Jay White On Whether He Would Sign With WWE, AEW, How He Is Treated By ROH
NJPW's 'Switchblade' Jay White was a guest on Talk Is Jericho recently. Among many other things, White talked about winning a radio contest to attend WrestleMania 27 and how it inspired him to become a professional wrestler. Also, White talked about how he is treated by Ring Of Honor when he is stateside on excursion. White shared his thoughts on the G1 Supercard show from Madison Square Garden and whether he may sign with WWE one day.
Apparently, White won radio contest in his native country of New Zealand to go to WrestleMania 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia.
"I was working for my friend's dad and they had a competition on the radio to send someone to WrestleMania and this is 2011. And I was like, 'oh, s–t!' I thought I might as well call it up, so I call it up, and I won the competition to go into the draw and over two weeks they got a bunch of people in the draw. I ended up winning that competition." White explained, "a radio thing, yeah. You had to call it up, and they had two callers and 'okay, you're going to do a debate.' They'd tell you if you are for or against, they'd give you a random topic, and you had to do it. And then, they decided who the winner of the debate was for that draw and they did that multiple times a day for two or three weeks, or something."
According to White, winning the contest in spite of its long-shot odds inspired him to pursue his dream of becoming a professional wrestler.
"When I used to watch it, I wanted to be a [pro] wrestler, obviously. Any kid that watched it does. But then you get into that whole mindset of, 'ah, that's not really realistic,' especially living in New Zealand." White recalled, "so I won that competition, tickets, flights, accommodations all paid for, and to take a friend as well, so I took my best mate with me. It was in Atlanta. 2011 in Atlanta, so we went there for four or five days and it was that that made me think, 'well, s–t, I never thought I'd go to WrestleMania, let alone win a competition.' I thought, 'why can't I? Why can't I be a pro wrestler? Why can't I do this? Maybe I should try to be a wrestler.' And I think around that time, 2011 at least, it was kind of changing what smaller guys were able to get into it as opposed to 10 years before and stuff."
With respect to ROH, White said he has been treated great by ROH and people misunderstand that he is not misused by the promotion.
"They're really good to me," White stated. "I always see, not to go into much about the fans, but, 'this person is getting wasted here.' They're not going to bring me in for a year and make me their star champion. Exactly, that's why people don't understand why they wouldn't invest so much in me only for me to leave."
During the interview, White revealed that he was told about the ROH/NJPW G1 Supercard show before it was announced and was told that WWE shut it down. White indicated that he was surprised to hear that the event was back on.
"That's very exciting," White said. "I remember I got told about that before it was announced and then I thought it got shut down, basically, from WWE. Yeah, it got shut down, so I was like, 'oh, okay.' And then, a few weeks later, I see it being posted again, so obviously they've been able to work around it and make it happen."
When asked whether White would entertain going to WWE eventually, the leader of the Bullet Club divulged that joining WWE is not even on his "radar" and prefers pro wrestling to "entertainment". With that said, White hedged by saying he would not close the door to joining WWE entirely.
"Before New Japan, I think for anyone that starts that's kind of what you look to because that's what you watched," White claimed. "But then, once you realize there's so much more out there, it's not even like a thought on my radar. I'm happy where I am and it's also what they do, the product and stuff. I enjoy pro wrestling as opposed to the entertainment TV stuff over there as well. And you have a lot of guys that have left and gone over and you hear that there it's very different. And yeah, who knows? You never say 'never' with anything. You never know what's going to happen in the future. When I was training and wanted to go to WWE, I never thought would have come here [to Japan]."
White went on to say that AEW gives pro wrestlers even more options now and that he has turned down people putting in a good word for him at WWE in the past.
"With the guys starting that AEW stuff, it makes it a very cool time," White considered. "You don't need to go there [to WWE]. New Japan keeps growing and obviously with a star of [Jericho's] caliber it helps us to make it even bigger. So then, it's easier for guys to stay here without having to go elsewhere as well. And also, people often ask, 'hey, if you want to come here [to WWE], just let me know.' And I'm like, 'I'm alright, thanks' because I don't want to go there. A lot of guys sign there early and then they stay in the developmental, or NXT, or whatever for however long just because there are so many people there it feels like these days."
Listen to the 'Pod Of Thunder And Rock 'N' Roll' here in via the audio player below. 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