Justin Roberts Discusses How He Got Into WWE, The Nexus Incident

Former WWE ring announcer Justin Roberts was recently interviewed by Cult of Whatever and discussed a number of topics. How he got into the business, the incident where Daniel Bryan strangled him with a necktie and his new book were amongst the items discussed.

Wrestling Rumors Exclusive: Interview With Justin Roberts!

Below are some questions, along with Roberts’ answers:

How did you go about becoming a ring announcer?

If the Internet was around back then when I was first starting out it would have been a lot easier. To be able to get access to the company and to get yourself out there, but it wasn’t like that back then. I didn’t know where to go, I didn’t know how to make it happen so I just took very small baby steps over time.

I was doing a wrestling hotline when I was high school, and I started working with a local independent promotion when I was 16-years-old. From that small independent promotion I started working my way up, from there I built up with some other independent promotions and then started doing Toughman Contest, the boxing show that was on FX in the United States. I announced anything that I could and as time went on I would start sending video tapes with my showreel on it to WWF and WCW, I was willing to do anything I could.

How did you land a job WWE?

As different opportunities arose such as the Toughman Contest boxing shows, which were on television, they were coming to near where I went to university in Arizona and I got in touch saying I had done some ring announcing and they invited me to the arena. They handed me a microphone during the middle of the show and told me to go in the ring and see what I’ve got.

I started working with them and then started doing some work for the AWA, which was huge for my career. After a while I stated sending my showreel to the WWF and sent them for a long time but just never heard anything back. I would reach out to everybody, and people would say they had my tape but there wasn’t any opportunities available.

Finally when I graduated college, I reached out and this time I head back and they said they were going to give me a tryout. That for me was the proudest moment because all I wanted was to be able to get a tryout in order to show them what I was capable of and at that point they could decide whether or not they wanted to go forward with me and thankfully they were pleased with me.

What happened with Daniel Bryan, the tie and you?

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.

They also discuss working for Vince McMahon, life on the road, his current projects and more.

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