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James Ellsworth Talks About Getting Squashed By Braun Strowman On RAW

August 6, 2016 | Posted by Joseph Lee

In an interview with In Your Head Radio, James Ellsworth spoke about being used as enhancement talent on RAW two weeks ago against Braun Strowman. Here are highlights:

On how his match on RAW came about: “Well, actually I’ve been doing extra talent stuff for them for a couple of years now. I was actually a Rosebud a couple of times with Adam Rose. Ever since then every time they’re near where I live here in Baltimore, if they’re around the area, they call me and I come in as extra talent. That was my first match on WWE television, and it just happened that day. I went in to RAW; I didn’t expect to wrestle but I got there and they had all the extras around the ring. Arn Anderson just came up to me and said ‘Hey kid, let me see you throw a punch.’ I threw a punch and he said, ‘You know, that wasn’t bad at all.’ I said thank you and he got me in the ring and the next thing I know he looks at me and goes, ‘You want to wrestle Braun Strowman tonight on RAW?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, that would be great.’ That’s how it happened…It all came about so quickly; it was all very sudden and unexpected honestly.”

On if his promo was scripted: “They have scripts to hand out, and they gave me the script. I’m reading it, and they were like do you have any ideas of what you might add to that?…I was like, ‘Well, can I say this line about my hands? I think it would be cool.’ And he said, ‘Well, say the line’, and I said “Any man with two hands has a fighting chance.” And the writer goes, ‘Well, I like it a lot, but I’ve got to clear it with the office; I’ll let you know’…I didn’t see the writer for like an hour and a half after that (so I thought) they must have said no, and he came back and he said, ‘Dude, they actually liked the line and they want you to use it, so now you have to.’ So I said ‘Oh, OK, I got it; no problem’, and I got to say it. So that was really cool that I actually had a little bit of input into it; that was amazing.”

On his new popularity and what’s next: “I don’t know…I didn’t expect this at all. I literally expected to roll out of the ring there Monday, July 25th, in Pittsburgh after the match and just be forgotten about just like all the other enhancement talent; we’re just there to do a quick job and drift away into the sunset. I woke up the next day, and I look at my phone, and my face is on all of these memes, and it was very unexpected. I’ve been loving every minute of it; it’s definitely something that I never thought would happen, and I don’t know what’s next for me. I hope to be back at WWE soon; we’ll see. I can’t talk much about it, but I’m hoping this leads to that…I lived my dream, my dream was to wrestle on Monday Night RAW because I’ve watched every Monday Night RAW since January of 1993 when they started on the air; I’ve seen every single episode. Everybody has their own different goals in wrestling or in life, and my goal and my dream was always to wrestle on RAW so I’ve accomplished that. But now, I have a new goal, and that’s I want to be there all the time; I want to be signed, a contracted wrestler. I never thought I had a chance before, but with all this awesome love from the fans I guess I have a little bit of a chance now. I’m not quite sure, but I’m hoping and praying for where it might lead.”