James Ellsworth had an impressive 16 month run with WWE before he was released in November 2017. However during his time with WWE he was able to accomplish way more than some people with much longer WWE tenures.
“I always knew my role there. I always like — people ask me all the time, “man that stuff that they say about you on commentary, doesn’t that bother you?’ I’m like, ‘no, I know what I am.’ Like every circus needs its clown.”
“I understood it the whole time I was there and I don’t know if I got too comfortable in it” Ellsworth said on Talk Is Jericho. “I was always told ‘good job’ so I thought it was going well. But stuff like that, I got it I think. I knew that was my role. I was the clown, I was the little guy.”
“So when Carmella and I got put together and it was her idea, I always bring that up it was her idea. She went to Vince and said, ‘hey I have this idea of put Ellsworth with me and like I’m seducing him to help me win matches and manipulating them. That was her idea initially and [Vince] loved the idea so I think it was like the week before WrestleMania he just pulled her and I into the office and told us what he wanted out of it. So that was like the first real extended conversation I had with him.”
Ellsworth said that Vince McMahon wanted heat on Carmella. He wanted to make Carmella a good heel and that’s what they strived to do every week. Then Chris Jericho brought up how it was a shame that WWE released Ellsworth while Mella still had her briefcase.
“I think I got too comfortable man, like when the dog leash thing happened. I don’t mind doing anything on TV at all because I know it’s a show. So like when it first happened I went to somebody and I was like, ‘I don’t think know if this is gonna work, it’s kinda weird.’ I didn’t think people would look at it and be like ‘man she’s treating him like crap’ plus I had to be a big heel at Money In The Bank.”
James commented how great the heat was when he ruined the first-ever Women’s Money In The Bank match and he loved it. But when they put the leash on him he saw it as taking away some of that precious heat. In the end, Ellsworth said what he thinks that he could have been released because he expressed doubt over the creative direction of his character.
“I was called and it shocked me. We did the 16-day tour of the UK. I had a match on TV against Becky Lynch that went well. Vince liked that. He complimented Becky and I on the match. Like it was entertaining and fun and then we did SmackDown, we came back to The States and did SmackDown, I was in the background while Shane was doing a speech. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, I was on TV. I come home, I’m sitting there with my daughter, I hadn’t seen in 16 days, my little daughter 2-year-old. And I got the text like, ‘hey can you give us a call?’ I didn’t think anything of it. I thought maybe I forgot something or he needs to tell me something or maybe they’re mad at me about something.”
Then James Ellsworth told Jericho what WWE Senior Director of Talent Relations Mark Carrano had to say on the phone call.
“He’s like, ‘I got some news for ya’ and as soon as he said that my heart dropped and I’m like, ‘is it what I think it is?’ Because when he says that you know — and I like Mark, he was great to me when I was there and that’s gotta be a hard job to do […] He’s like like, ‘they decided to let ya go.’ And I’m like ‘huh?’ Why?’ And he’s like, ‘well I think they felt like it ran its course for now.'”
Ellsworth said he started spitting out ideas like “can I go to 205 Live? Cause she still has the briefcase and that’s my first initial reaction like there’s so much more left that I can do and I still feel that way.”
He feels like there was more he could so and it’s hard to argue with that thinking because after all, another guy like James Ellsworth might be hard to come by. But WWE had made their decision and it seemed that they had to let their clown go, for now.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Talk Is Jericho with a H/T to Still Real To Us for the transcription
