Entourage Star On Getting Booed On RAW, Stephanie, Who Was Up For Ronda Rousey's Role, "SummerFest"

On episode 187 of Talk Is Jericho, 'Y2J' interviewed Jerry Ferrara, who played Turtle on HBO's Entourage. On the show, Ferrara talked about hosting the May 25, 2015 episode of Monday Night RAW with his Entourage co-stars and working with current UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion Ronda Rousey on the Entourage movie.

On the topic of hosting RAW, Ferrara stated that he underestimated what a major production RAW really is.

"When I got there, it was even bigger than I thought. Just the moving parts and talking to a lot of the guys there, it's basically like a big, giant traveling circus. It's the biggest traveling circus in the world! And really getting to see just the behind the curtain of that, it just made it that much cooler to me and I respect it even more."

Also, Ferrara said he had an out of body experience right before going out to the ring with his Entourage co-stars and Zack Ryder.

"I mean, honestly, it was slow motion. I started getting dizzy. I started getting lightheaded. I'm like, 'wow! This is live!' And then Vince [McMahon]'s back there behind the monitor, like, directing shot for shot, like, doesn't talk to anyone. I really had an out of body experience."

Ferrara claimed that he wanted to take a bump in Ryder's match against John Cena for the U.S. Championship, but his Entourage co-star, Kevin Dillon beat him to the punch.

"At one point, they were like, 'look, who wants to come in and maybe take a bump?' I wanted to do it so bad, like everything in my soul was like, 'I want in' and Kevin Dillon just answered first. He was like, 'I'll do it!', so halfway through the match, Dillon rolls in and interrupts Cena, but Cena goes at him, Ryder rolls him up, but doesn't get the pin, obviously, and Dillon rolls out. And that was like the extent of our [involvement]."

Although Ferrara did not get to interfere or take a bump in the bout between Ryder and Cena, he was happy that he and his Entourage co-stars got to take a shot at the absent cast member, Jeremy Piven, who hosted the August 3, 2009 edition of RAW and infamously mistook WWE Summerslam for Summerfest.

"Summerfest! We killed him for that! We had a line in our episode [of RAW] where we brought [up] that Summerfest. Amazing!"

Ferrara also got to take a jab at Stephanie McMahon over her WrestleMania 31 altercation with Rousey during the show.

"I got to talk trash to Stephanie a little bit from Ronda Rousey was on, obviously, at WrestleMania, I believe, arm barred her, so I got to bring that up because Ronda was in the Entourage movie."

As for being booed by the fans in attendance at Nassau Memorial Coliseum that night at RAW, Ferrara said that Stephanie McMahon told the Entourage cast beforehand that any reaction is good. Ferrara believed that the fans booed the Entourage guest hosts because WWE fans would boo guest hosts who are not known as being professional wrestling fans too. According to Ferrara, actor and known professional wrestling fan, Stephen Amell, was in attendance at RAW that night and the fans wanted him to guest host RAW instead.

"[Amell] just happened to be at the event, at that night's RAW, but just as a fan. Like, he wasn't hosting like we were, but once the fans knew Stephen Amell was there, but we were hosting, they flipped [out]. That's what also fired them up. 'Why are these idiots hosting? We have a real life fan right here. He should be hosting! You guys suck!'" Ferrara continued, "I said it to Stephanie McMahon. And she's like, 'no, if they boo you, it's great. Don't worry about it.' I was like, 'I don't know if I can handle this'. 'Shut up! You can handle it!' [she said]."

Ferrara said that he was not caught off guard by the heated reception at RAW, as they heard the crowd's reaction to their pretaped entrance.

"When we pretaped the limo shot of us getting out of the limo and we had so much time in between we were watching it in the locker room and you could literally hear, watching the feed, we see us getting out of the limo because, obviously, there's a little delay, so we hear them booing out there just as on TV and then we hear them booing on TV. It's like, 'oh my God! We're going to get killed out there! We're going to get destroyed!'"

With respect to working with Rousey on the Entourage film, Ferrara said it was "an awesome experience".

"They sent us a picture of us in the ring and stuff. It took me 30 seconds to hang that thing up." Ferrara continued, "not only is she an unbelievable athlete, we hung out before and I got to know her, she's just a great person. It's all legit! What you see is what you get. It is not an act. She is not playing up for her brand, so to speak. It just so happens that her brand reflects who she is and it's totally legit. Now seeing what she's doing, I'm kind of like Adrian in Rocky. Like I watch her fights, I'm in the crowd just crying and screaming! Like I feel like Adrian in Rocky! It's reverse Rocky!"

Even though working with Rousey was a positive experience to Ferrara, Rousey was not originally planned to make a cameo appearance in the film. Ferrara indicated that the Rousey role was meant for someone else, possibly recording artist, Rihanna.

"[Rousey's part] might have initially been for someone like Rihanna or something like that, someone where it's like, 'are we really going to be able to get Rihanna?' and obviously the answer was 'no'. Then you start to get to a point where it's like, 'alright, well, if we can't find anyone we might have to write it out'. And that was kind of my whole storyline in the movie and randomly, thankfully, I have the same agent as Ronda, Brad Slater at WME. And this is now two years ago, so Ronda was obviously well known, but what she [has] done in the last two years, she has gone to the next level. So Brad kept saying, 'what about Ronda for the cameo?' and I immediately was like, 'that's cool as s–t'. To me, that's a great move for Turtle, makes him cooler, initially, and obviously I love the physical angle of dating a girl who could absolutely whoop my ass".

Click here to check out the entire show.

Source: Talk Is Jericho