After 14 long hours, we finally arrived in Europe. We touched down in Glasgow, and, unfortunately, the rest of tour was a blur. I had extreme ear pain for the first few hours following the flight, and I figured my body was having a hard time adjusting to being in the air that long. Needless to say, I wasn't in the best mood. All I wanted was to get my bags, get to my room, and go to sleep. It was finally time to get off the plane. I was retrieving my bag from the overhead storage compartment when one of the boys, a guy who had been with the company for nearly two decades and was cool with everyone, approached me. He leaned in close and asked me to do him a "favor." He never made eye contact with me. He just stared straight ahead. In a very low, suspicious tone, he said, "JTG, I need you to hold this for me." I looked down, and there in his hand he held what appeared to be about an eighth of weed. I thought to myself, Of all the guys on the roster, why me?! How the hell do I get out of this? I tried telling him I wasn't comfortable and was unfamiliar with the procedure. He ignored me, and instead instructed me to stuff the package inside my underwear, under my nuts. Now, why anyone would want to smoke weed that had been under someone's nuts after a 14-hour flight is beyond me, but, I digress. At this point two other wrestlers began to chime in, applying more pressure to the situation. "Come on Jay. This is your chance to get over with the boys." "You can hit it with us later." "Come on! Don't be that guy!" I always thought peer pressure was a just myth. But it's real, people. Hella real! Then out of nowhere, like some sort of super hero, one of the veterans, a real English gentleman, swooped in and saved the day. As soon as he saw me in distress, he swiftly came to my rescue. "Leave the young man alone. You guys brought your own stuff in so you need to figure it out yourselves. This is his first tour and you're already trying to get him into trouble. Leave him out of it." And just like that, they backed off. He then pulled me aside and said, "I know you were in a tough position. Those guys were not looking out for your best interest. I hate to see young talent such as yourself being taken advantage of. I couldn't just stand there and say nothing. You'll be out of a job and under the jail, and they'll continue wrestling, acting like nothing ever happened." I knew he was 100% right.
Before I became a WWE Superstar, I made a promise to myself. I said to myself, "Self, no matter what happens in my career as a professional wrestler, don't ever, ever, ever ever become a jobber." Jobbers just magically show up in the ring after a commercial break and get their asses handed to them. My plan if this was ever to happen to me was to leave the company, plain and simple. I planned to leave, go somewhere else,, make a name for myself, and comeback. JTG was too talented and charismatic to be an enhancement talent. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind losing, and I don't mind making another superstar look good when it's their time to shine. That is business. But when it becomes my sole purpose in life to lose, then it's a problem. If you followed my career, you're probably asking why I didn't leave then? The answer is simple: life happened. I had a family. I had a baby on the way, and I could not make that sacrifice at the time.
The first time I sensed myself going down Jobber Ave, I spoke up immediately. In doing so, I believe I pissed off the wrong people. It was during a Smackdown taping that I found out early I was working one of the company's up-and-coming rising stars. I knew I was losing, but I was excited to work with this individual. I had a lot of respect for what he did in the ring, and I was looking forward to making him look good. When your putting someone over strong in a match, there is percentage formula agents like to use to structure things. In this particular match, I was told to split it thirty percent in my favor, and seventy percent in his. The point of this particular match was to build his character and strengthen his current storyline. Now here is the issue. We had all day to plan out a match in which we both came out looking like stars, and we also furthered his character's development. But when it came time to put the match together, my opponent avoided me all day. When I did catch up with him (which was several times through out the day) he brushed me off and said, "Just listen to me out there." That was a red flag. As we got closer and closer to our match, I still had no idea what we were doing. We had a couple of minutes of TV time, so I definitely wanted to talk it over.
Before I knew it the match before us was coming to a close and I still knew nothing. I had enough and I went looking for him. When I found him I said "what are you going to do to make me look good before you cut me off and beat me?" His reply was, "This match is all me. You're not getting any offense. Just try to fight back if you can." I looked at him like he was crazy and said, "I'm going to make you look good but there is no way I'm going out there and just letting you beat me up for five minutes." He said, "That's what Vince wants." I looked at him like he was full of shit. "Vince wants you to squash me?" "If you don't believe me, ask him." So I did. I marched up to Gorilla Position, where Vince sits and watches the entire show, and asked him out loud so my opponent could hear me. "Vince, is this a squash match? Am I suppose to just go out there and get beat up for the entire match and lose? That's what he said," and I pointed at my opponent. Vince looked at me, baffled, and took his head set off. He said "No, this is not a squash match." He looked at my opponent and told him, "Give him a shine spot, cut him off, and hit your finisher." My opponent looked pissed. He rolled his eyes and said, "Alright, whatever." I'm not calling my opponent a liar. But if he was telling the truth, I made Vince change his mind quick because I wasn't having it! When the bell rang, we pretty much had a shitty match. The lack of communication that it takes to have a good match was very noticeable to the trained eye. Both of us did a great job not selling each others punches and kicks. He didn't care to do good business, and so I didn't care to make him look good. When I took his finish, I didn't sell it like I would have sold it. I just kinda reacted to it. I guess he didn't like that. So, out of nowhere, and with no warning, he puts on his second finisher, a submission move. I think to myself, Woooooord! This mothafucka tryin' to play me, huh? Okay, let’s play. In order for him to win I had to tap out. Guess what I did? I stayed in that submission hold nice and long, until it was really uncomfortable and awkward. He literally yelled at me out loud twice to tap out. It was so awkward WWE had to edit it and switch the camera shots around to shave of a few seconds.
