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Mae Young did not give birth to a hand. The hand was the punchline of a scripted labor storyline on the February 28, 2000, episode of WWE Raw, a prop gag built around her character’s pregnancy with Mark Henry’s “Sexual Chocolate” character. WWE’s own retrospective calls the hand a replica and frames the whole angle as deliberately outrageous comedy. The exact reason the payoff was a hand is not settled by the available sources: one participant recalls a purpose, and another recalls getting no explanation at all.
What happened on Raw
The storyline setup
WWE’s retrospective places the pairing of Mae Young and Mark Henry’s “Sexual Chocolate” character in December 1999. The on-screen relationship was presented as a sexual one, and Young’s character was shown as pregnant. Henry’s character was positioned as the possible father, which set up the paternity question that the labor segment would later answer in the most absurd way possible.
The labor segment and the hand
WWE’s archive labels the segment “Mae Young goes into labor: Raw, February 28, 2000,” and its official profile describes Young as giving birth to a hand. In the segment as WWE describes it, Young goes into labor during Raw, an EMT delivers a human hand, and Henry’s character questions whether he is the father. WWE later identifies the prop as a replica.
It is a fictional wrestling storyline and a prop gag, not a real birth. WWE’s archive and retrospective both present it that way, and nothing in them suggests otherwise.
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Why WWE wrote it: three accounts
The question of purpose is where the record gets thin. There are three accounts, and they differ in what kind of evidence they are.
WWE’s framing
WWE’s 2007 retrospective treats the angle as sexualized, outrageous comedy. It presents the hand as the symbolic end of the strange relationship between the two characters. This is WWE describing its own product after the fact, so it tells you how the company chose to remember the segment rather than what the writers discussed in the room.
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Joey Styles’ recollection
The same retrospective quotes Joey Styles, who was a WWE interviewer and commentator at the time, saying the birth was meant to make Gerald Brisco vomit on television because Brisco had a strong gag reflex. (The WWE page spells the name “Jerry” Brisco in its quotation.) Treat this as Styles’ recollection of the joke’s purpose. It is not a contemporaneous production note, and it is not the only possible explanation.
Mark Henry’s account
In a 2020 interview retrospective reported by Cageside Seats, Henry said Bruce Prichard and Vince McMahon pitched the angle to him. He asked McMahon why it had to be a hand, and McMahon laughed and replied that it was a hand. Henry said that answer left him still not understanding the choice. These are Henry’s recollections of one conversation, not a statement from McMahon, and they show what Henry was told rather than the decision-maker’s full intent.
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Why the sources cannot settle the question
The three accounts are compatible. The angle was built for shock, the gag was meant to get a visceral reaction, and the one creative decision-maker who was asked got a laugh instead of a rationale. None of them is a written production record, and none of them rules out the others.
| Source | Date | What it establishes | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| WWE archive and official profile | Segment listed for Raw, February 28, 2000 | Date of the labor segment; Young gives birth to a hand | Official listing, not a production explanation |
| WWE retrospective | 2007 | Pairing from December 1999; pregnancy and paternity setup; hand described as a replica; framing as outrageous comedy | Retrospective entertainment copy, written after the event |
| Joey Styles, quoted in WWE retrospective | Recollection published in the 2007 retrospective | Gag purpose: make Gerald Brisco vomit on television | Personal recollection; no contemporaneous document cited |
| Mark Henry, reported by Cageside Seats | 2020 interview retrospective | Pitch conversation with Prichard and McMahon; he asked why it was a hand and received a joking answer | Participant’s memory of one conversation; not McMahon’s own explanation |
Mae Young’s place in the 1999 to 2000 boom
WWE says Mae Young and Fabulous Moolah returned to the company’s programming in 1999. Its retrospective biography argues that rather than being presented only as veterans of an earlier era, the pair embraced lewd and aggressive senior personas that made them unexpected presences during WWE’s boom period. That context explains why Young was a natural fit for outrageous comedy segments of this kind. It does not establish who proposed this specific angle or why the payoff took the form it did.
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What is and is not established
- Established: The segment aired on Raw on February 28, 2000, and ended with a hand delivered by an EMT character.
- Established: WWE describes the hand as a replica and presents the angle as sexualized, absurdist comedy.
- Attributed, not verified: Joey Styles’ recollection that the gag was meant to make Gerald Brisco vomit on television.
- Participant recollection only: Mark Henry’s account that he asked Vince McMahon why it was a hand and got a laugh instead of an answer.
- Not established: Where the prop came from, and any written creative rationale for choosing a hand. The sources do not support a claim about the prop’s origin beyond calling it a replica.
The defensible answer is that the hand was an absurdist shock payoff. Readers who want a single documented motive will not find one, because the people involved offer the Brisco reaction and a joking non-answer, and that is as far as the record goes.
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