WWE legend received 'slap in the face' from Michael Jordan during disrespectful encounter with NBA icon

Michael Jordan made plenty of enemies during his basketball career, and in 1992 he almost made very dangerous on in the form of a future WWE legend.

Jordan was renowned for his hyper-competitiveness during his 15 season in the NBA. This undoubtedly helped drive the basketball GOAT to six championships, five Most Valuable Player awards and a record 10 scoring titles.

But it also saw him fall out with teammates and opponents on a regular basis, as he pursuit of winning often spilled over.

And former WWE superstar Mark Henry remembers a tense first encounter he had with the Chicago Bulls icon when they were both members of the US Olympic team at the 1992 Games in Barcelona.

Mark Henry at the 1992 Olympics (Getty)

"During that time, I went to the hotel just because I wanted to see people that I knew," the former weightlifting Olympian told 247 Sports. "[Charles] Barkley being one of those people, and David Robinson and Karl Malone. You would think in a perfect world that when somebody walks up on a group of people, they would just greet everybody, 'Hey, guys. How you all doing? What’s going on?' and go from there.

"Well, when Michael walked up, that wasn’t the case. I guess I seemed out of place. And his response to me was, 'Who are you?' And I was like, 'Who the hell are you?' And you know, I started to get a little bit angry, because I was not expecting that.

"It was like a slap in the face. It’s like someone walking up and just slapping you. I was in shock. I was like this is Michael Jordan. And I’m angry, like, 'Why? Why? What the hell?'

"He backed off. "Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. My bad. I didn’t want to come across," but he did. And, I’m sure that that’s not the only time something like that has ever happened in this world, but it had been a long time since that happened to me, and I wasn’t having no parts of it.

"My mother used to say, 'Be careful what you say but even be more careful how you say it.' And the way he said it to me was very disrespectful, I thought. And I checked him about

it."

But while Jordan was not afraid of confrontation on the basketball court – even with his own teammates – he did not want to get on the wrong side of the gigantic powerlifter.

"The thing about it, the one thing about the story that is not told, and I guess could be told here, is he apologised," Henry continued.

"A lot of people don’t remember, but the All-Star game was coming up after that and it was in San Antonio. When that came through, he invited me to the All-Star game.

"He was having his birthday party during the All-Star game. So, his people contacted me and got me a parking pass and VIP. It was all fine and good. It all ended well. It just didn’t start off. And like I said, that’s a blip on the radar.

"Michael Jordan probably don’t even remember this. And I’m sure like Barkley remembers it. We laughed about it afterwards. It wasn’t no big deal. That’s just the story of how I met Michael Jordan."