Prime Time Players Talk Being "Furious" When They Were Broken Up, Darren Young's Bob Backlund Idea

Recently on Talk Is Jericho, Chris Jericho welcomed the Prime Time Players, Darren Young and Titus O'Neil, to the show. During the podcast, Young and O'Neil talked about how the team came together in NXT, the millions of dollars dance, and the team's split and reformation.

When asked how the team originally formed, O'Neil admitted that WWE ran out of storylines for NXT Redemption, as the season was supposed to last only six weeks and ended up lasting nearly a year.

"The backstage [segments] that me and [Young] had and the chemistry we have both inside and outside of the ring was kind of a natural fit and they gave us an opportunity to kind of go out and be ourselves in the backstage segments and that did well on the NXT and they said, 'hey, lets give them an opportunity on Smackdown and see what happens."

As for the Prime Time Players name, O'Neil said it came about because they both felt like that they deserved an opportunity to be on primetime television.

"We just felt, like, we had worked extremely hard both inside and outside of the ring and we represent the company well and we deserved an opportunity to go out there and get better like everybody else."

With respect to the millions of dollars dance, Young said the phrase was a result of his reckless driving and O'Neil saying, "damn, have you lost your mind? You've got millions of dollars in this car!"

According to O'Neil, the dance happened naturally, but it was inspired by sports huddles, seeing football or basketball players huddled up together and swaying to the left and to the right. Young remembered the dance coming about spontaneously, following the team's first ever win in a match against Yoshi Tatsu and Ezekiel Jackson.

"We got our first W and we were going crazy, going back and forth," Young recalled.

Young and O'Neil claim that they do not know the rationale behind splitting up the Prime Time Players. Young said that he was "furious" about the break up because there was no reason for it and no build up to the split.

"There was no story behind it, like, he's trying to get a singles push or he's trying to [upstage] me, or vice versa. There was just nothing to it. He just turned on me. I mean, if there's a story behind it, that's great, but it was just, like, out of nowhere."

During the split, Young got injured in a match against Fandango and was out for several months. While Young was rehabbing and keeping busy with speaking engagements, O'Neil continued to work sporadic singles matches and he rode with Sheamus.

"It was a very frustrating time just because you pitch ideas and, like [Jericho] said, it's a business of you get told one thing and then something else happens and this and that. You never really know what the truth is," O'Neil stated, "and I definitely missed [Young]."

Young shared one of the ideas he pitched for his return to the ring. He said he would have liked to have had Bob Backlund as his life coach, as Young's character could have been depressed upon his return from injury, having no friends and no tag team partner.

"Bob Backlund, he's really funny and just mingling with him whenever he's in the area, he just gives you his time and I just think he's hilarious," Young added, "and I think that would have been funny."

As random as the break up of the Prime Time Players was, their reunion was equally out of the blue to Young and O'Neil. O'Neil said the team was reformed after they both received text messages telling them to bring their Prime Time Players gear to RAW and Smackdown.

O'Neil explained, "we just get a blanket text saying, 'hey, bring your Prime Time Players gear' and I texted [Young] and ask him if he knew what was going on and he told me 'no' and then we got to TV that Monday and I came in and saved him and then the next day on Smackdown he came in and did the save for me."

In addition to these topics, Young talked about coming out as gay and O'Neil talked about his humble upbringing. To check out the whole podcast, click here.

Source: Talk Is Jericho