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Jeff Cobb on His Talks With WWE That Started Before the Pandemic

February 1, 2023 | Posted by Jeffrey Harris
Jeff Cobb AEW 2-19-20, Kenny Omega Image Credit: AEW

– During a recent interview with The Ten Count’s Steve Fall for Wrestling News.co, Jeff Cobb discussed having talks with WWE right before the start of the global pandemic and why he didn’t sign with the company. Below are some highlights:

Jeff Cobb on his first WWE tryout in 2014: “Originally, my first tryout I ever had was in 2014. Then at that moment, or at that time, six of us got pulled to the side. We did some interviews, took some pictures, and then it switched in a couple of days or so, like, ‘We don’t want anybody over 30.’ At that time, NXT wasn’t as huge as it eventually became. I believe they just signed Kevin Owens at the time. They had all this influx of indie guys coming in, or bigger name indie guys, so they were like, ‘Okay, well, we don’t want anybody over 30, but then we make exceptions to the rules about this.’ A month later, there’s rumors like, ‘Okay, we don’t want any more independent guys because we have too many’, or whatever. So it changes and that’s totally fine. I can’t be upset about that because it’s their business model and it’s what they want to do with their company. So I didn’t hear from them for a long time.”

On having talks with WWE in 2020 before the pandemic: “Just so happened right before the pandemic of 2020, William Regal would call me. Brian Kendrick would call me and say, ‘Is it cool to pass your number to Canyon Ceman?’ I’m always open to talk to people, entertain talks, or whatever. This was actually around the time when New Japan and I were figuring out a contract. At the same time AEW offered me a contract as well.”

On why he didn’t end up signing at the time: “At the end of the day, I can make a great living being in Japan and doing a couple appearances here and there. It may not be WWE, The Rock money, but I’m a very low maintenance kind of guy, so I don’t need millions and millions of dollars, although, you know, people are like, you know, you’re stupid for not taking it. A few months after a bunch of conversations with Canyon Ceman is when he got fired, and a whole, I don’t want to say, dumping of the roster happened. Looking back, I think I made a good choice because if I went there, six months later, I could have been released and then go crawling back to another company for a job.”

article topics :

Jeff Cobb, NJPW, WWE, Jeffrey Harris