The first time the WWE Universe heard that WWE stands for “Walk With Elias” plenty of people lost their minds. After all, it is pretty ingenious.
But it turns out that as with so many other great things in WWE, Elias’ catchphrase also traces its roots back to John Cena.
“It all started with The Drifter in NXT, so it’s all kind of evolved right?” Elias stated on E & C’s Pod Of Awesomeness. “The Drifter character was this character, this guy you know I put a guitar on my shoulder and I walked my way from town to town I find my way however I can whether it’s hitchhiking, on a bus, walking whatever I gotta do. So it just became this question I would ask ‘who wants to walk with The Drifter?’ Who wants to be on this journey?”
“And when I got to the main roster Vince said ‘let’s drop this Drifter stuff, you’re gonna be Elias and that’s gonna be it.’ So walk with Elias was the next question, right? And it just so happens to perfectly work out that WWE and ‘walk with Elias’ are right in line there. I said it one time, I remember I said it backstage to John Cena. He was going off about the WWE Universe, and the WWE this and that and I say, ‘hey John do you know what WWE stands for? It stands for Walk With Elias’ and he said, ‘my head just exploded in 10 different ways man — that is great!'”
“[Cena] said ‘you gotta make a thing outa that’ so sure enough the next week or whatever I said it against John I believe in a promo on Christmas Day no less. and it seems that the right away the fans reacted to it. And the next week I’m asking them ‘what does WWE stand for?’ and they’ll fire back.”
So there you go. John Cena was instrumental in helping Elias realize how great this idea was. Soon the new meaning of WWE spread like a wildfire. But Elias isn’t shy to give credit where credit is due because it was actually his rival who gave him the encouragement to carry on with his new catchy catchphrase.
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If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit E&C’s Pod of Awesomeness with a H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription
