Heath Slater On Which WWE Stars He Originally Pitched To Be In 3MB
Heath Slater made an appearance on Such Good Shoot to discuss numerous moments throughout his wrestling career. During the conversation, the former WWE star recalled which wrestlers he originally pitched for to be involved in the stable, 3MB.
Initially, he thought of Dean Ambrose, Fandango, and EC3, but WWE went in another direction when they finally gave him his band.
"He wanted me to be the one man band," Slater recalled of what Vince McMahon wanted for his gimmick. "No, it was the one man rock band. The one man southern rock band. The one man country band, or I don't know, he had me doing so much stuff to where I was like, 'Man, can I just be the one man band?'
"I ran with it, ran with with for a while. Then it wasn't going nowhere and ran its course. I was like, 'Come on. I need a band now. I've been a one man band. Let me have a band.' They're just like, 'Oh, who are you thinking?' I pitch [Dean] Ambrose, Fandango, and EC3. And this is before any of them are on TV. Fandango and EC3 were on NXT season three or something. So I pitch for those three. And then they were like, 'Okay, let me get back with you.' And this is Michael Hayes the whole time I'm talking with. The month goes by — nothing. You know, like, 'Hey, baby, what the hell, man? I need this band!'"
After a few weeks, Slater is finally told he's going to get his band, but it wouldn't involve Ambrose, Fandango, or EC3 as creative had other plans for them. Slater remembered being strung along for a while long until he was finally told who would be joining him.
"I'm like, 'Alright, well, who's in the band?' He responded, 'Jinder [Mahal] and Drew [McIntyre].' I said, 'That sounds like a bad joke, man: a Scotsman, an Indian, and a redneck walks into a bar.' Well, when he told me that I first said, 'Drew's gonna be pissed, man.' Because Drew always wants to be that badass, serious dude, you know? He legit is. Yeah, he wants to be that dude and him in 3MB is just was literally like one of those things.
"And Jinder is that guy that'll be like, 'Alright, man, let's go, let's try this.' Drew, on the other hand was more like pulling teeth a little bit. But we finally got him comfortable. And he said, 'Well, I was wanted to be a rock star and a wrestler. So I might as well do both.' When he got on board with it — but still, we were the first three man group, then New Day, then Shield. We started that s***. You know, they copied us.
"It was also just like how it all ended — we had a calendar. We were booked three months, every week. We got our calendars again, booked three months out, and then they got fired. And we're like, 'The hell? What happened?' Jinder gets fired. He calls me. Drew gets fired. He calls me I'm like, 'Guys, I'm next. let me call you back.' Never got it. So literally, I called [Former Senior Director of Talent Relations] Mark Carrano and said, 'Dude, you forget to call me?'"
In this interview, Heath also talked about the meeting Vince McMahon had with Nexus right before their big main roster debut.
You can check out the full conversation in the video below.