Big Cass Says He & Enzo Didn’t Really Expect to Get Called Up

– Big Cass appeared on Talk Is Jericho recently and talked about being called up to Raw and more. Some highlights are below:

On not really expecting to be called up: “I think everybody down there is always waiting to be [called up]. Everyone’s excited and waiting to be called up. But I don’t think we ever really had a point where we thought, ‘Man, definitely, we’re going to get called up.’ I don’t think we really, really got our hopes up until around WrestleMania time. We kind of figured something was going on when we did that Roadblock WWE Network special. It was [Dean] Ambrose and Triple H in the main event. It was in Toronto [Canada] and we had an NXT Tag Team Championship match with The Revival and after that we weren’t booked on NXT television for the next two months going into ‘Mania, so we thought, ‘Huh, something’s probably going on here if we’re not on TV anymore.’ We lost to The Revival at Roadblock and we hadn’t been seen since, so we kind of figured something was going on.”

On not being surprised by the reaction they got in their debut: “I honestly wasn’t surprised because I know the crowd that’s there the night after ‘Mania and hardcore fans, a lot of fans from Europe, Germany, a lot of fans from all over the world, that hardcore WWE fanbase, so those fans are all familiar with NXT. So I was kind of expecting a very good reaction because everybody was asking about it and it was, like I said, that hardcore fanbase.”

On Carmella not being called up: “[Triple H] told her it’s what’s best for her. And I’ve got to be honest, I believe it because if she came up with us, she would’ve just played second fiddle to me and Enzo and she wouldn’t have been able to make as much of a name for herself. Her being on her own for a few months in NXT before coming up to SmackDown on her own, I think it really, really helped her because she’s her own established character. Besides some fans that will chant ‘How you doin’?’, there’s no real link between me and Enzo and her in terms of television product. The audience doesn’t really know that except for a few, that small percentage that [are] NXT fans. Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Having a hot chick with you is definitely a heel move. Yeah, because everyone [is] jealous and whatever it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly, so that did help us also because like you said, having the hot chick is just always the heel guy. How do you make this guy a bigger heel? You give him a hot valet. You put a hot valet with him. That has been done forever.”