd have to wash out his gear every time. Then, they gave us that match and let us go with it. Vince said we had 30, 40 minutes on the pay per view and we went for it. We were still new in the company. But, we gave it our all. We ended up nominated for a Slammy Award for it as one of the top 5 matches of the year. I was tickled to death with it! I scarred him for life! It was rough! I think he got 15, 16 stitches from that match. I was beaten up! But, if I could, I would do it all over again!"

On how the talent viewed the Slammy Awards:
"I think it was just them having things they wanted to shine a light on. I don't remember much about it but I do remember we were out West for the Slammy Awards that year."

On getting along with both The Undertaker's BSK and the Kliq:
"That is because we lived near Kevin Nash in WCW. In fact, that is how I had an in with WWE. Let me tell you this story. When Kevin Nash was living two floors above us in Marietta, he was there with his wife at the time and they had this little dog. Well, she would tell Kevin Nash to go walk the dog and he would say, "Yeah, OK. But, I'm going to go visit with Shanghai and Tex for a minute." He'd come down to our place and Tex would have some of the Devil's lettuce from Tampa... And, well, Kevin Nash would go back upstairs and the dog would have made a mess because he never walked it. (laughs)"

On which came first, the Slop Drop or the Scorpion Death Drop:
"What is the Scorpion Death Drop? Oh, Sting! Oh, we had it first. Oh yeah, we had it for a long time before that. Do you know who came up with the name "Slop Drop?" Michael Hayes!"

On Michael Hayes performing Badstreet USA on a small stage outside of house shows:
"You know, you might have seen me and Phinneas sing with him if you saw that. One night, he did Badstreet USA on a small stage, I can't remember where it was, and then we went out and sang Lynyrd Skynyrd with him. (laughs)"

On working with Sunny:
"She was difficult at times. Definitely difficult at times. When Jim Cornette talked about the slop bucket we used on her and said it had 23 different types of human DNA in it, he was pretty accurate! (laughs) I would usually fil the bucket halfway up with things from catering. Ranch, spaghetti, lettuce, whatever they had and mix it all up so it looked nasty. That day, I took the half filled bucket into the locker room and said, "We're slopping Sunny tonight!" and walked away. When I grabbed the bucket later on, the thing was full to the brim! (laughs) She was difficult, though. I remember she was being difficult one night and she was arguing with George "The Animal" Steele about something and I was in the bathroom looking at one of those hand dryer blowers and I demolished it. I sent it flying because I was angry and there came George Steele around the corner to see what was what. (laughs) And, Chris Candido. Man, she was not nice to him with the things she did."

On his opinions of Jim Cornette:
"What a genius! When it comes to wrestling, he is balls to the wall and he knows how to get things done! Outside of wrestling, I don't agree with him much. But, I slopped him too! (laughs) Ruined his polyester suit. But, what a genius."

On what went wrong when the Legion of Doom broke his neck:
"I was supposed to take the Doomsday Device and take a flip off of Animal's shoulders. I didn't feel comfortable with it. I had taken it before. But, Hawk wasn't really himself. And, I just could tell I didn't want to take it. So, we went to the office and Animal said we could just do it like the Electric Chair where he'd fall backwards and I'd fall with him. The office wanted the flip. Well, we did it... And, sure enough, I was right. I cracked my C7 and that really put a damper on things. I was supposed to stay home for 14 weeks and then have another MRI. But, I was back wrestling after 7 weeks. I called Vince and told him I felt good and wanted to come back to work. I worked like that for 2 months. And, it was a shame because we had just started the Southern Justice thing with Col. Robert Parker, Tennessee Lee. Then, we ended up with Jeff Jarrett."

On getting sent home from WWE: 
"We were supposed to win the tag belts from the New Age Outlaws, Billy Gunn and Road Dogg. That night, Vince told me that he wasn't going to put the belts on us that night because I needed to go home and get checked. I did and that resulted in me getting spinal fusion surgery. It is crazy what we do for this business. When I was home, I wanted to get back on the road. That is why I came back after 7 weeks. Being home, not hearing people cheer me or boo me. You miss it. And, I was afraid I was going to lose my spot. And, we had some good matches when we were Southern Justice and I was working with my neck. It was a shame because they had some real plans for that. It was going to be real good."

On Vince Russo not liking the Godwins characters:
"Vince Russo said nobody wanted to see the tag team titles on hillbillies. Now, where I live, you still see people walking around in overalls. It is not a joke. Some people, that's all that they wear sometimes! But, that is how he felt about it. Hillbilly Jim, he said they were going to put the tag titles on him, Uncle Elmer, and the other one. And, Hillbilly said they weren't worth a shit anyway. (laughs) They didn't deserve it. But, sometimes people assume things and don't listen to what is going on."

On having a good relationship with Triple H but not being under a WWE Legends Deal:
"Well, lets see what happens."