Gene Snitsky reveals what Vince McMahon said to him about “punting the baby” on WWE RAW
In an interview with Chris Van Vliet, former WWE star Gene Snitsky discussed the segment from an episode of WWE RAW in 2004 where he punted a baby doll. Here are the highlights courtesy of ChrisVanVliet.com…
On punting a baby: “Well, here’s the thing, going back to like I was saying about football and all that, I was actually an all area punter my junior year of high school. I averaged like 37 yards as a junior in high school, so I had always had the leg to do it. And ironically, all these years later, that’s one of the things I’m known for. It’s kind of funny.”
Did they know this when they were setting it up? “No, like I said, I sat in catering and just waited for somebody to come and get me. Dean Malenko came and got me and said, they need you to ring for the first shot. But when we were doing a baby thing, Vince was there as well with that. A little bit of a funny story, we’re walking through it, Vince was like, ‘Then you’re going to kick the baby into the crowd.’ I’m like, Cool. I’m thinking to myself, I’m going to try to kick it as high as I could to hit the Tron thing up top. Then they give me the baby. I’m like, man, it’s gonna be kind of hard to do. Have you ever tried to kick a baby? It’s not easy.
You think it shouldn’t be that hard, but it’s actually pretty hard to kick a baby, though. But anyways, so in my head, I’m thinking I’m gonna whack this sh*t out of this thing. I’m gonna kick it as high as I can. And then Vince is like, ‘Whatever you do, don’t miss the baby. Make sure you kick it.’ I’m like, ‘Listen, Mr. McMahon, I was already a punter in high school. This is gonna be f*cking amazing.’ And he just looked at me and just left it at that. Then we went out. We did it in the whole spiel, and then back through the curtain, he gives me a big hug, he’s like, that was great. I’m like, I told you. I don’t have a confidence issue. I’m pretty confident in my ability, so I knew it was gonna be great.”
On whether the fan might still have the baby: “If you watch the footage back, I’m kind of giving Lita the evil eye, and I kind of go like this. He threw it back at me, and it skimmed right over top my head, so he didn’t like it.”
On the baby punting being part of his legacy: “I don’t really know how to respond to that. When I got into wrestling, I never in a million years would have thought that whole storyline, just being thrown into it, because I had never done a dark match. Nobody knew I was. I was just there, and then all of a sudden I’m the biggest heel on the show. It’s crazy, literally that quick.”