You get called up to WWE and into a new invention called NXT and you really are the Guinea pigs of the idea with Season 1. What was that like being a part of the first season?
Well you said it man, we were guinne pigs. We had no idea what to expect. I actually had a couple set backs. I was supposed to come up earlier with a couple of guys who were going to be vampire bikers, but that fell through and then at the time they had ECW going and they were bringing up new talent like Shawn Spears and Ricky Otriz. I was going to be one of those guys but what ended up happening was I broke my hand, so that never happened. So NXT kind of saved me, since they tried to bring me up a few times, I was brought up with a bunch of really great guys and it helped a lot. But we had no idea what the plan was. Originally we thought we were going to be living in a house all under one roof training and stuff, but it just turned out to be like game show type deal where we had literally no idea what was going on. There was a hot dog eating contest and then we had to run up in the stand and chug soda; so it was like is this even wrestling? It’s funny you know ‘cuz ppl out there think we all knew what were doing but honestly we had no clue what we were doing. It was great we all got to be out there, on TV, showing our craft, but it was one of those things were we didn’t know what was going on, but we enjoyed it.
On Nexus invasion and anything being off limits?
They told us nothing. They told us to go out there make sure it looks like a bomb went off. So we did. You have big guys, who basically have been given the worst food possible, locked into a broom closet, changing, we had no room and treated like crap. Sometimes, you know guys, if you don’t lock the cage, basically, if the dogs get out of the cage, the dogs are going to bite. That’s exactly what we did. We all came together and we were tired of it, we shouldn’t be treated like that. We destroyed the WWE ring and John Cena and CM Punk and anyone else who got in out way.
To read the full conversation about liking wrestling as a kid, WWE headquarters, his travel tips and more—click here.
