Why Mickie James Legitimately Slapped Ex-WWE Announcer

This former WWE talent claims he was slapped hard in the ring by former superstar Mickie James and was paid for it.

Former WWE backstage announcer Todd Grisham is someone that WWE fans watching the product in the 2000s will immediately recognise. He was the voice of Sunday Night Heat, hosted the RAW recap show Bottomline and would regularly do backstage interviews on RAW. He recently shared an amusing anecdote about former WWE Women’s champion Mickie James.

The former WWE talent recently appeared on Chris Van Vliet’s podcast called Insight with Chris Van Vliet, where he shared many amusing anecdotes, such as almost getting power bombed by Batista, getting an earful from Vince McMahon upon making an error in commentary and being slapped by Mickie James.

Former WWE Announcer Todd Grisham Opens Up To Chris Van Vliet About Mickie James’ Slap

On the aforementioned podcast, the ex-WWE announcer spoke about getting hazard pay for doing a deed that some without “physicality” would refuse. For Grisham, the requirement was to get slapped by former WWE Women’s champion Mickie James on camera for money. Grisham said that he got slapped hard because he wasn’t expected to sell it like an in-ring wrestler. He even joked that he would take 20 Attitude Adjustments (John Cena’s signature move) over an actual slap.

“If you were an announcer and you got physicality, they would give you hazard pay. So I remember one time Mickie James slapped me. That was the worst thing ever. I’ll take 20 AAs before a slap, because they don’t trust you to sell the slap, because you’re not a worker. So they slap you, and she hit me right here.”

He went on to claim that the slap was legitimately hard. But he got the hazard pay eventually.

“As hard as she could. I get slapped, and I’m like [groans]. You got to sell for the camera for, I call it the TV novella shot, like your husband’s dead, you got to hold it for like, five seconds. So they go to commercial break, the camera is on my face, and people like, ‘Oh, you were you were selling pretty good.’ I was like, I was not selling.

I felt like my face was gonna get ripped off. But, the hazard pay, so after she slapped me, they give you 500 bucks. Literally, they’d be like, and cut. Nice job, Todd. And someone walked over and goes, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, here you go. Cash. So I’m like, beat the hell out of me. You want me to go in the ring and let her slap me again?

Grisham said he had to do it because another employee, Max Brettos, refused to do it.

But Max Brettos, who I believe was the shortest tenured employee of all time. I talk about they hire you just to see where you fit in. He was there for a cup of coffee, but they asked him, did he want to do it? And he was like, No, I don’t really want to do that. I was like, I’ll do it, okay, that’s how it went. I was like, yeah, and you’re gonna pay me 500 bucks? But people remember you more for the physicality moments than anything else.”

H/T: Chris Van Vliet

Also read:Mickie James Makes Honest Admission About WWE Hall Of Fame Induction