Mark Henry is a professional wrestler, dubbed "The World's Strongest Man", and is a 15-year veteran of WWE. He has won both the World Heavyweight Championship and WWE's version of the ECW Championship.You can read all about his career in WWE over on That Other Wiki.
Tropes associated with Mark Henry include:
Acrofatic: Earlier in his career, he could perform sunset flips. Injuries grounded him for the most part.
Angry Black Man: The latest production of his ring entrance ratchets this up even more. When he steps out from behind the curtain to head towards the ring, the camera view shifts to showing the back of his head as he steps forward; the shadowy effect is like an eclipse forming on the entire arena.
"You can't beat me with strength. Speed can't beat me. You're gonna find out, YOU, JUST, CAN'T, BEAT, ME... PERIOD! I am the world's strongest man! You better be worried about surviving through the night."
Breakup Break Out: It took him awhile, but ultimately his star has shined brighter than former tag-team partners D'Lo Brown, Rodney Mack, and Montel Vontavious Porter (MVP).
Catch Phrase: "THAT'S WHAT I DO!", usually after utterly destroying someone in the ring.
Charles Atlas Super Power: In Real Life. Dude lifted a Hummer. Henry still holds records in dead lift and squat for drug-free powerlifting despite the fact that a.) He set them back in 1995 and b.) He retired from powerlifting in his early twenties, long before most powerlifters hit their peak.
Compliment Backfire: To everybody who tried to congratulate him after he became the World Heavyweight Champion.
Storyline with Mae Young and a pregnancy? What are you talking about? She gave birth to a what? A hand?!
Averted as of the 1000th episode of Raw. They had Mae Young with her "son" who was now all grown up. That is, they had a person in a large hand costume.
Death from Above: From 2003 to 2006, he used occasionally a Banzai Drop with this name.
Executive Meddling: One of his most well known injuries happened in OVW where he broke through the ring ropes, which Jim Cornette blamed on WWE forcing them to use their equipment instead of cables which could have caught Mark.
Fat and Skinny: Whenever he's tagging with someone smaller than him - which is pretty much everyone on the active roster except for The Big Show and BrodusClay. That said, a couple of Henry's regular tag partners have been on the slight side even as wrestlers are concerned - like Evan Bourne, for example.
Finishing Move: The World's Strongest Slam (A high-angle falling powerslam) and his older finisher, the big splash.
From Nobody to Nightmare: Spent a year as a face jobber to the stars, with The Worf Effect setting in on his "World's Strongest Man" moniker. Then he spent several months ripping Big Show, Kane, and Sheamus to shreds and defeated Randy Orton clean for the title, cementing him as WWE's number one monster heel. Inverted after Wrestlemania. Maybe in part due to his injuries, he's been conspicuous by his absence.
During his "monster heel push" in 2011, Henry smashed the ankles of The Big Show, Kane, Vladimir Koslov and The Great Khali with steel chairs, forcing them out of action. (He even calls this group his "Hall of Pain"). For at least two of them it did break the game, as Khali's been little more than a jobber since and Kozlov never appeared again.
His groin injury that led to him dropping his World Title.
Shortly before the 1996 Olympics Mark badly injured his back, leading to a disappointing performance and his eventual retirement from professional weightlifting.
Groin Attack: Unsure if he could beat The Big Show in his last championship match, he simply kicked Show in the balls. (Since the title cannot change hands via DQ, he remained the champion.) Big Show was... not pleased.
Moral Myopia: Despite repeatedly breaking people's legs himself just because he can, he gets mad at The Big Show for trying to do it to him.
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Hey Mark, remember how you took out Kane? Who was suffering from a bit of Badass Decay the last time we saw him? Yea, well, he's back now, and badder than ever. And he has his mask back on. Good news though, he's going after John Cena.
Also causes this. What other reaction is appropriate when a 400-pound Angry Black Man starts stalking his way to the ring?
Old Shame: The crowd has occasionally broken out into "Sexual Chocolate" chants during his 2011 push, his less than serious gimmick in the 90s. Probably didn't help that he temporarily brought back the gimmick for "Old School Night" on Raw in 2010, reminding knowledgeable fans of it.
