Bobby Roode On Changing His Look In The Past To Join WWE, Starting To Hate His Job In TNA, Triple H
NXT Champion Bobby Roode was recently a guest on E&C's Pod Of Awesomeness and spoke with sports entertainment legends Edge and Christian on a number of topics including changing his look over the years, why he and Eric Young did not get WWE developmental deals prior to their current runs with NXT, whether Impact Wrestling's light schedule was a help or hinderance, and how he got to NXT.
According to Roode, there were "questionable times" with respect to his look over the years, as he kept changing things up at the suggestion of Johnny Ace, also known as John Laurinaitis, the former head of WWE Talent Relations. Roode admitted that he thought it was a rib.
"There was a time I had bleach blonde [hair]. For a period of time, I wore bleach blonde hair. I had a nice purple cape. Actually, I made Velocity, so that footage is out there. So honestly, the craziest thing is, like, I wanted to be a part of the WWE so bad, I wanted to be a part of the business so bad, that I would do anything. I was doing whatever they asked me to do, like, at times, I just thought Johnny Ace was ribbing me because every time I'd go there, he'd go, 'well, I think you need to do something different. I think next time you should do this, next time you should do that. Maybe you should do this, maybe you should do that.' So every time I would come back, I would look different or try to have some new gear or something different that made me kind of stick out. There [were] some questionable times, definitely, with my appearance."
Moreover, Roode claimed it was "baffling" that Laurinaitis said he and Eric Young were "too TV ready" for a developmental deals at the time, but this fuelled 'The Glorious One'.
"I think the worst, and I'm going to say 'excuse', is, yeah, was that? and I was told that EY and I, at the same time, we were together and Johnny Ace said we were 'too TV ready' to be put in developmental, so basically that we were too good at that point to get a job, which was baffling, which is baffling. But looking back on it, it was good for me because it kind of like set a fire in me. And then, of course, TNA came along and then it was like, 'okay, this is my opportunity and here we go.'"
On the subject of Young, Edge pointed out that Young mentioned on the podcast before that Impact Wrestling's relatively light schedule probably saved his body to some degree. While Roode agreed with that assessment to some degree, 'The Canadian Enforcer' suggested that the long layoffs made the bumps hurt worse and hurt his wind.
"I agree with that. Like, the whole last three years at TNA, we stopped doing house shows, we did TV once a month, and we would do TV for four or five days in a row, but then you'd be off like six or seven weeks. And it got to the point for me, like, I was pushing 40 years old and my body couldn't, I couldn't go to work and be home for six weeks and go to work and be expected to wrestle twice a day or five or six nights in a row." Roode explained, "on a normal schedule, your body callouses up and you get used to it and you feel good and then you go home for six weeks and you go back on the road and that first bump feels like you got ran over by a truck. That's just how it was with me. And I didn't get into the business for that."
Also during the podcast, Roode talked about how he started to hate his job at the end of his Impact Wrestling run.
"You want to have great matches, but your timing is off and you don't feel like you're at 100%. And then saying that, I got in the business to be in the business. It sounds kind of backwards, but I didn't want to be home all the time. I wanted to be on the road and I wanted to get those reps in and I wanted to be on all the live events. I wanted to kind of tour around and have that kind of schedule. And with TNA, it's like I felt like I was just spinning my wheels near the end of it. And I started to really not like my job, which was kind of an eyeopener for me because I was never in a position in the last 17 years up until that point that I really hated wrestling and I really started to hate it."
When asked how his WWE deal came together, Roode said he always kept in touch with Impact Wrestling alum Samoa Joe and Austin Aries who were in NXT and that he received a telephone call from WWE Performance Center's Matt Bloom the day he finished up with Impact Wrestling.
"I just knew that staying at TNA really wasn't an option for me, so I ended up finishing the third year of my contract. I had one year left and we kind of just mutually parted ways." Roode continued, "I became pretty good friends with Samoa Joe over the years at TNA. Joe was already at NXT and we would talk here and there. And, of course, Austin Aries was just getting started with NXT at the time I was ending with TNA, so we all kind of chatted a little bit and stuff like that. And, obviously, when I was finishing up with TNA, we came to an agreement that I was going to finish up in March, finish the five or six weeks of TV that was left or whatever I had to do there and then I was done. So the day that I was finished, I got a phone call from Matt Bloom and then, the ball kind of started rolling from there."
Roode recalled that Triple H threw a bunch of possibilities at him like the possibility of a short-term deal or coaching at the Performance Center leading up to his appearance at NXT TakeOver: Dallas.
"I ended up talking to Triple H on the phone about a week-and-a-half later, and then, just kind of it was like a 30-minute conversation, just kind of really laid back and just kind of told him what I was looking to do and he kind of gave me his two cents on what he was kind of looking for and hopefully that maybe we could [work something out]. Honestly, when the initial conversation started, it was like, 'well, maybe we'll just look at a three-month thing or a six-month thing and see where it ends up.' After he asked me, 'would coaching at the PC be an option for you to do if nothing works out?' It was kind of like a wide-ranging conversation about everything and then I got a call a couple of days before WrestleMania in Dallas [Texas] last year and they asked me to come down to NXT TakeOver the night before. I got there, talked to Hunter for maybe 5 minutes, met a lot of guys in the locker room, and then, they put me in the front row right before the main event started. It was wild."
Become a 5-Second Hoser here. If you use any of the quotations from this article, please credit E&C's Pod Of Awesomeness with an H/T to WrestlingINC for the transcription.
Source: E&C Pod Of Awesomeness