Colt Cabana On Who Pushed For Him To Sign With WWE, Why His Tryout Was Scrapped, Turning Down TNA
On episode 300 of The Art Of Wrestling, Colt Cabana conducted a Q&A with questions from fans. Cabana talked about turning down the chance to work for TNA, getting signed by WWE, and more.
According to Cabana, he is at a point in his professional wrestling career where he does not need to sell himself to promoters anymore, as he is a known quantity with nearly 20 years of experience and goodwill in the industry. Cabana said that he turned down the opportunity to work for TNA insofar as he has asked colleagues to not bring him up in pitches for storylines in TNA.
"I've had a couple of people say, 'hey, I want to pitch you for [blank]' and I don't want to have to, like, prove myself because I had to do that in WWE, where I was like, 'oh, if only this guy would understand'. I had to sell myself and it's like I've set this thing up for myself where I don't have to sell myself to anybody, so if Dixie [Carter] or 'Big' [John Gaburick] or whoever it was, was like, 'we need Colt, and, hey, we're going to give you this. We're going to give you this and you could wrestle this.'
"I almost think of that Desmond Wolfe scenario where they were just like, 'wow, let's do it!' And then, maybe I would, like, think about it, but it was a lot of, like, 'hey, would you be cool if I sold this idea?' And it's like, 'no'. I don't want to have to go into a room and sell myself to anybody. Like, if you're all about me and you get it, I just feel like they, those two specifically, still don't even know who I am. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, I don't want to say [they don't] get it, but they just don't know who I am, so I don't need it. I don't need to sell myself to anyone, so I don't want to, so that was kind of that scenario."
As for getting signed by WWE, Cabana claimed it was really a matter of colleagues putting in a good word for him with WWE officials.
"It was 2006 or 2007 and everyone was getting signed at that point: [CM] Punk, Daivari, and these were the guys, [Brian] Kendrick, just a lot of these guys from Ring Of Honor, basically, that I was starting with were getting signed and moved up." Cabana added, "I had done all these enhancement matches. You can go back on YouTube and look at my [WWF] Jakked matches, [WWE] Velocity, my [WWE] Sunday Night Heat [matches] versus Snitsky and 'Hacksaw' [Jim Duggan] and Trevor Murdoch, and he's another one of my friends who got signed. And just eventually everyone was saying, like, 'you should sign Colt, you should sign Colt'. Daivari was pushing the hardest. He was like, 'you should sign Colt. I don't understand.' I remember Matt Hardy said something after I wrestled him on Velocity, 'you should sign this guy'. [William] Regal was a [proponent]."
Apparently, Cabana was supposed to receive a tryout match over WrestleMania 23 weekend; however, the match was scrapped by an inebriated John Laurinaitis and Cabana was just awarded a WWE contract instead.
"Allegedly, he had too many cocktails at the WrestleMania party in Detroit [Michigan] and everyone was like, I was supposed to get this tryout in the WrestleMania hotel, where they have a ring set up, and I think he was just drinking all day, allegedly, drinking all day, and he just never got to it and I never had it. And, finally, he was just like, '[do] you want to do this?' I was like, 'yes!' He's like, 'alright, we're going to sign you to a contract.' I was like, 'holy s–t!'
"That's where Hurricane Helms was in the bar and he goes, 'we signed Colt Cabana!' [and] The Undertaker goes, 'what's a Colt Cabana?' Helms always reminds me of that story. And so that's how I got signed. Just all these guys saying, 'you should sign this guy' and it wasn't Vince [McMahon]. It wasn't Kevin Dunn. And that would later go to hurt me and bite me in the ass because they didn't sign me. They didn't know me. They weren't sold on me. Johnny Laurinaitis was just like, I think, 'alright, I get it. He's a good worker. We'll get him on the team.' And then, I worked my way from the bottom there once I got there. I wasn't brought in in this high position like a lot of these guys are now. I was brought in the bottom because someone said I was a good wrestler and so they said, 'okay, let's put him on the team.'"
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Source: The Art Of Wrestling