Justin Roberts was recently interviewed by Cult of Whatever and talked about his time in WWE, Vince McMahon, his favorite wrestlers as a kid. Here are the highlights:
His favorite wrestlers growing up:
“I enjoyed watching guys like Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig, Bobby ‘The Brain’ Heenan, Macho Man Randy Savage, Ultimate Warrior, Brother Love, Big Boss Man, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, The Bushwhackers. I was just entertained by everybody, there wasn’t anyone who I disliked, I loved all of the characters because they were all so different.”
What the hardest part of being an announcer is:
“The most nerve-racking thing was that I wasn’t allowed any note cards with the wrestlers towns and weights etc and I didn’t have an earpiece so no one was able to feed me any of the information, so a lot of the time I didn’t know what to say or when I was supposed to speak. When I was there they were really long announcements where not only did you introduce the wrestlers but introduced the match stipulations, the rules of the match, if the winner of the match would get a title shot at so and so PPV. Then the match could be a four way and I had to remember all of that information off the top of my head.
When WWE used to have the regular guest hosts they were long introductions and a lot of the time you didn’t get the script until the show went on the air so I didn’t have much time to memorize that. Then you take a show like WrestleMania and in 2011 at WrestleMania XXVII when I was the sole announcer for the whole show there was so much to remember but that was an awesome experience.”
The Daniel Bryan tie incident:
“That was crazy, every week for years I would look around and the people around me would get beat down but they never got me. They would always get the timekeeper and I was always safe. On that night when the Nexus invaded Monday Night Raw Arn Anderson told me before hand I may not be safe and that is when we found out what was going on.
As far as the tie is concerned it wasn’t planned like Daniel came up to me and said he was going to get a tie and do this to me. He had a general idea of what was going to happen and Daniel Bryan is very smart, he is great at what he does and when he saw my laying there with my shirt off and tie around my neck instinct just took over and he saw an opportunity to get the job done which he was supposed to get done. They were told to go out there and cause havoc, nobody said don’t do this or don’t do that, they were told to make an impact.
He really did strangle me and people still to this day ask me if I was acting and I wasn’t acting, I was legitimately getting choked. I tried to get my finger in-between me neck and the tie but I just couldn’t get it to go in, I was choked for a short amount of time but I was fine and when I got to the back everybody was happy with the way the segment went. Vince was happy, I was happy, Nexus were happy, the fallout came afterwards when one of the sponsors wasn’t pleased.”
What having Vince McMahon as a boss is like:
“He is on top of everything; he makes sure everything goes the way he wants it to go. He micromanages everyone and everything. Sometimes he isn’t clear on direction and what he wants you to do, sometimes his direction doesn’t make sense, sometimes he will tell you one thing but he wants something else.
It’s not easy to work for him but you’ll learn a lot from him, I can say that much because there is brilliance somewhere in there, it’s not everywhere but there is a brilliance that is a part of it. It prepares you for when you’re done to go and work anywhere else because once you work for Vince you can go anywhere.”
For the full interview with Justin Roberts, check out Cult of Whatever.
Also, check out a full recap of Justin’s appearance on the PWTorch Livecast where he talks about JBL and the call to end The Streak.
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