WWE and ECW legend Al Snow has recalled the origins of the iconic Head Cheese tag team, and revealed how it came as Vince McMahon nixed a controversial pitch.
Inside The Ropes’ Lead Writer Gary Cassidy spoke with Al Snow for his 20 Questions feature in Issue 19 of Inside The Ropes Magazine, which you can pre-order here, and asked about Head Cheese for an ITRWrestling.com exclusive story – and the former WWF European Champion revealed how Steve Blackman actually came up with the name – and that he personally thought it was ridiculous!
“Working with Steve Blackman as Head Cheese… Steve came up with the name. I didn’t come up with it. I thought the name was ridiculous! But he did, and he thought it it would be a way for the audience to irritate him by chanting “Head Cheese” at him.”
Snow went on to say the tag team actually meant another controversial pitch of his own got nixed!
“At the time, most people don’t know, but there was an idea that was pitched because it had begun, initially, which was where I was teaming with other tag teams like six man matches, and then I would turn on my own tag team partners.
“We were going to do this with, like, Crash Holly and Bob Holly and some of others. Then they were finally all going to come out one time and literally beat the s*** out of me in the ring and for revenge.”
Snow went into depth about the nixed storyline, called The Swarm!
“I was going to disappear off TV for a couple of weeks and then I was going to return… while Bob and Crash were in the ring and an air raid siren would go off and then I would just point an out from underneath the ring would come like 20 or 25 little people all dressed alike, and they were going to be known as The Swarm.
“They were going to attack Bob and Crash, and beat the crap out of them, and then I would occasionally show up, point. “Here they come.” You know, The Swarm would hit and I’d terrorise people with The Swarm.”
The former WWF Hardcore Champion went on to say that Vince McMahon put the kibosh on The Swarm, but that the team of Head Cheese was the result.
“Vince didn’t want to go for it unfortunately. As a result, they put Blackman and I together for, like, a pre-tape and I pitched the idea that I could make his lack of a personality a personality, and I could play off of him being so straight and deadpan and I could use that. He could be the straight man and I could be the comedy.”
Al Snow went on to say that the Head Cheese partnership ended up becoming one of the most successful SmackDown segments – and that working with Steve Blackman was effortless!
“It was so ultra successful because they’d break down the ratings per segment even to almost to the second and those vignettes that we were doing on SmackDown became like the highest rated segments on the show with our interaction.
“It was so easy and so much fun working with Steve, especially on those, they just happened, you know, and he’s such a great guy, and it really got over.
“I just wish we could have done more with it and went further along with it but it just wasn’t meant to be. But it worked. It was great. It was really good. It was very enjoyable.”