James Ellsworth On Vince McMahon’s Reaction To His First WWE Match, What His Conversations Were Like With Vince

In a recent interview on the It’s My House Podcast, James Ellsworth discussed Vince McMahon’s reaction to his first WWE match, what his conversations were like with Vince, and much more. You can read highlights from James Ellsworth below.

James Ellsworth on Vince McMahon’s reaction to his first WWE match: “It’s funny you bring up the internet wrestling community, and the memes, and all the support, which I appreciated. That’s not what [got me hired by WWE]. It’s that day when I wrestled [Braun] Strowman. After I was done in the match, Vince McMahon was looking for me and when he found me, he shook my hand. He said, ‘Great job out there. I’m going to hire you.’ And I thought he was kidding, I was like, ‘Oh, thank you.’ He said, ‘I’ll be in touch.’ He thought for a while what am I going to do with this guy? He thought I cut a good promo, I sold well, he thought I looked different, and thought I had something. Six weeks later, he hired me. It was just unbelievable, man. A lot of people aren’t in the internet bubble. Like, a majority of wrestling fans aren’t on the internet like your casual fans – your moms, dads, and kids. They’re not on the internet, they come to the show and they enjoy it. They don’t get in anybody’s business, and they just want to be entertained and have fun. There is a large internet wrestling community, and it’s a loud minority of actual fans. But yeah, it was Vince McMahon. He just saw something in me, and I was very blessed and fortunate that he did. And it worked out for all of us. I mean, he hired me, my T-shirt was the number one seller for a month, and I feel where whatever they put me in worked. I always tell everybody I had such a great time and I appreciated the opportunity that he gave me.”

On what his conversations were like with Vince: “Any time I got to talk to him, it was all business. This is what we’re doing, and this is what we want you to do. Obviously, the average guy there is 6-1 or 6-2, 220 pounds – the average guy. I’m 5-8, 165 pounds. And I didn’t go through the Performance Center, and they have time and money invested in the people who did. They’ve gotta try to get their money’s worth out of those people that went through that. Right away, he told me, ‘We’re gonna get what we can out of you now, and every now and then, we’ll bring you back and do stuff.’ Right away he told me that. I was like, I really wanna stay here forever because I enjoy it, but I understood the business part. Any time I got to talk to him, he was very professional and fun. I always got a kick out of it because growing up, I’d been watching Vince McMahon on my TV since 1988. I was like this guy is right in front of me and he’s my boss now. This is just so cool.”

If using any of the above quotes, please credit the It’s My House Podcast with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.