During a recent appearance on “The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling” podcast, Viktor of The Ascension commented on working with John Laurinaitis in WWE as a producer, what Laurinaitis always tells the extras in WWE, and more. You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On his shock of WWE releasing Tyler Breeze and Fandango: “They had had a thing on the [WWE Network] probably like two weeks before where they were going through all the greatest [WWE] tag teams of all time. And I’d watched a little bit of it. And I’d laughed and said to myself, ‘These guys are made for life,’ and then two weeks later they got released. I thought, ‘What the hell?’ I was just – I just don’t know what this company is thinking anymore.”
On his thoughts on John Laurinaitis: “The Johnny Ace that I first met when I was trying to get hired was not the same guy I knew as a producer once I was hired. And it was just very strange and I could never – I was even telling Konnor I go, ‘I just can’t figure it out.’ Because it was like two different people. And it wasn’t like the first one that I met was like a d*ck or something like that. He just seemed just very full of himself at the time. One of his favorite lines, when we were extras in the back, was like, ‘Hey you kids probably don’t even know who I am. I was only ever over in Japan and wasn’t even really over there. How did I ever get to be Vince’s right-hand man? Doesn’t make sense. But here I am.’ I heard him say that almost every time I was an extra. I was like, ‘Ok. Whatever, Johnny.’”
On why Laurinaitis and Arn Anderson were his two favorite producers to work with: “Probably him and [Arn Anderson] were two of my favorite producers. They always had ideas for everybody. And they were always trying to bring out the best that they could in everybody. Not saying that the other producers don’t, but those two guys – I just felt like they really knew kinda the talent that they were working with better than other people. I’ve had it where certain producers, they have ideas in their head. But it’s a type of match that they would work and that’s not always how it goes,” Vik continued. “You know what I mean? Because how they might be isn’t how you work. And sometimes it just doesn’t work out that way. [Laurinaitis and Anderson] specifically, they kinda really took into account every moving piece, how they were, and just how to put it all together properly. And they’re great.”
