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411’s WWE Table for 3 Report: Smash Hits (Elias, Jarrett, James)

May 15, 2018 | Posted by Robert Leighty Jr.
WWE Table for 3 Smashhits

411’s WWE Table for 3 Report: Smash Hits

-Another new episode and this time we have a sit down with Jeff Jarrett, Brian James, and Elias. This grouping obviously makes sense as you have 3 guys that have done or are doing the singing gimmick.

-James starts off by spelling Jarrett’s name and Elias is happy to meet him and congratulates him on the Hall of Fame. James then tells Elias that this has nothing to do with him at first, so Elias says he will just eat his food. Brian tells Jeff that he never knew how much he meant to Jeff and he was honored to induct him into the Hall of Fame.

-Jeff says that on one hand that makes him feel bad, but Brian is a guy that got into the foxhole with him and when you come out of it, you realize how much a friend means to you. They discuss their run together and the traveling up and down the roads. Jeff tells some road stories and lets Elias know about one where Brian got sick from seafood and vomited all through the van they were using.

-Elias asks if they were any times that they couldn’t stand each other. Brian says it never happened and says that he knew that he always had a job if he needed it as long as Jeff was in the business. Brian opens up about his career being full of addiction and how he was never really sober during his time in the business. Elias jokes that from what he is hearing is that if you do drugs and party, you will be successful in the business. He is obviously joking and makes sure that everyone knows that.

-Jeff asks Elias about getting into playing the guitar. Elias says he was a massive Eric Clapton fan and one year for Christmas his dad bought him a guitar. He self taught himself since 15 and Brian tells him it is a gift from God to be able to hear music and learn to play off ear.

-Elias brings up the initial JJ gimmick in the WWE and says that he was wrestling as the character for a year without the idea of doing a “roadie” gimmick. James puts over Max Payne (Man Mountain Rock shout-out) for getting him his break. Payne was playing a guitar and James started singing over it and that is what got him his gig as The Roadie. Jarrett puts over James’ singing ability to a crazy degree. James says that the WWE always wanted a singing wrestler and it was supposed to be his brother getting the gimmick as Lance Cassidy, but he didn’t like the road life of being a wrestler. They came up with The Roadie gimmick and told James to go watch what the production guys were doing in setting up the ring and stage to learn more about the gimmick.

-They show footage from his early run as the character with doing the mic checks. Jeff talks about how they kept teasing that he would sing and each time something would happen with the lights or the mic to delay it. Not different than what they started doing with Eva Marie’s wrestling debut before she was canned.

-They talk about Elias doing a show during Mania weekend on Bourbon Street and James asks if he ever wanted to be a singer. Elias says he wanted to keep his wrestling separate from his hobby, but Dusty Rhodes saw him playing the guitar in NXT and he became The Drifter. Elias says that he recorded an album of some original songs and some Sprinsteen covers (with Bruce’s blessing) and will be released soon. James is blown away that he didn’t know that and that Elias did that.

-Jarrett brings up all the theme music that has been put out over the years and how over it gets with crowds all over the world. He mentions TNA as he talks about AJ Styles and the music he had in the company, but his music in the WWE fits him more than anything. Brian mentions that AJ’s song was written in development for James Storm. Oh Man! That is awesome! Elias apparently knew about it as well and didn’t want to say anything. Brian says that James passed on using that theme and AJ stepped in later and took it.

-Jarrett brings up giving people shots with the guitar and how Elias was in kindergarten when he was blasting celebrities like Gary Coleman and Beetlejuice. They show him blasting Moolah in the head and then slapping the figure 4 on Mae Young, and yeah, you will never see anything like that with the current product. James brings up Jarrett being superkicked by Chuck Norris and we get footage of that from Survivor Series and Jarrett’s oversell is on point.

-Elias goes over the list of guys that he has cracked: Strowman, Balor, Jordan, and most famously, John Cena on RAW’s 25th anniversary show. Elias mentions that Cena is probably more famous and well known that Beetlejuice which causes Jeff to do a double take. James says not to say that name 3 times and jokes that is a movie reference that will go over Jeff’s head. All Jeff knows of movies is that Brian bought Dumb and Dumber for over 800 straight days when they had to stay in a hotel. Brian says that it was the best $10 he spent each day. Back to guitar shots and James talks about how much it hurts getting hit with one.

-A waiter brings out two guitars and James just hopes they aren’t going to hit him. Then James says he doesn’t know if they want to hear them sing again after the rendition they did at the Hall of Fame. They show footage from the Hall of Fame with them singing and it was pretty bad, but they had a lot of fun. James says that he was blown up and knows he missed where he was supposed to go to Elias and let him sing part of the song. Brian and Jeff both talk about how they forgot how long the song was.

-Brian asks Elias if he can play the song and he says he will give it a shot. Elias does a damn fine job of playing the song while Jeff and Brian sing. This sounds much better than the Hall of Fame version. They give it another shot after Jeff jokes that Brian keeps starting at a higher note. That last one went better than the previous two and that’s where this show ends.

-I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one, and I must say it was a pleasant surprise how much fun this was. I am liking the format of having one of the current stars sitting around with past stars/legends. As always one person takes the lead and steers things and in this case that was James which isn’t shocking. They had some good stories, and learning that AJ’s theme was written for James Storm made this show an easy thumbs up. Elias also came off great as we got a little bit of information about his background. Good stuff all around this week.