Elias has reflected on one of his most famous segments.
The former WWE star was involved in a segment with Kevin Owens during a Raw episode from Seattle back in October 2018. Talking about John Cena teaming with Bobby Lashley for a match against them, the wrestling star said that it didn’t make sense, just like having a basketball team in Seattle. The one line led to one of the strongest negative reactions from the crowd in WWE history, with the boos from fans lasting several minutes.
The current TNA star was asked if he expected that kind of reaction from the line during his recent interview with GOW MEDIA. Elias admitted that they could not have predicted such a response:
No, I definitely did not see that coming. You know, for months, this act, this shtick, whatever you want to call it, it had been building for months and months. I would go out there, I’d do my catchphrase, I’d kind of say something about the town, you know, whatever it was.
But I could have not predicted, and I actually even doubted a little bit heading into Seattle. There was a guy there, a writer, Kaz. I don’t know if you know this guy, awesome guy, and I remember him telling me like, ‘Oh, this line, it’s gonna hit,’ and I was like, ‘Are you sure?’ And he’s like, ‘Oh yeah,’
And sure enough, when I said that about the basketball team in Seattle, they….it was just beyond what I could have expected. And now, as you know, it’s one of the most infamously long, powerful boos in like the history of WWE, at least modern time, right?
The Boss Was Super Happy: Elias
Elias then revealed that they actually went over their allotted time limit while soaking the crowd reaction. Despite going off script, however, they received praise from Vince McMahon and others when they returned to the back:
So it’s really great. And then when I got to backstage after all of that, because we had went well over our time limit, which is very valuable when you’re on television. You gotta be very aware of that because every 30 seconds that goes by is money for these people. And I just remember they were, you know, the boss was super happy with it. Shook my hand.
I remember Paul Heyman just screaming about how awesome it was, ‘You handled that like a main eventer. That’s how a pro does it,’ you know, all this stuff. And so it was a really, really awesome experience, just all around. Totally, I can’t say completely, but beyond my expectations for sure.
