JTG Discusses How Cryme Tyme Came to Be

One of the most beloved stars of the past decade with the WWE Universe, or at least the IWC, was JTG. One-half of the popular team Cryme Tyme, he and partner Shad were hot with the WWE crowd before splitting in 2010. Following Shad’s release, JTG would circle the WWE roster and remain contracted until his eventual release in 2014.

In promotion of his new book, “Damn, Why Did I Write This Book?” JTG spoke with Raj Giri about how Cryme Time came to be. An excerpt from the interview can be found below.

“Well, there’s two aspects to the Cryme Tyme gimmick,” JTG said. “There’s the look of the characters. At first, I didn’t want to do it. My original partner was Abraham Washington. He called me up when we were in amateur class in OVW. He said we had an amateur show coming up, and he said if we were trying to get signed we needed to come out with bulletproof vests, fitted hats, a whole bunch of chains. We should wrestle in jeans and Timberlands. I said absolutely not, it’s too stereotypical, and I already bought tights and wrestling boots. He talked me in to it, and we did the amateur show. We blew the roof off at the amateur show.”

“The characters, me and Shad came up with that. We did some vignettes down in OVW after we won the titles. Our trainer Al Snow said ‘you don’t have to wrestle every week to get over, do something to get your characters over, show some personality.’ Shad and I went out on your own and put those vignettes together that you saw on WWE. It was two different vignettes, but with WWE there was better production.”

Editor’s Note

Cryme Tyme was always entertaining, and I do wonder what would have happened if they ever did the Cena stuff.