No Way Jose Says He Didn’t Like his WWE Name When It Was Pitched To Him

In an interview with WrestleTalk, No Way Jose spoke about being pitched his WWE ring name while he was in NXT and how he wasn’t a fan of it. Here are highlights:

On his gimmick prior to WWE: “Before the Indies, actually I went to train with Trevor Lee, now Cameron Grimes… him and Roy Wilkins, Jeff Rudd they all trained me. For a brief moment in time I was a Rose Bud, and that’s how I got noticed. How the tables have turned. I was expecting Carlito comparisons, and then that happened. It was a character, because I am Dominican based, out of the Dominican Republic and it was actually a heel. I was loud mouthed, never shut up, very arrogant, very cocky. I’m a bigger dude. If you don’t realise it, the comment I get a lot is ‘damn you big as hell’, I’m 6ft 3’’ 250lbs for real. When [WWE] put me dancing, I guess it makes me appear smaller.”

On getting the name No Way Jose: “The name itself, ha. I don’t know how the hell it happened, they were like “what do you think of No Way Jose”, and I was like “no”. I thought it was a catchphrase, and I was like “oh cool”… they saw something in film and somehow it came up… [Matt] Bloom was like “what if you want it as a name?”, and I was like “no way”. Then a writer came up to me and was like “why?”, and I was like “it will pigeon hole me, there is a ceiling”, all the real stuff in terms of business. Nobody goes in there and says they want to be a No Way Jose probably, they want to be, for me it was The Rock when I saw The Rock I wanted to be The Rock… We went into Full Sail and I’m walking in and you shake everyone’s hand and Triple H is right there talking to Eva Marie or someone, I’m like “hey, sir, how you doing?” And he’s like No Way, what’s going on?”. In my head I’m like “s***, is that a thing?” And he goes “got it approved today, what do you think?” And I said “I love it, let’s go”.”

On what he enjoyed about it: “It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the gimmick, but the name wasn’t my first choice. What ended up happening with it was it became its own thing, it took its own form. What I loved about it was the fan interaction. We could go into the crowd and we literally do conga lines, that’s how it came to be… it was me going out into the people and getting behind me… I never got the opportunity to show a more serious side and have something I could really sink my teeth into.”

On ideas he pitched to WWE: “I always wanted to walk with Elias. I was a party guy right, and I was always wanting to walk with Elias and slowly party with Elias. I would come out there with a drum one day and a guitar singing with him. Just trying to literally walk with him. I remember texting someone and was like what about a 24/7 title, and they were like “no it wouldn’t happen”. A few months later it happened which was great. The same mindset, let’s give everyone who is not doing something, something to do. I actually had an NFL player ready to go for WrestleMania, maybe timings didn’t work out, maybe they didn’t have plans. He was ready and I was ready. I talked to a few of the boys and they were like “if he comes that’s gonna be awesome”, but it never came to be… One week in particular I pitched 13 things based off the show.”