Former WWE star Ricardo Rodriguez (Jesus Rodriguez) spoke with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp about several topics, including being part of The Ascension’s original lineup.
Rodriguez said, “Oh, man, and then I don’t know if you’ve ever chatted with Viktor or Konnor, they’ll tell you similar, man. It was one of those where I was a big fan of The Devil’s Advocate, the movie with Pacino and so that was where the idea kind of came from. So I started going up to these individuals one by one and during promo class with Dusty and I was just doing that to them. The Ascension kind of came about and shortly thereafter, I remember I was at TV and then Konnor had hit me up and he was like, ‘Hey, we have this promo coming up, what do you want to talk about?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know, man, just think of something what the Ascension means to you type deal.’”
On being taken out of the group after the promo:
“So they did and then shortly thereafter, I got pulled into the office by Dusty and then, in Dusty fashion, he goes, ‘Hey, baby, let me talk to you for a second,’ and then he’s like, ‘Yep, you’re out of The Ascension.’ I was like, ‘Alright.’ I mean, in retrospect, I get it. I get why. What I was doing on TV was contradictory to what was happening with that. So I get it. I was still upset. But at the time, I was not too happy because I didn’t want them to be vampires and that’s kind of the direction that they kind of went. Because that’s around that time when Twilight was a big thing. So that’s what I felt like they went with at the time. But ultimately, it worked out for them. I mean, the packages they did, the entrances, when it turned into NXT, the killer tag team that they had, the masks that they had, the entrance, the song, all that, it paid off for them.”
You can check out Rodriguez’s comments in the video below.
(H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes)
