Kazarian Talks Signing With WWE, What WWE Wanted That Led To His Departure, More
On episode 245 of Talk Is Jericho, 'The Superstar Of All Superstars' Chris Jericho interviewed current ROH World Tag Team Champions The Addiction, Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian. During the podcast, Kazarian talked about his brief run with WWE.
On the subject of Kazarian's WWE run, the former PWG World Champion said he signed with WWE in 2005 and was frustrated that he was not being used.
"I signed in February [2005] and then sat at home, sat at home, sat at home. And then, it was to a point when I was calling them, like Johnny [Laurinaitis], 'hey, I'd love to come [to work]'. They'd put me on some, the first few weeks, dark matches and stuff, but I was hearing nothing, and, like, I was getting almost [to the point where], I don't want ring rust to kick in. I was just sitting at home and people were like, 'don't worry about it. Get paid.' But you couldn't tell me that at the time, and, still, I like to work. And so I'm calling Johnny. He's like, 'what? Do you want to move to Atlanta [Georgia]?' And I'm like, 'no? Not necessarily', and, so then, they sent me to OVW for one week and I did that, which was cool because I got to do Lance Storm's last week of training there, so it was cool to learn a little bit from him [and] pick his brain and stuff. And then, they put me on the road. I started doing [WWE] Velocity matches and I was there for a few months doing that."
Apparently, John Laurinaitis asked Kazarian to cut his trademark ponytail; however, 'The Future' refused and left WWE.
"The suggestion was to cut my hair, and, at that point, I wasn't mature enough to be there. All I knew about wrestling was some Japan, TNA, and Indies. I didn't know how to treat it as a business and that's 100% on me. They could have suggested, 'hey, switch your tights' and I would have done the same. It was literally like, 'no, I'm not going to do that. You brought me in to do this and I'm not going to do that'. And I have a rebellious spirit and it [has] cost me jobs and stuff. But I wasn't ready. If I would have stayed, I wouldn't have lasted long anyway, just because I wasn't mentally ready to treat it like a business."
In addition to these topics, Daniels got into the backstory of the 'Curry Man' gimmick, Kazarian talked about meeting Jericho for the first time, and The Addiction discussed ROH's stellar tag team division. To listen to the podcast, click here. If you use any of the quotes from this article, please credit Talk Is Jericho with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Source: Talk Is Jericho