Joe Gacy Says Vince McMahon Was Initially Unhappy With Reaction To His NXT Debut

Joe Gacy’s NXT debut received mainstream press as a “woke” parody, and he says that wasn’t the intent, and Vince McMahon was displeased by the reaction. While Gacy had started off the NXT Breakout Tournament, his debut as a character came on the September 21st, 2021 episode of NXT. Gacy spoke in a cult-like tone about how the ring was a “safe space” for conflict resolution and that he wasn’t going to “use my male privilege to get what I want.”

The character received mainstream coverage in conservative media as WWE mocked the “woke left,” and Gacy soon evolved the character. He said on Insight With Chris Van Vliet that the character was not intended to be a take on the left and that Vince McMahon was initially upset about the coverage until he actually saw the promo and loved it. You can see the highlights below:

On His Original NXT Character:

“Well, that was a crazy time. So I get hired in ’20, ’21 post-COVID group to come into the Performance Center. Almost for a year, I’m kind of just there, doing classes, meeting everybody, trying to find my way on TV. I guess in my head, I’m like, ‘All right well, I’m here, so now I have to figure out how I get on.’ So it did start, my technical first debut was, we had the tournament, the NXT Breakout Tournament, and I had a match and I went out first round. That was still when it was like Black & Gold era, but then they kind of told us like, ‘Hey, things are changing. We’re going to be starting like a new version of NXT,’ and then that’s when the conversation started for the new character. It began as Shawn Michaels’ full idea. He kind of saw it the way he explained it to me was more of like a Scientology-type thing turn into a social justice warrior kind of thing, but the whole idea was always going to be that it would eventually turn into kind of a cult thing.”

On the Character’s Debut:

“It was always supposed to be like I have this nice smile, I’m a nice guy, but there’s just something underneath that’s not right. That was always supposed to be the idea. So the debut, I did my first promo, I did a match against Cameron Grimes, and it was well received backstage. Everyone was super happy with it, and then I think the next day it got a bunch of headlines. I think the headline might have been, ‘WWE pokes fun at the woke left.’ I saw that and was like, ‘Oh well, that’s not what it was supposed to be.’ So the word is, this is when Vince McMahon was still in charge. He saw the headline and got very upset. Shawn Michaels called me and said, ‘Hey, Vince is not too happy with what happened. Unfortunately, we’re gonna have to take you off TV for a little bit,’ and I was like, ‘Okay.’ He’s like, ‘Don’t worry, we’re gonna figure it out.’ I was like, ‘Okay, understood.’”

On Being Scared At That Point:

“I was scared. I made my first debut. Thought it was awesome. I knocked it out of the park, and now, ‘Oh, now I’m off TV.’ So the idea was the next week they were gonna kind of Easter egg me in a backstage, we shot it. I was just backstage somewhere hugging somebody, I think it was. Show starts, they do like the pre-show stuff around 7:30. TV starts at eight, I think it’s maybe 6:45. I get a text to come to Shawn’s office. I go in Shawn’s office, and it’s him and one of the head writers. And they have, I believe, Bruce Prichard on the phone, and they’re just typing this promo, and I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’ And they’re like, ‘All right, so we’re gonna have you go out and cut this promo today. So it turns out Vince saw the headline and kind of freaked out, but then he actually went back and watched it and apparently loved it.’ So he was on board after he actually watched the actual promo. So they typed me out like a three-page promo, and I had to remember it in 30 minutes, and that was probably the most stressful time in my life and career ever. I just locked myself away in a corner somewhere, just kept going over it, going over it, going over it. And there was a writer at the time there named Jim Smallman who kept checking in with me, like, ‘You think you got it? You got it.’ I’m like, I think we’re gonna do this.”