Jelly Roll has already had a pretty thorough history in WWE.
He has appeared, and gotten physical, at two annual WWE SummerSlam premium live events. He has served as the artist for the official theme for multiple WWE premium live events, and has even performed live at WWE shows.
He has served as a representative and promotional talent for WWE as guest host on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and earlier this year, performed in his actual in-ring debut for the company.
During his appearance for an in-depth sit-down interview on this week’s episode of INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet, Jelly Roll spoke at length about the exact moment that led to him having a match in WWE, among other WWE-related topics.
Featured below are some highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts. Also embedded below is a complete video archive of the discussion.
On giving Austin Theory a chokeslam at SummerSlam: “Which was all Austin Theory. But once again, the greatest heels make the babyfaces look incredible. That’s all Austin. I mean, that dude’s a seller and a half. But he was the dude I wanted to Undertaker style it, you know, because that’s what I grew up watching. Throw the arm over, kind of like I did Logan in the actual match. Thank you Taker for giving me that nod. But when I went to it, Austin was like, ‘One arm, it will get higher.’ I was like, You sure? He was like, ‘Trust me, bro.’ This is like breaking all kayfabe, straight shoot. He looks at me and goes, ‘My brother, I’m going to jump through the building. I got you dog.’ Because I was so nervous. I made him make us work it out on a crash pad 30 times. They were so over it, him and The Miz, but they were so patient with me. They were like, ‘It’s this easy.’ And me and Ron Killings are homies. So he was just back there laughing. He’s like, ‘Jelly, I swear you’re gonna be fine’. I was like, okay.”
On how the spot led to a match: “Well, I’m walking up into Gorilla, and I’m obviously losing my mind. I’m definitely a very inflated version of myself, and I see Triple H, and I’m like, ‘Triple H, I got to do this again. I got to take a match, bro. I’m gonna go lose 100 pounds and come back and take a match.’ For the record, I had had a big disconnect between what 100 pounds was gonna feel like and how much I actually needed to lose. That’s a whole different story. But I was in my mind, I’m all jacked up on Mountain Dew. I’m like, Dude, I’m coming back. We’re gonna do this, man. And what I love about Triple H is he’s very direct, he’s serious, but he’s sincere. There’s a real sincerity in his face. You see the seriousness. But I think you got to look at his eyes are sincere. His face is serious. His eyes are sincere. And I seen them eyes, they really soften. He shook my hand. He said, ‘Brother, you lose that weight, you got a home here.’”
On not wanting to win the match: “I fought that immediately. It’s one of the first things I fought was like, Yo, man, I don’t want to go out [on top].”
On if that was the original plan: “It was originally, babyfaces up. So the day of, I’d been dropping it in on Shane [Helms] the whole time. Shane, I want to lose this match. And he was like, ‘Brother, you got to take that up with them.’ I was like, Cool. So I came down and me and Triple H talked about it right there at the ring that day. I said, ‘You know what I’m coming to talk about?’ He said, ‘I want to hear it.’ And I gave it to him. And he was like, All right, all right.”
On what the original pitch was: “It was an easy pitch. I was just like, it took three things. One, it’s the right thing to do, let’s just start at core values here. No celebrity has any business coming in and pinning a wrestler on their first run without some extreme circumstance. If Randy comes out and double RKOs everybody while I’m out and puts me on top of somebody. But two, I can always come back, I don’t think any other celebrity ever really cared enough to think full angle through. If I lose this, I love Logan. That’s my friend in real life. But every time he’s in that ring, now he’s got to wonder if at some point he’s going to hear, ‘You know I got it, so come and get it’ [Who’s Your Daddy? By Toby Keith]. He’s got to wonder about that a little bit. Drew too. If I really owe one of them, it’s Drew. So that was part two of it. I was also smart enough to be like, Yo, I want to angle in. And I was like, I don’t want to be remembered as a celebrity who did the thing, and then Triple H stopped me. This will probably be on Unreal because it was so gangster. He said, ‘I will tell you this though.’ He said Floyd wanted to lose to The Big Show. I don’t know if I should be sharing that, but he told me that, and I thought that was cool.”
On the Logan Paul frog splash: “Thank you for bringing that up. I practiced everything, but that. It’s the scariest part of the night. It’s also the moment you know that’s going to go, because me and Logan had extensively been like, Look, man. If there was ever a time for you to jump, and I know you jump as crazy as you can every time, but if there was ever a time like this, this should make every headline in the world. We knew we had that kind of a moment if we did it right. I do remember the hardest part was, I don’t know if I should get this inside, but I got onto the table wrong, which everybody talked about, because I had to slip back, and did the worst job selling my slip back. But equally, I was scared because of where my back was sitting at that moment. I’d never been through it, and I didn’t know where this thing was going to break. So like I had just a genuine self-preservation, like, f*ck what everybody thinks, this is scary as f*ck. But then I looked up, and when Logan took the two bottles, I just remember thinking, I’ll talk about this on my deathbed. I’ll tell this story of what’s happening right here in this moment till I die. I don’t know how many other things in my life I’ll think are cool enough to talk about until it’s all over, but I will, for sure sit right here and think about this moment, dude. He comes, and he hits me, and all I hear is the clear sound of every bit of his air coming out of him, like a [wheezes], And I’m like, oh sh*t. So as soon as I land, I shoot over immediately towards Logan, real fast and cover my mouth. And I’m just like, ‘You okay, bro?’ I was worried I hurt him, he ate. I don’t think he hit the table, Chris. I think he hit all Jelly Roll. I think he’s been used to jumping on people that are like half my width. So I don’t think he fully [knew], because he couldn’t practice for it neither. You can’t put a Jelly Roll size doll up, you’re just having to kind of guess. Then I rolled back over, and I’m laying there, and I’m hurt, of course, I mean, because if you don’t hit that spot, not hurt a little bit, you hurt a lot the next day, but even in the moment, and I just remember looking up and seeing Fat Joe, and that’s my friend, and Druski was standing up behind him, and their faces were concerned. And right then, I was like, we got it. I was like, I just got to sell it. And dude, no lie, I spent the next two minutes selling to just Fat Joe, nobody else. I don’t know how much of it was on camera, but I was just selling because I was like, if I can get Fat Joe to believe this, I am good. It’s getting there.”
For additional highlights from the Jelly Roll interview, read the following article published here at WrestlingHeadlines.com: Jelly Roll Reveals Full Back-Story Behind WWE Debut, How Dramatic Weight Loss Played A Role
