I interviewed JTG earlier today on the PWTorch Livecast “Interview Thursday” (SHOW LINK). It’s the first interview I’ve conducted with him. As I told him, I think his books are a good accompaniment to the new Justin Roberts autobiography in terms of focusing on the internal politics and head games and hazing that went on during the time period they were both there.
JTG, like Roberts did, said the European tours were the worst in terms of ribs and hazing. JTG didn’t describe anything quite as traumatic as Justin went through on his first European tour. JTG described a knock on a hotel room door at 3 in the morning for supposed room service, followed by wrestlers storming the room and tearing it apart and turning everything over.
He said he is open to a return to WWE, and at age 32 realizes he might have some good years left. He isn’t bitter about his WWE experience. The question is whether management is, as he infamously Tweeted about how unfairly management treats wrestlers while at a Raw TV taping. That got management’s attention, after he had been rebuffed and ignored earlier.
He went into detail on being a big pro wrestling fan as a kid and told some stories about his early days in training camp, plus talked about reuniting with some old colleagues at WrestleMania weekend events in Orlando.
I actually found his comments about locker room readers the most interesting. He praised Chris Jericho (just as he did in his book), but he was critical of John Cena in that regard, saying he had room to improve. He also said C.M. Punk was not a full-fledged locker room leader while he was there, and he took some heat because he was so blunt in his opinions.
There’s a lot of good content to check out in the hour-plus interview. Speaking of Justin Roberts, he is scheduled to join me next week on “Interview Thursday” to talk about his book.
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