Jessie Godderz Recalls Getting Offers From WWE in 2009 & 2017, Proposed Feud With The Miz

Jessie Godderz has had a lengthy career that includes runs in Impact Wrestling and now in OVW, but he recently revealed that he had a couple chances to join WWE over the years. Godderz recently spoke with PWMania for an interview and during it he recalled how WWE had tried to reach out to him in 2009 when he was on Big Brother for a possible feud with the Miz. You can check out the highlights below.

On wanting to get into wrestling as a kid: “I was a wrestling fan long before I appeared on Big Brother. I always wanted to be a wrestler ever since I was a kid. My heroes included Chris Jericho (who I looked up to more than anyone else), Ric Flair, The Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan. The thing that changed my life was that I met the Nature Boy Ric Flair one day in a restaurant out in California and he told me that if I wanted to become a pro wrestler, I should move to Florida and enroll in WWE’s developmental program FCW (the precursor to WWE’s NXT). So I did just that. Then in 2009, when I returned for Season 11 of CBS’ Big Brother, I announced to the whole world on the CBS feeds on the very first day of my return that I wanted to be a WWE Superstar.”

On being offered a contract by WWE: “As soon as I mentioned on CBS that I wanted to become a WWE Superstar, the WWE Talent Relations Department tried reaching out to me to offer me a contract. Apparently Vince McMahon and John Laurinaitis liked my look, my charisma, and liked the fact that I was promoting WWE to a huge mainstream audience. I later found out that they had an idea to have me start a reality show rivalry with The Miz.

Unfortunately though, on Big Brother, you’re locked away for several months during the summer with no telephone and no communication with the outside world so they were not able to get a hold of me at the time. So after a few weeks, their interest waned, they gave up and moved on. That was in July of 2009 I believe. Then when the season ended in September and I got out of the house, I had no idea that WWE had been frantically trying to reach me months earlier. I only found out about it 10 years later when I ran into another member of the WWE Talent Relations Department at an OVW Combine where I was making a Guest Appearance at (in 2019) and he told me the whole story. To say the least, I was in shock. Oh well.”

On joining the Impact roster in 2009: “Once I left the Big Brother house for Season 11, that’s when Dixie Carter and Terry Taylor reached out to me to join IMPACT Wrestling and I was honored and went in a heartbeat. It became one of the best decisions I ever made in my life. TMZ and the Big Brother executives, by the way, helped make that happen. Dixie’s mom was also apparently a big fan of mine from Big Brother.”

On getting another chance to join WWE in 2017: “By the way, here’s another factoid that nobody knows about… I also had a second opportunity to join WWE after I left IMPACT in 2017. Triple H and Canyon Ceman invited me to an NXT tryout in 2018 but I was doing other projects for CBS at the time so the timing didn’t work out. It’s all about timing.”