Je’Von Evans recently opened up about how WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels personally went to bat for him during the signing process, even when others in the company had doubts about his size and age.
The highly-regarded rookie sensation in WWE NXT joined the No-Contest Wrestling podcast this week and was asked who has played the biggest role in his early success. Evans didn’t hesitate to credit Michaels, saying The Heartbreak Kid believed in him from day one.
“I feel like he was the person that really looked out for me because during my tryout, apparently I wasn’t gonna get signed but Shawn saw something in me,” Evans said. “Of course then I was too young, I was smaller at the time, so there were a lot of people that wanted me to get older and get bigger but Shawn was like, ‘No, just trust me.’ And everybody trusted him, and now that’s one of my go-to people. So you gotta thank Shawn, for sure.“
Evans officially signed with WWE in November 2023 at just 19 years old, and made his NXT television debut a few months later in February 2024.
Before joining the company, he built his reputation working independent shows throughout his hometown region of Greensboro, North Carolina, with matches dating back as early as 2018.
In a previous interview, Evans noted that his first contact with WWE came backstage at a GCW event during WrestleMania weekend in 2023, where he connected with Gabe Sapolsky and exchanged information.
Later in the No-Contest Wrestling interview, Evans revealed that the first time he ever saw Shawn Michaels wasn’t in real life — it was through a video game.
“The more I started playing games, the more I really started understanding who Shawn was. He wasn’t just DX. He’s the Heartbreak Kid, Mr. WrestleMania, all of that. And I really discovered who he was in WWE 13, the Road to WrestleMania,” Evans recalled. “Of course, he’s Mr. WrestleMania so had those matches, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is Shawn Michaels.’ Then I started doing my research, and bro, the rest is history.“
Watch the complete Je’Von Evans interview from the No-Contest Wrestling podcast with O’Shea Jackson and TJ Jefferson via the YouTube player embedded below.
(H/T to Ian Carrey and F4WOnline.com for transcribing the above quotes.)
