Carlito once had a promising career in WWE. He signed with the company back in 2003 and worked in their then-developmental territory of Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) from 2003 to 2004. He made his main roster debut in October of 2004, defeating John Cena for the United States Title on his first night.
Following several down years, Carlito once again returned to prominence by defeating Cena – then the WWE Champion – again in 2007 during an episode of Monday Night RAW. This led to a match with Triple H at Unforgiven in a No Disqualification match, however, the No Disqualification stipulation only applied to Carlito.
This was his last highlight feud before subsequently being released from WWE in 2010. Former WWE producer Bruce Prichard recently took to his podcast, Something To Wrestle, to discuss Carlito’s career in WWE. During the show, Prichard revealed how Vince McMahon felt about Carlito. Here’s what he had to say:
“A lot of times it has to do with injuries”, said Prichard. “It just was utilizing what you had at the time and who’s healthy, and what could we do at the time. And some of it is also timing.
“The landscape dictates it, so if guys are injured and are nursing stuff, we got to pull people up from bullpen and you’ve got to do something with the guys that are healthy and ready to go at the time. To me, I always looked at Carlito as one of those guys you could plug-in anywhere, anytime. And it was time to plug him in. Vince liked Carlito. Vince was a big fan of his going all the way back… he loved his gimmick.
“It was one of his gimmicks that he helped come up with, the whole “Carlito Cool man, you’re not cool”, and spitting the apples. He loved the gimmick. And he liked Carlito, being a second generation wrestler. So it was somebody overall that he really liked. He enjoyed working with him.”
H/T Wrestling Inc. for the transcriptions
