Andre Chase Recalls How He Ended Up On WWE TV After Being Told He Wouldn’t Be

Andre Chase was never intended to end up on WWE TV when he signed there, and he recently recalled how it happened. Chase became a mainstay of the NXT midcard from 2021 until his release earlier this year, but as he revealed on Between Two Jobs with Duke Hudson earlier this month WWE initially wanted him to come in as a coach.

Chase explained in part two of the interview how he was told several times he would not be appearing on TV. However, when Shawn Michaels witnessed Chase working a match with a novice Julius Creed, he ended up deciding to put Chase on TV. You can see the highlights below:

On the Expectation He Wouldn’t Be Doing TV:

“So I signed in like, January. We report in February. There’s no live and again, so I was told on the phone when I was like, ‘I’m going to be a wrestler. I’m not going to take the coaching role.’ If [Canyon Ceman] said it once on this phone call, he said it 100 times. He said, ‘I just need you to know you’re not going to be a TV star. You’re not going to be on TV at all, actually. You are just here to train and work with this next group of guys who they had already chosen.’ Bron Breaker, Trick Williams, Tony D’Angelo, The Creeds, like that core class. Melo — like the class that I started with… he told me on this phone call I wasn’t going to be on TV. I was just like, ‘Okay, like let me in the building.’ I just knew I needed to get in.

“So they were like, ‘You’re only here for them. You’re only here so they can learn from you, so you can teach them. Like you’re not going to be on TV.’ And again, if he said on this phone call once, he said it a hundred times. He was trying so hard to get me to take the coaching job. And I just like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to take the wrestler.’ Then I got I report to the PC, and I’m told by the coaches, ‘Make sure you understand, you’re not going to be on TV.’ ‘Yes, I got it. I understand. I’m just supposed to work the PC [live events], I get it. ‘Okay, fine.’

On Getting On TV:

“Sure enough, this one day I’m working a PC Live with Julius Creed. Shawn happens to wander over. It’ this afternoon in the warehouse. And I think at that point it was still very much like, ‘Oh, there’s Shawn.’ He wasn’t around like that, and he didn’t come to every PC Live. So me — and it was Julius Creed’s third or fourth match. He hadn’t had a lot of matches, and he hadn’t had like the — he was obviously going to be a tag team with his brother, but he was just having a few singles matches here and there. We had a really good match and luckily Shawn was there to see it.

“So we you know afterwards we go to feedback, and go to the coaches. And Shawn’s like, ‘Why aren’t you on TV?’ And I go, ‘Oh, I don’t know. I was told I wasn’t going to be on TV.’ And he was like, ‘Well, why not?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know. They just told me that I wasn’t gonna be on TV.’ He goes, ‘We got to get you on TV.’ And the next week I was on 205 Live.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Between Two Jobs with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.