In an exclusive for WrestlingNews.co, Steve Fall interviewed former WWE star PJ Black (Justin Gabriel) about his time in WWE on NXT and on the main roster, the rise and fall of Nexus, and more. Note: This interview was conducted several months ago and was published today for the first time.
On Matt Hardy falling off the top rope:
“It was my first day on the job. So the first thing that ran through my head is like, ‘I’m gonna get fired. I’m gonna get fired.’ This was the first day and it was totally my fault and I felt so stupid too because I mean, I know Matt. I know him very well. I’ve watched him for years. I know his entrants. I know exactly what he’s gonna do and I put my foot on the bottom rope and he just spilled out. It was hilarious, but also quite frightening at the same time.”
Justin Gabriel on Season 1 of NXT:
“The original plan was for us to live in a house like Ultimate Fighter and actually compete and do actual athletic challenges, but as the wrestling business goes, time ran out and on the day they were like, ‘Let’s write a show’, and then they were like, ‘We don’t even have time to write a show’, so we freestyle pretty much everything. That’s why the matches and the promos were kind of off because it was pretty much all on the fly.”
Justin Gabriel on the rise and fall of WWE’s Nexus:
“We weren’t being told anything so we didn’t really know what was gonna happen. We’re like, oh, is this (NXT) over? Are we gonna go back to Florida, go back to FCW, or what’s the plan, but they flew us out to Miami, and then called us into the office and he’s like, ‘Okay, this is what you guys are gonna do?’ and we all like, ‘What?’ Because I mean, wrestling is always recycled or it’s always borrowed from the past or from other storylines. I mean, there’s hardly ever any new things that pop up in wrestling. So as he was explaining this, we were like, none of us could envision that. We were just like, ‘This sounds cool. Let’s do this.’
“I did not (know that John Cena said he didn’t want to lose the match at SummerSlam 2010). If I was in Wade’s position, I probably would have stood up and said something at the time, but I didn’t know that it was gonna go that way. I feel like if I was in Wade’s position, I would have said something because then I would have known what was about to happen. Like, we were kind of kept in the dark. We didn’t know that was the finish. I mean, we just assumed that we’re going over. I mean, we’re so good. Like we were fu**ing the Nexus (he laughs).
He goes on to say, “The momentum just stopped. All of us kind of took a different route in storylines. They broke it up and they didn’t really know where they were gonna go. I don’t know, maybe we were at fault too. We should have been more stern and be like, ‘We got some ideas. This is where we’re going.’ We were kind of just waiting for orders every week from the big guy. We should have talked to him directly.”
This interview is exclusive to WrestlingNews.co. If you use these quotes, please include a link back to this page.
