Kris Pavone, known as Caylen Croft in the WWE, wrestled on both WWE’s ECW and Smackdown brands in 2009 and 2010 as one half of the Dudebusters alongside Trent Beretta, but his career with the company was much more extensive with huge highs and devastating lows. Starting out with OVW a decade earlier – Pavone, then known as Chris Cage, was among the notorious OVW class of 2002 before primarily becoming a tag team wrestler.
Pavone sat down with JOB’d Out Wrestling (www.youtube.com/jobdout) to chat about his career – from his excessive partying being the cause for The Miz’s main roster call-up being delayed, to which future Smackdown star would save him from dying of an overdose, to which Spirit Squad member helped him write a children’s book and more.
On overdosing just before his WWE main roster debut:
“We’re (Cage and Miz) supposed to debut on Smackdown that Tuesday (March 21, 2006)… this point in my personal life I was pretty much out of control. I was 25 and drinking all the time, just partying.. it was covered up by the fact that I was with WWE in my own thinking… that weekend I went out and essentially almost died. I stayed at the Miz’s apartment that night. Cliff Compton (Domino) was out with us the night before. He happened to get up early the next day. Something happened with his car and he came to Miz’ place to borrow his car and he found me unresponsive. So he brought me to the hospital and I was intubated”
When John Laurinaitis found out he had no choice but to fire Pavone:
“The Wellness Policy was a new thing. Johnny Ace, Dr Black, and some lawyers had recently just come to OVW to talk to us about it. Eddie (Guerrero) had just died in November. Johnny called me Sunday asking what happened… he goes ‘I need to talk to Vince, you’re supposed to debut on Tuesday, right? We gotta put that on hold.’ He called me back 30 minutes later and Vince said ‘you gotta go away and straighten yourself out’.
The result of Pavone’s partying impacted more than himself. With no tag team partner, The Miz also saw his debut delayed for half a year:
“(The Miz) would debut that fall doing the Ryan Seacrest thing… once I started taking responsibility for my own actions and looking at my self.. my actions messed up Miz’s stuff so I’m very glad to see he’s done just fine.”
When Pavone was rehired, he needed a new name to shed his prior history and get a fresh start:
“I always liked the sound of a feminine name for a fighter… one of my best buddies in wrestling, Luke Gallows, had a baby named Cade. I remember Luke’s girlfriend had a list of boy’s names and one of them was Caylen with a C and I always liked that so that’s where I took that from… I can’t remember where I got Croft, maybe in my subconscious (because) my mom’s maiden name is Croftchek.”
Having been with OVW since he first entered wrestling, Pavone talks about the biggest difference he saw when he moved from Ohio Valley to FCW:
“OVW, and this was a great thing for me early on in my career especially with (Jim) Cornette’s booking, OVW was run like a territory – angles continued and made sense, stuff built to stuff. FCW tv didn’t really do that. It was more ‘lets try stuff out’ you might be a heel one week, and the next you’re a babyface”
You can check out the complete interview below:
