Carlito Reflects On Winning US Title in WWE Debut, Taking Elements From Razor Ramon

Carlito recently looked back on winning the United States Championship from John Cena in his first WWE match. Carlito returned to WWE at Fastlane, and he spoke about his first run in an interview with Cheap Heat. Some highlights are below, per Wrestling Inc:

On winning the US Title from John Cena in his debut: “To win a championship on my first night was crazy … you had to deal with people in the back who were like, ‘Oh, you’re the next whatever’ but I had dealt with it before and knew how to conduct myself. And Cena couldn’t have been a greater partner; he helped me out a lot. I thought he was ribbing me because he was so nice to me during the day, and when we locked up … that first kick to the stomach … I was like, ‘I see what’s going on here.’ But hey, he just hits that hard [laughs].”

On taking elements of his character from Razor Ramon: “If you notice, my vignettes were basically a rip off of Razor Ramon’s old vignettes. In one of those vignettes, he [Razor] spat something. So, in mine, I was at a fruit stand and the fruit vendor was asking me to pay for whatever, and I ended up spitting in his face. Vince [McMahon] was looking back at it … ‘I love it. I want you to keep doing that.’ I never thought it was take off the way it did.”