By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
PWMania interview with guest Jessie Godderz
Host: TJ Stephens
Interview available at PWMania.com
On his opportunities with WWE: “That brings me to a story that almost nobody knows about… As soon as I mentioned on CBS that I wanted to become a WWE Superstar, the WWE Talent Relations Department tried reaching out to me to offer me a contract. Apparently Vince McMahon and John Laurinaitis liked my look, my charisma, and liked the fact that I was promoting WWE to a huge mainstream audience. I later found out that they had an idea to have me start a reality show rivalry with The Miz (who had come off of MTV’s The Real World years earlier). Unfortunately though, on Big Brother, you’re locked away for several months during the summer with no telephone and no communication with the outside world so they were not able to get a hold of me at the time.
“So after a few weeks, their interest waned, they gave up and moved on. That was in July of 2009 I believe. Then when the season ended in September and I got out of the house, I had no idea that WWE had been frantically trying to reach me months earlier. I only found out about it ten years later when I ran into another member of the WWE talent relations department at an OVW combine where I was making a guest appearance at (in 2019) and he told me the whole story. To say the least, I was in shock. Oh well! Haha.
“Anyhow, back to 2009…Once I left the Big Brother house for Season 11, that’s when Dixie Carter and Terry Taylor reached out to me to join Impact Wrestling and I was honored and went in a heartbeat. It became one of the best decisions I ever made in my life. TMZ and the Big Brother executives, by the way, helped make that happen. Dixie’s mom was also apparently a big fan of mine from Big Brother. By the way, here’s another factoid that nobody knows about… I also had a second opportunity to join WWE after I left Impact in 2017. Triple H and Canyon Ceman invited me to an NXT tryout in 2018 but I was doing other projects for CBS at the time so the timing didn’t work out. It’s all about timing.”
On his new shows coming soon: “Right now though, in addition to OVW Wrestling, I have a brand new TV series coming out where I will be Host of the legendary Whacked Out Sports franchise as the new face of the spinoff Whacked Out! We will be debuting on the FOX family in early 2023, as well as on ROKU, and on Byron’s Allen’s Local Now. All thanks to the awesome Anthony Hudson and Jason Wagers from Stream Go Media. I’m super stoked about this. The details are on TV Insider, Programming Insider, The Miami Herald, Muscle & Fitness and Soap Opera Network. I also have another major show coming out in the near future but I can’t talk about that as of yet. But it will be a game-changer. In addition, this Friday, December 2, you can catch me starring on Netflix. They are debuting Seasons 10 and 14 of my other show CBS’ Big Brother.”
His time in Impact Wrestling: “Yes, I did arrive probably at the height of TNA’s ascension as a legitimate competitor to WWE. [Hulk] Hogan and [Eric] Bischoff were awesome to me. My interaction with Hulk was limited but I did work a lot with both Eric and his partner Jason Hervey, as well as with Vince Russo. They all had great and innovative ideas for me and for my tag team with Robbie E and DJZ…known as The BroMans. I absolutely loved working with Eric, Vince and Jason. They were (and still are) all geniuses. My primary interaction at that time, though, was with Bruce Prichard, Matt Conway, and Dave Lagana.
“They created many of our storylines and Bruce was in charge of me and my storylines quite a bit. I had an amazing time with all of them. Truly extraordinary. They were all incredible but Bruce, in particular, was awesome. He always took great care of me and always believed in me as a top main event level superstar who could lead an entire promotion. That being said, I owe 100 percent of my success at TNA to the one and only Dixie Carter. She always looked after me and went out of her way to make my stay there successful and she is primarily the reason why I stayed there so long. She was incredible to work with and I would do so again in a heartbeat. Nobody is better than Dixie.
“I also loved working with Big [John Gaburick] when he took over talent relations…and the same with the one and only Billy Corgan. In fact, I actually became really close friends with Billy, and here’s some more news nobody knows about… I learned that TNA created the Impact Grand Championship specifically with me in mind to become the inaugural champion. That, unfortunately, got changed at the last minute, but I was still honored that they created the title with me in mind.”
Other topics include being the face of OVW, his new comic book with Al Snow, the AEW star he calls his pro wrestling hero, and more.
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