In a new interview with Steve Fall on his Ten Count podcast, Jimmy Wang Yang revealed that his ‘Asian redneck’ persona in WWE was pitched by Vince McMahon.
“So the night goes by and then I was like, man, I want to go thank Vince McMahon for hiring me again. This is my third run with the company, so I wasn’t expecting getting hired back and all that stuff. But this guy has hired me three different times so I knock on his door in his office and go in and he said, ‘Hey Jimmy. How the hell are you?’ I said, ‘I’m good. I’ve been in Ring of Honor doing stuff, but I just want to say I appreciate you hiring me back.’
He said, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you were fired, but anyway, the last time you were here, you were this Korean dude with this southern accent’. I said, ‘I don’t have a southern accent, I don’t think. I do say y’all and that, but I just really speak English instead of like Ultimo Dragon or Tajiri with broken English’. He said, ‘I didn’t let you talk because you were this Korean dude with a southern accent. So this time we’re gonna make a negative out of a positive. I will make you the Asian redneck. That’s funny’.
I was like, ‘What? Okay, whatever. I don’t care. You know, as long as the check clears every Monday, I’m good to do whatever you want’. He said, ‘Jimmy Wang Yang. That rhymes. That’s funny’.”