James Ellsworth, famous for going from resident jobber to significant contributor to Smackdown, recently appeared on “The Taz Show”. He discussed many topics, from how he got his start in the WWE, to Vince McMahon’s reaction, to his relationship with Carmella. Here are the highlights.
On His WWE Debut:
I was an extra talent that day in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 25th 2016 and obviously, you’ve been there. As an extra talent, you don’t know what’s gonna happen that day. You could do nothing or you could do a match, just be a security guard, or a Rosebud or whatever. They picked me to do the match with [Braun] Strowman that night. It was the start of his singles push out of The Wyatt Family and did a match against him. I got to do like a twenty second promo before the match and did the match and from there it just escalated.
On What Vince McMahon Said To Him Afterwards:
Right after the match, Arn Anderson, who was the agent for the match, told me Vince [McMahon] was looking for me. I said, ‘Oh, really? Why would he be looking for me? What did I do wrong?’ I found Vince and he was coming down the stairs there outside of Gorilla looking for me and I found him. He said, ‘Hey, I just wanted to tell you that you did a very good job. I was very pleased with that. Thank you.’ I was like, ‘Huh?’ [Chris] Jericho called me that night and I told him about that and he told me the same thing [Vince rarely compliments] and told me the same thing on his podcast as well. It just doesn’t happen a lot. To me it was out of nowhere. I didn’t expect it and very very cool. I’ll never forget that moment, for sure.
On His Relationship With Carmella:
We became friends because of that angle and we always had a good time working together. I always tell people she’s very smart, very intelligent girl. I had a good time with her, never any problems whatsoever. Just the small things, she recently dyed her hair. She had a long run as Smackdown Women’s Champion for a few months and now that’s over with and right away she did something different and dyed her hair just to get eyes on her. That was very smart. We’ll text here and there. She’s busy working all the time. She’s on every loop, every house show, every TV. Once every other week I’ll catch up with her and we’ll talk about what’s going on. Yeah man, we’re friends. I’m so happy for her. She just went through the Performance Center there. She’s a product of that and just to see her evolve and get better each and every time she’s out there; it’s really cool to see when you worked that closely with someone for a long extended period of time. Just to see her doing well, I’m very happy for her.
On Wrestlers He Enjoyed Working With:
In WWE, I loved doing stuff with AJ Styles and Dean Ambrose. Every autograph session I do, obviously people bring up Carmella; but, they always bring up the AJ Styles/Dean Ambrose stuff. That was so fun, just being in the middle of that rivalry between them two. On the indies, I love working with Jerry Lawler, doing the Intergender Title stuff. I have this Intergender Title where I work with the girls in the indies coming off the stuff I did on WWE television. I just love to perform, man, doesn’t matter which level. I just love to do it.
On Being Able To Use The James Ellsworth Name:
My name actually, James Ellsworth. My real first name is James and my middle name is Ellsworth.
On A Potential Surprise He May Have In Store:
You never know where James Ellsworth’s gonna pop up and I love to surprise people. Surprise is my favorite part of wrestling. It sucks this day in age, a lot of the dirt sheets give it away before it happens; but, you still get that reaction, no matter if it’s leaked or not. I love doing it and hopefully you’ll get to see me do more of that very soon.
(Transcription: Michael McClead, WrestleZone)
You can listen to the full interview on The Taz Show HERE
