On a recent edition of The Sessions with Renee Paquette podcast, Samuray del Sol reflected on his relationship with the late Brodie Lee (Jon Huber), and addressed the controversy that stemmed from misspelling Huber’s name as “John.”
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On his connection with Jon Huber: “I didn’t even tell anybody about this. That’s why I felt so emotional. I had to pray to my friend, I call Luke Harper. The day before was the Day of the Dead, Día de los Muertos, so it’s the tradition we always pray to our loved ones and our friends. Me, when I first went up on the road, many people don’t know, we bonded. He kind of helped me mentally too. ‘Hey man, it’s gonna be cool, it’s your first tour in WWE.” The boys will know the boys, you know? I had that cool, strong connection with him, like ‘hey dragon gate buddy!’”
On feeling Jon’s presence during his AEW debut match: “So it kinda hit me there because us Latinos, we pray a lot. It kinda felt right, for the first time, you know what? I felt his presence. To me, it was like, when you helped the first time I got on the road, like mentally, I kinda felt the same there because I didn’t feel scared, because I was in a way. Man, I’m gonna have a heart attack in that ring. But no, everything went well. FTR took care of me. I was like surprised at the end of that match, I started bawling. I was like oh my god. I went to my room. I didn’t even think. I had to do an emotional tweet, man.”
On emotionally praying and then tweeting after the match: “After the match, I went back to my room, got super-emotional again because I’m like, holy shit. I survived. I’m alive. Man, it was a risk, but I took it as a sign. I always see things as a sign. I’m always open to things. Of course, I wanted to pray because the day before was Día de los Muertos, Day of the Dead. Something that we do, we pray, and I did that tweet to Harper, which I always call him Harper, I never call him Jon. He’s always like, Manny, never call me Jon, there’s a fucking Jon Moxley here! I swear to God (laughs). Then he’s like oh by way, can my son have your mask? Yo bro, any time! But like my relationship with him was special because to me, the boys know the boys. Since I knew him since Dragon Gate, he kinda helped me out. I kind of had the same feeling when I went there. That’s why I had to do that [tweet]. I just didn’t know it was gonna affect people the wrong way. It was heartbreaking to me.”
On how sad it was that his tweet was misinterpreted: “I misspelled his name. I wasn’t even thinking, I was just really crying when I was tweeting. Cos I’m like man, I’m alive. I went to sleep, and then I woke up and saw what was happening. It was just like… man. I just felt sad. I was just emotional. I was crying. I was just grateful. Again, nobody knows the other side of my story, that I literally almost died, and three weeks later I’m wrestling in AEW.”