Former WWE star JTG was a recent guest on Lilian Garcia’s Chasing Glory podcast to talk about teammate Shad Gaspard, and the tragic circumstances surround his death. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
When he found out Shad was missing:
Siliana called me Sunday night. I was getting ready to go to bed, and she called me from Shad’s phone, which when Shad calls me, I pick up on first, second ring. We speak to each other everyday. We text and speak on the phone everyday, but he called me that evening, and it was his wife. His wife had told me that Shad was missing. The first thing I thought was it was a prank because we always pranked each other. That’s Shad and I’s relationship. We roasted each other. We pulled pranks on each other, and that’s the first thing that came to mind, but for some reason, in the tone of her voice, if that was real, then she’s a good actress. I said I’m gonna go along with it. I went to the shower, brushed my teeth and rushed over there, and then we were on the beach with flashlights looking for Shad. We were there for a few hours so it was a little past midnight. I think that day I accepted it. I had to accept it. I was waiting for a big bear hug from behind like, ‘hey, I got ya.’ Part of me is still waiting for that big bear hug from behind.
Getting a sentimental text from Shad after the death of Kobe Bryant:
He sent me a text, and he’s like, ‘if I die tomorrow, if anything happens to me, just know I love you past this life. It was deep, but because of our relationship, when one person’s deep, the other person tries to make light of it, make a joke. So I said, ‘I love you too brotha,’ and I put a hashtag. I don’t wanna say it because it’s kind of inappropriate. In Brooklyn, if you said something that was sentimental, you said something along the lines of ‘pause’. So if I said, Shad those are some nice shorts. Let me see the back. Does it have a zipper? But I have to say pause so he doesn’t take it the wrong way.
Whether he thinks Cena made the large donation to Shad’s GoFundMe and working together:
I don’t know. I can’t 100 percent confirm, but I’m 99.9% percent sure. There was a donation for $40,000. The person they said donated the money was ‘CTC RIP,’ and CTC was a faction between Cryme Time and John Cena in 2008. That was the most fun I’ve ever had in the WWE was teaming with John Cena because I learned so much,” JTG said. “Shad and I were doing rookie mistakes every night. We had no clue and then teaming with him and making little, small changes. I remember, for example, there was something that I would do before I start the match. I would go to the crowd. I would lean over and say, ‘let’s get this started. Let’s get it poppin,’ just to get a reaction. John tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘don’t ever do that again. Don’t do that tomorrow,’ and I’m like OK? And then he explained to me why. You don’t need them to validate you in the beginning. You don’t go to them for validation. You let them validate you, just be you.
Full interview below. (H/T and transcribed by Wrestling Inc.)