Former WWE star Levis Valenzuela Jr. (fka No Way Jose) recently spoke with Wrestle Talk to discuss his release from the company due to WWE making cutbacks in response to the COVID-19 crisis. Highlights from the interview are below.
His life before WWE:
Before the Indies, actually I went to train with Trevor Lee, now Cameron Grimes… him and Roy Wilkins, Jeff Rudd they all trained me. For a brief moment in time I was a Rose Bud, and that’s how I got noticed. How the tables have turned. I was expecting Carlito comparisons, and then that happened. It was a character, because I am Dominican based, out of the Dominican Republic and it was actually a heel. I was loud mouthed, never shut up, very arrogant, very cocky. I’m a bigger dude. If you don’t realise it, the comment I get a lot is ‘damn you big as hell’, I’m 6ft 3’’ 250lbs for real. When [WWE] put me dancing, I guess it makes me appear smaller.
Not liking the name “No Way Jose:”
The name itself, ha. I don’t know how the hell it happened, they were like “what do you think of No Way Jose”, and I was like “no”. I thought it was a catchphrase, and I was like “oh cool”… they saw something in film and somehow it came up… [Matt] Bloom was like “what if you want it as a name?”, and I was like “no way”. Then a writer came up to me and was like “why?”, and I was like “it will pigeon hole me, there is a ceiling”, all the real stuff in terms of business. Nobody goes in there and says they want to be a No Way Jose probably, they want to be, for me it was The Rock when I saw The Rock I wanted to be The Rock… We went into Full Sail and I’m walking in and you shake everyone’s hand and Triple H is right there talking to Eva Marie or someone, I’m like “hey, sir, how you doing?” And he’s like No Way, what’s going on?”. In my head I’m like “s***, is that a thing?” And he goes “got it approved today, what do you think?” And I said “I love it, let’s go”.
Loving the fan interaction parts of the conga line:
It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the gimmick, but the name wasn’t my first choice. What ended up happening with it was it became its own thing, it took its own form. What I loved about it was the fan interaction. We could go into the crowd and we literally do conga lines, that’s how it came to be… it was me going out into the people and getting behind me… I never got the opportunity to show a more serious side and have something I could really sink my teeth into.
Pitching ideas to creative:
I wish we could have done more. Since we used them for two solid years, we could have done more to give them a different side, like boot camp was something I had like training with them to get them tougher. I had talks with the boss a couple of times and he was like if the turn ever happened, I’d need to like lay them out and show that aggressiveness.I was super excited to get an opportunity to do that. I thought that’s where we were going to end up going… maybe it was a plan down the line but I guess we’ll never know.
Feeling ready for his main roster call-up from NXT:
Honestly, bro, I felt like I was ready. I felt like my character was more made for this because it’s a bunch of kid interactions. {The post-WrestleMania Raw] was a blast. I remember after Takeover happened, and I still remember what happened… Vince was leaving and I was just watching just to watch. He was leaving and as he was leaving we shook his hand. He shook someone’s hand, it might have been Ricochet and told him “great match” and everything. He shook someone else’s hand and I was like third. He walks away, and turns back to me and goes “see you Monday”. I was like “what the hell”… Triple H does the meeting at the end and afterwards one of the coaches told us to wait. I think it was me, Drew, The IIconics and I think AOP. He told us all to wait behind and then we went into a room. I think it was filmed, but it was like Triple H, Shawn Michaels and Bloom… I was excited as hell.