Jimmy Wang Yang has shared one of the more remarkable stories of how a WWE career was revived, revealing that Vince McMahon had completely forgotten he had fired him when the two bumped into each other at a show.
Speaking on the latest episode of the Insight Podcast, Yang described a chance encounter that ended up changing the trajectory of his career.
“Steve Rubin used to hook us up with tickets and I take this girl out wanting a dinner, all this kind of stuff. So I go down there, I get to the building, I go down, I’m standing around greeting everybody and all of a sudden Vince is walking down toward me. I’m like, ‘Hey, Vince,’ he’s like, ‘Jimmy, where the hell you been?’ I was like, you fired me. ‘What? I did? Oh, we got to talk about it. I don’t want to talk to you in a minute. Just stay here. I got to go do this. I’ll be back.’ He didn’t know he fired me,” Yang said.
The encounter led to Yang being involved in a DX segment with the Spirit Squad and appearing on the following Raw and SmackDown. John Laurinaitis subsequently pulled him aside backstage and informed him that WWE was rehiring him.
Yang’s second WWE stint ran from 2006 to 2010. He later competed extensively in TNA before a third return to WWE in a producer role, though he was released again shortly after.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit the Insight Podcast with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
