In an exclusive for WrestlingNews.co, Steve Fall interviewed former WWE star Ricardo Rodriguez. We have some highlights below and be sure to scroll down to watch the entire interview.
Ricardo Rodriguez talking about what got him interested in wrestling:
“It was actually WrestleMania 17. It was a TLC match that we were watching. It was The Hardy Boyz, Edge and Christian, and The Dudleys. There was this one spot in particular where Jeff Hardy was hanging from the titles, and then Edge speared him. That was the moment that I was like, Oh man, this is awesome. I want to try this. I went down the whole backyard wrestling circuit thing much like a whole lot of other folks did. Then eventually I just went down and I got trained. I met these guys who did wrestling and we had a ring. We had a boxing ring. We had our monthly shows. We used to go down to PWG and we took flyers for our shows at PWG. Eventually we just kind of met folks along the way and I got trained. That was 16 years ago this month. Well, 17 years ago, technically, but the actual wrestling was 16 years this month.”
On if he wanted to be a ring announcer:
“That’s definitely not what I had in mind. However, my story is very different than everybody else’s. I did a wrestling tryout at the Staples Center in August. It was after SummerSlam 2010, whatever day that was. It was a RAW. We got there around maybe 10 o’clock in the morning. We did a full on wrestling tryout for a couple hours. They pulled me aside. The guy’s name at the time was Ty Bailey. He was the main Talent Agent Scout kind of guy who now I believe is Canyon Ceman. I think he’s not there anymore. I don’t know. But either way, back then it was Ty Bailey. He approached me afterwards and he basically gave me the rundown of a bunch of questions asking if I was under contract, if Id be willing to move to Florida if given the opportunity, to which eventually that’s kind of how it went down.”
“I went into catering later that day at RAW. I was approached later on and I was asked if I wanted to do ring announcing the following day on SmackDown. I didn’t know for what. They just asked me if I was available the next day in Bakersfield, California, to which obviously I said, yes. They had asked me if I’ve ever done ring announcing before, which I never have, but I said yes. They asked me if I had a tuxedo, which I said yes, which I didn’t. I went to the Goodwill that was near my house and I bought a cheap little suit and then I bought some bow ties. So then I went the next day to Bakersfield, which is just maybe like two hours north of Los Angeles. I did my whole spiel at the tryout. They asked me again for the second day in Fresno, because they were doing a double taping of Smackdown because the Smackdown guys were going overseas the next week, so they wanted to do a double taping. After the second day of SmackDown, they basically offered me a contract, and it went from there.”
On him working one taping for the AEW Spanish announcing team:
“They were doing tryouts. I was brought in by Thunder Rosa. I’m very close with her. She was training under me for a good while before she became Thunder Rosa. So she vouched for me to go over there.”
On if he would go back to WWE:
“I would definitely go back to WWE if given the opportunity.”
This interview is exclusive to WrestlingNews.co. If you use these quotes, please include a link back to this page.
