Fred Rosser Recalls Pitching Bob Backlund Gimmick to Vince McMahon, Telling Vince About Yoga

– Speaking to Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp, wrestler Fred Rosser discussed his time in WWE and the process of pitching ideas to WWE Chairman Vince McMahon. Rosser wrestled as Darren Young for WWE from 2010 to 2017, when he was released. Below are some highlights from Rosser:

Fred Rosser on meeting with Vince McMahon and pitching him ideas after The Prime Time Players split: “Once I was done teaming with Titus, nothing lasts forever, but one of the big things I learned from Titus is the most intimidating thing about Vince McMahon is his office door. Once you get to his office door, you have a game plan and the sky is the limit. Titus was very bold and just opened the door to say, ‘Boss, we’re not on Raw, what do you have for us?’ That’s when we would make moves on the app and it would become popular. I remember once we [Titus & I] were done teaming, I proposed to him the idea of Bob Backlund being my life coach.”

On how he pitched out the Backlund gimmick: “I had it all written out and had visuals, I remember walking into his off and sitting down to talk for about 20 minutes. We talked a lot about yoga. We were face to face sitting down and he asked me, ‘Darren, how do you get such a big barrel chest like that?’ I said, ‘Yoga.’ Yoga has helped with my posture, instead of being scrunched over, it makes you upright, and we talked for some time about the benefits of yoga and then the Bob Backlund gimmick, which he ran with.”

On if McMahon took his advice to start doing yoga: “I don’t know if Vince (ended up doing yoga), but he definitely needs it at his age. I think anyone benefits from yoga. That’s the longevity for me, staying healthy and not wrestling as much. When you don’t wrestle as much, it does take a toll on your body. The match I just had with Tom Lawlor, it took me a week to recover. That was probably one of the longest matches in my career, we went over 25 minutes and it took me about a week to recover. Yoga is so important and that’s probably my closest non-physical interaction with Vince McMahon. I’ve seen him backstage tussle with people, just not with me. “