Johnny Gargano was recently interviewed by Lilian Garcia for her podcast, Chasing Glory. During the podcast, Gargano spoke on a wide variety of topics.
One of the highlights was when Gargano told the story about the first time that he met Vince McMahon. This was prior to him signing with WWE when he was being used as an extra.
Here is the story from Gargano (h/t to Wrestling INC for the quotes below):
“I was an extra almost every time they came to Cleveland. I had my first extra role when I was 19 or 20 years old and I was Cedrick Von Haussen where I faced MVP; you can find that clip on YouTube.
“That first time being there was crazy too. I got a call at like 5 pm, but I was asleep so didn’t hear it. I woke up to my mom running down the steps because my phone was on vibrate, saying Johnny, Johnny, they called the house, you’re going to be on SmackDown. I head down to The Gund Arena and I don’t know where to go. Eventually, I get my producer and he introduces me to MVP and we talk a little bit and then they said that they are going to take me to the wardrobe area. I said that it is weird because I have my own gear, I don’t need anything. They take me to the wardrobe area and they said to me here is my gear and it’s an elf costume. They tell me my name is Cedrick Von Haussen. I didn’t even go to the locker room either. I’m changing in the makeup area and all these girls are looking at me like what the heck is this guy doing? They then took me in to see Vince McMahon.
“We walk into Vince McMahon’s office and it’s like a movie, Vince is like in a villain chair with his back turned and all of a sudden the chair turns around, he has a newspaper up and slowly lowers it and there he is and he looks at me and says, you look, good kid. Thank you for doing this and I said, thank you, sir and I left. The show starts, and for some reason, this part is the most I remember from that moment, Steve Austin had a movie coming out, I think it was The Condemned, so there was a trailer playing before my match and I was standing in Gorilla watching The Condemned trailer with Stephanie and Vince McMahon.
“I’m thinking how freaking weird it is, and so I go out and do my thing, I get a bloody nose because he [MVP] kicked me really hard, but I came to the back and Vince and Stephanie say that I did a great job.”
Let me know what you think in the comment section below or on Twitter.
In other news, check out our Wrestlemania 38 predictions.
On a related note, here are some other stories from WWE stars about their first time meeting Vince.