Power Stable: Was a member of The Nation of Domination with The Rock, Faarooq, D'Lo Brown and Owen Hart. Also of Thuggin and Buggin Industries with Teddy Long, Rodney Mack, Jazz and Chris Nowinsky.
Precision F-Strike: His current WWE character promo ends with a him saying "...someone's gonna get their ass kicked." Since this is PGWWE, the line is put through a heavy filter to make it sound scary and unintelligible but it's not really hard to hear it.
Put on a Bus: Was "indefinitely" suspended for putting his hands on Teddy Long. This was so he could take time off to heal, as he suffered a knee injury on top off his groin injury. Although The Bus Came Back in a relatively short order, first appearing on the Elimination Chamber PPV endorsing John Laurinaitis for Raw and Smackdown GM, then on Raw, then finally Smackdown.
He was then out for more than eight months due to surgery to his shoulder. He came back to Raw on the January 4th edition of Raw, laying waste to Rey Mysterio, Sin Cara and Daniel Bryan.
Real Life Writes the Plot: Has had to be written out of several angles due to injury during his career.
Was also recently written back into a storyline due to another superstar's injury when WWE was planning to let him stay on the shelf to heal for another month or so.
Red Baron: World's Strongest Man. Interesting point; the title is semi-legit. He won a world's strongest man competition back in the mid nineties. Thing is, the competition is held annually and Henry is well passed his competing days for that particular sport.
Scary Black Man: Look at him. Just look at him. And he's in a good mood in that picture.
Screaming Warrior: He's well known for his loud outbursts during matches nowadays.
Sore Loser: If he faces someone who can match him in strength, this is his usual reaction. For example, when he faced Kane in arm wrestling, when Kane was on the verge of winning, Mark punched him in the face with his other hand, then gave him a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
More recently, when Ryback was on the verge of beating his record in the bench press challenge, Mark Henry grabbed the barbell and forced it down against Ryback's throat.
Squash Match: Many, both won and lost (mostly during his Sexual Chocolate run).
Stout Strength: Exactly the kind of build that's typical for competitors in "world's strongest man" competitions.
Took a Level in Badass / Badass Decay: His 2011 Face Heel Turn saw him turn from a midcard face with Informed Ability into a midcard heel with slightly less Informed Ability and a bad attitude. Then his angle with The Big Show took off, and Henry turned into The Juggernaut, taking four men out of action (it's notable that all of them were Super Heavyweights, to boot). This led to a World Title run where he pinned Randy Orton clean in a match that really was not all that close. Once he dropped the title (to The Big Show, who lost it to Daniel Bryanabout two minutes later), he degenerated into another common brute again and didn't seem quite as threatening. He even lost several weeks of television time as well as a PPV to an injury. Then, when Teddy Long and John Laurinaitis were in a storyline power struggle over WWE's two main brands, Henry looked to be on his way to becoming a nigh-unstoppable menace again. Then he got injured. Now he's back, running roughshod over anyone he comes into contact with.
Unnecessary Roughness: Most of the things Henry's done since his 'Hall of Pain' gimmick started. Especially the bit about destroying people's ankles with chairs.
Unstoppable Force Meets Immovable Object: Henry has faced and defeated plenty of equally or more gigantic wrestlers through his career. Vader, Viscera, Kane, Big Show, to name a few.
Villain Song: "Somebody's gonna get their ass kicked...somebody's gonna get their wig split! ...BEAT 'EM UP! (Beat 'em up!) BREAK HIS NECK! (Break his neck!)"
Crowning Music of Awesome: Three Six Mafia once performed the song live as Henry was coming down to the ring. He then proceeded to utterly destroyChris Benoit, who was no pushover.
The Worf Effect: During his Sexual Chocolate run, Henry was booked as a superheavyweight but poorly dominating goof, almost easy to squash by any mid-carder. He got better, however.
What Could Have Been: His powerlifting career, from which he retired at age 26. Seeing as how other powerlifters have still yet to surpass his records, we can only speculate how much Henry could be lifting had he devoted more time to it.
Conversely, given the way the last few years of his career (and it's been implied that he's literally months away from retiring at this point) have gone for him, one can only speculate as to what Henry's wrestling career would have looked like as a whole if he hadn't had to endure the injuries and less-than-stellar booking from his early years.
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