During a recent appearance on the “One-on-One with Jon Alba” podcast, former WWE Superstar Ricardo Rodriguez commented on working in WWE, his interactions with Vince McMahon, and more. You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On his WWE tryout and interacting with Vince McMahon: “I’m nervous as hell because I don’t know what to expect, and then they bring in Alberto and I don’t recognize him. I probably should’ve watched WWE before I went in for the tryout, and I still didn’t see the vignettes. I didn’t know anything. The only time I saw that vignette was that RAW where we were backstage in catering so we had to watch the product. Then he comes up, we introduce ourselves, and they give us a small little script and I’m nervous as hell. And then Vince comes down, and he comes and he’s like, ‘be more animated, be more Hispanic,’ and in my head, I’m thinking, like, the soccer announcers? Or, I’m thinking the AAA announcers, so be louder.”
On getting his WWE contract offer: “I go and do the thing and he’s like, ‘good, do that,’ then we do SmackDown. I do the intro, we go to the back, I don’t hear anything. Then they come up to me again after that night and are like, ‘hey, can you come tomorrow,’ because they’re doing a double taping for Tuesday and Wednesday. Then I go to Fresno again, they pull me to the back, they pull me and this guy named Alex Kozlov and they pull us to the office and say, ‘hey, are you guys under contract… alright we’re going to send you guys to get your physicals done and then we’re going to offer you guys contracts and then send you to Florida.’ They offered me the contract on the spot and they were like, ‘hey, are you available for Boston?’ So then me and Alex, we went to the back of the locker room and I just said, ‘we just got hired.’”
On Michael Hayes always trying to come up with a way to “kill” him on PPV: “I kid you not, Michael Hayes, every single pay-per-view, he would always try to find a new way to kill me. In passing, whether it was at the airport or at a venue, he would say, ‘You’re going to die at the pay per view. I don’t know how, but we’re going to figure something out.’ [I took that as a badge of honor,] I knew it was going to be a high spot in the match.”
On WWE using him for high spots in matches: “I embraced it almost immediately. That I embraced because I knew it was going to be a high spot for me in the match. I was cool with it, there was one that they pulled the plug on and it wasn’t my fault but it was scary as hell and I am glad they did. It was the Hell in a Cell with [CM] Punk, Alberto, and [John] Cena. I was going to take an AA on top of the cage, so during rehearsal, we’re all up there and then I’m telling Michael Hayes, ‘Hey man, I’m not afraid but I don’t know if I can get up there because of my dress shoes don’t fit in the f***ing holes.’ We get up there, we’re moving around, it’s high as hell up there moving around, and then something like a cable snapped while we were up there and they pulled a plug on it right away. That’s the only one that didn’t happen but I regret it because I would’ve had an awesome highlight reel.”