When we got to the back, all hell broke loose. My opponent decided to yell at me in front of the rest of the boys, and I gave in. We had a huge shouting match in front of everyone. I'll take some responsibility and say I was wrong for feeding into the shouting match. In retrospect, what I should have done was say, "You're upset? Let's go deal with this somewhere else, privately, like men. Take that however you want to take it." Anyhow, he wound up apologizing to me because the whole situation was handled unprofessionally. We shook hands and killed whatever tension we had. To this day, he and I are civil. We are not the best of friends, but we are cool, so to speak, but we do have mutual respect for each other. Looking back on that night, I might have earned some respect from my peers for standing up for myself. But I definitely got some heat from the agents, supervisors, and office who now viewed me as difficult to work with.
Before I became a WWE Superstar, I made a promise to myself. I said to myself, "Self, no matter what happens in my career as a professional wrestler, don't ever, ever, ever ever become a jobber." Jobbers just magically show up in the ring after a commercial break and get their asses handed to them. My plan if this was ever to happen to me was to leave the company, plain and simple. I planned to leave, go somewhere else,, make a name for myself, and comeback. JTG was too talented and charismatic to be an enhancement talent. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind losing, and I don't mind making another superstar look good when it's their time to shine. That is business. But when it becomes my sole purpose in life to lose, then it's a problem. If you followed my career, you're probably asking why I didn't leave then? The answer is simple: life happened. I had a family. I had a baby on the way, and I could not make that sacrifice at the time.
The first time I sensed myself going down Jobber Ave, I spoke up immediately. In doing so, I believe I pissed off the wrong people. It was during a Smackdown taping that I found out early I was working one of the company's up-and-coming rising stars. I knew I was losing, but I was excited to work with this individual. I had a lot of respect for what he did in the ring, and I was looking forward to making him look good. When your putting someone over strong in a match, there is percentage formula agents like to use to structure things. In this particular match, I was told to split it thirty percent in my favor, and seventy percent in his. The point of this particular match was to build his character and strengthen his current storyline. Now here is the issue. We had all day to plan out a match in which we both came out looking like stars, and we also furthered his character's development. But when it came time to put the match together, my opponent avoided me all day. When I did catch up with him (which was several times through out the day) he brushed me off and said, "Just listen to me out there." That was a red flag. As we got closer and closer to our match, I still had no idea what we were doing. We had a couple of minutes of TV time, so I definitely wanted to talk it over.
Before I knew it the match before us was coming to a close and I still knew nothing. I had enough and I went looking for him. When I found him I said "what are you going to do to make me look good before you cut me off and beat me?" His reply was, "This match is all me. You're not getting any offense. Just try to fight back if you can." I looked at him like he was crazy and said, "I'm going to make you look good but there is no way I'm going out there and just letting you beat me up for five minutes." He said, "That's what Vince wants." I looked at him like he was full of shit. "Vince wants you to squash me?" "If you don't believe me, ask him." So I did. I marched up to Gorilla Position, where Vince sits and watches the entire show, and asked him out loud so my opponent could hear me. "Vince, is this a squash match? Am I suppose to just go out there and get beat up for the entire match and lose? That's what he said," and I pointed at my opponent. Vince looked at me, baffled, and took his head set off. He said "No, this is not a squash match." He looked at my opponent and told him, "Give him a shine spot, cut him off, and hit your finisher." My opponent looked pissed. He rolled his eyes and said, "Alright, whatever." I'm not calling my opponent a liar. But if he was telling the truth, I made Vince change his mind quick because I wasn't having it! When the bell rang, we pretty much had a shitty match. The lack of communication that it takes to have a good match was very noticeable to the trained eye. Both of us did a great job not selling each others punches and kicks. He didn't care to do good business, and so I didn't care to make him look good. When I took his finish, I didn't sell it like I would have sold it. I just kinda reacted to it. I guess he didn't like that. So, out of nowhere, and with no warning, he puts on his second finisher, a submission move. I think to myself, Woooooord! This mothafucka tryin' to play me, huh? Okay, let’s play. In order for him to win I had to tap out. Guess what I did? I stayed in that submission hold nice and long, until it was really uncomfortable and awkward. He literally yelled at me out loud twice to tap out. It was so awkward WWE had to edit it and switch the camera shots around to shave of a few seconds.
When we got to the back, all hell broke loose. My opponent decided to yell at me in front of the rest of the boys, and I gave in. We had a huge shouting match in front of everyone. I'll take some responsibility and say I was wrong for feeding into the shouting match. In retrospect, what I should have done was say, "You're upset? Let's go deal with this somewhere else, privately, like men. Take that however you want to take it." Anyhow, he wound up apologizing to me because the whole situation was handled unprofessionally. We shook hands and killed whatever tension we had. To this day, he and I are civil. We are not the best of friends, but we are cool, so to speak, but we do have mutual respect for each other. Looking back on that night, I might have earned some respect from my peers for standing up for myself. But I definitely got some heat from the agents, supervisors, and office who now viewed me as difficult to work with.
the match in question in the final story
