How Vince McMahon taught Luke Gallows to make 'the Festus face'

In a timely bit of scheduling by Chris Jericho, podcaster, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows are his guests on the latest episode of Talk is Jericho.

Sadly, this doesn't feature any insights into what the duo are doing in WWE, or tales of how their attack on Roman Reigns from the April 18 Raw came about (not that it would have, because the conversation was taped last week). It does, however, include plenty of the great stories you'd expect from a Jericho gabfest, especially with a couple of "good brothers" like Anderson & Gallows.

One standout tale, and one that fans whose main experience with Luke is his SmackDown run from the mid-aughts in the Of Mice & Men-esque gimmick of Festus will enjoy, is who pitched the character of a mentally-challenged country bumpkin who became a wrestling machine whenever he heard a ring bell to the then-twenty-two year old Gallows (real name Drew Hankinson).

But you probably won't be surprised to learn that it was none other than Vincent Kennedy McMahon.

Gallows: We were in the ring at like at SmackDown and Jesse and I were gonna be like the new Godwinns, which...

Jericho: The "new" anything? Never a good idea.

Gallows: So we have on overalls and stuff, and we're going through our match with some enhancement guys, we're gonna debut on SmackDown that night and, well, the doors open. So we have to like stop rehearsing and come to the back, we're nervous. And Michael Hayes says "Vince wants you in his office". And I - you know how Michael has a brisk walk because he's always busy and we're kinda lagging behind and I look at Ray [Gordy, who played Jesse, Festus' partner] and said "we're f'ing fired before it starts". Ever the positive guy, you know?

So like we walk into the office and Vince is like, you know, we have this idea and it's a little different, it's something we've never had before. And he makes the Festus face with the tongue and stuff like that. But this is Vince McMahon, and I'm little young Drew, you know, kind of mesmerized, can't be a mark or anything... it's intimidating, right. So then I try to make it and he's like "not like that! like this" and we're like making the Festus face back and forth at each other for a while.

So then he's like explaining to me how the bell's gonna ring and what's gonna happen, you know, and I'm like "okay, okay great, whatever you want, you know we'll do it". And so like we talked ten - fifteen minutes, in my mind, it might been four, you know, but then he looks at Ray and goes, "and you - what's your favorite color?"

And Ray, he's mesmerized by everything that's just taken place here and he goes, "uh... yellow". And he goes "great! get a yellow singlet, you'll be his handler". And off we went and that was it.

And we walked out in the hall and I went "why did you say 'yellow'?" And he went, "I didn't know what to say man."

Give the whole interview a listen for more on how the duo decided to leave New Japan, what the backstage scene for Wrestle Kingdom 10 was like after the company learned WWE had just signed four of their top stars, great insights into what it's like to be a gaijin working puroresu and a wild story of wrestling in Nigeria.

And enjoy spending the rest of your life imagining Vince making this face: