The Story Behind The Worst Guest Host In WWE Raw History
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The summer of 2009 was an interesting time in WWE, specifically on the Monday Night Raw brand. On the June 15, 2009, edition of Raw, Donald Trump kayfabe purchased Raw from Vince McMahon. He promised to be a more fan-friendly owner, and announced the following week's show would be commercial free, including a WWE Championship Last Man Standing Match between Randy Orton and Triple H.
Another of Trump's initiatives as owner of Raw was to have a different celebrity guest host act as General Manager each week to run the show in his absence. Despite Vince McMahon buying Raw back from Trump "for double the price" on the June 22nd show, Vince decided to keep Trump's guest host idea without any explanation. But even more shocking was that the gimmick lasted for nearly an entire year, with incredibly mixed results. The idea was that it could bring new eyeballs to the product, while allowing the guest host to promote a new movie, show, event, etc.
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Win-win, right? Well, it didn't quite work out that way all the time. In fact, far from it. While there were definitely some wins, such as Shaquille O'Neal mixing it up with the Big Show, Mike Tyson clocking Chris Jericho, and Bob Barker's epic encounter with Jericho (Jericho was always great interacting with the celebs), there were certainly more downs than ups, often significantly dragging down the quality of the shows. Who could forget Jeremy Piven referring to SummerSlam as "Summerfest," or a high school aged LaMelo ball dropping a racial slur on the mic while his father Lavar Ball was hosting? Some of them were downright terrible, and one of the worst was easily the Reverend Al Sharpton.
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Al Sharpton Was The Worst WWE Raw Guest Host
While a large majority of the Raw guest hosts were in the entertainment business in some way, shape or form, civil rights activist Al Sharpton may have been the most out of place, and it was painfully obvious. Chris Jericho had once said that Sharpton was possibly the worst guest host, claiming he showed up after Raw began, left before the show was over, and didn't interact with anybody backstage. Sharpton was there to promote Educational Reform in America, and while certainly a great cause to promote, it wasn't exactly something that would get wrestling fans fired up and excited.
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Al Sharpton Appeared On A Very Awkward Edition Of MVP's VIP Lounge
Sharpton's involvement on the show was kept to a minimum, as he appeared during only two segments, the first of which was MVP's VIP Lounge talk show. Boos had already begun to emanate from the crowd as MVP (with tag team partner Mark Henry) was about to introduce Sharpton, only to be interrupted by the tag team champions, Chris Jericho and the Big Show. Then, heel Jericho and babyface MVP went back and forth with various complements about Sharpton in a very weird and confusing sequence. Sharpton came out to a smattering of boos, and resembled a deer in the headlights throughout the entirety of the segment.
It was evident that the crowd had no interest, and while MVP and Jericho did their best to guide Sharpton through it, the segment was an absolute disaster. MVP was able to convince the confused Sharpton into giving he and Henry a tag title shot that night, so it at least served some storyline purpose, but Sharpton had absolutely no business being out there.
Al Sharpton Also Took Part In A Terrible Backstage Segment With Jillian Hall & The Bella Twins
Sharpton began his second and final appearance of the show by thanking everyone and saying he had fun, before being interrupted by Jillian Hall, who had a heinous singing gimmick. She asked if he would be her tour manager since he managed James Brown. Hall proceeded to "sing" horribly for what felt like forever, while Sharpton was again looking clueless, before finally cutting her off, saying he couldn't do it because of his educational tour.
He started to promote the tour again, before being quickly interrupted by the Bella Twins, whose job at the time was essentially to act as valets for all the guest hosts every week. The Bellas referenced Sharpton being the godson of James Brown, so he must know how to sing and dance. After a few more words about education, Sharpton went into a half-hearted rendition of James Brown's "I Feel Good" while dancing with the Bella Twins. It was all just bad and horribly out of place.
