"Be as weird as you can be" - Former champion reflects on McMahon family member's advice in early WWE career

A former WWE champion has opened up about advice he received from former Chairwoman of the company Stephanie McMahon during the early stages of his wrestling career. The name in question is the O.C.'s Luke Gallows.

The 40-year-old first signed with the Stamford-based company in 2005. During his early days, Gallows wrestled for WWE's developmental territory Deep South under the ring name The Freakin' Deacon. He played a character with a split personality who came out with a pet spider he spoke to.

During a recent appearance at Talk n Shop, Luke Gallows talked about the weird character he used to play back in the day. The two-time WWE RAW Tag Team Champion further mentioned how he used to slap himself while delivering weird promos:

"I went and bought a tarantula, pulled it out of the cage, and it bit me out of the gate. 'What am I going to do with this?' I started messing with it, and I came up with this gimmick where I had a split personality. I was this bruising mean wrestler, but the spider would talk to me because I’m schizophrenic, and when the spider would talk to me, it would come through me, and the voice would be high-pitched, and I’d go into this weird promo, then I would slap myself in the face, 'You will feel the wrath and fury of the Freakin Deacon,'" he said.

Gallows stated that making the character and the promos weird made everyone interested in him. He added that after nearly a month, Stephanie McMahon had a conversation with him, encouraging him to go all out with his weird character traits.

"It was super weird, super Ultimate Warrior, Papa Shango magic crazy stuff. The promos were weird, but it made everybody interested. A month after I started to do the promos, Stephanie McMahon saw me. She said, 'You are really really weird.' I went, 'Ahhh.' She goes, 'Be as weird as you can be,'" he said. [H/T Fightful]

You can listen to the entire podcast by clicking here.

Luke Gallows continues to make sporadic appearances on WWE television

Luke Gallows and his tag team partner, Karl Anderson, are one of the most popular tag teams in professional wrestling. The Good Brothers, as we call them, have won multiple championships across different promotions over the years.

The veteran performers, however, have been booked inconsistently in WWE. Despite winning tag team titles twice, the duo has not solidified its place on the Stamford-based company's roster even after working alongside AJ Styles.

Gallows and Anderson's last in-ring appearance was on the July 19 edition of Friday Night SmackDown. They competed in a Gauntlet match to determine the number one contender for the WWE Tag Team Championship. The Bloodline's Jacob Fatu and Tama Tonga won the contest and subsequently went on to defeat #DIY to become the new champions.

The Good Brothers, on the other hand, have been absent from television since.