No Way Jose knew his name would limit his ceiling in WWE

No Way Jose was one of many people who WWE released last week.

He spoke with WrestleTalk and explained that the name “No Way Jose” is a concept he wanted no part of. Here is their transcription:

“The name itself, ha. I don’t know how the hell it happened, they were like ‘what do you think of No Way Jose’, and I was like ‘no’. I thought it was a catchphrase, and I was like ‘oh cool’… they saw something in film and somehow it came up… [Matt] Bloom was like ‘what if you want it as a name?’, and I was like ‘no way’. Then a writer came up to me and was like ‘why?’, and I was like ‘it will pigeon hole me, there is a ceiling’, all the real stuff in terms of business. Nobody goes in there and says they want to be a No Way Jose probably, they want to be, for me it was The Rock when I saw The Rock I wanted to be The Rock… We went into Full Sail and I’m walking in and you shake everyone’s hand and Triple H is right there talking to Eva Marie or someone, I’m like ‘hey, sir, how you doing?’ And he’s like ‘No Way, what’s going on?’ In my head I’m like ‘shit, is that a thing?’ And he goes ‘got it approved today, what do you think?’ And I said ‘I love it, let’s go.’”

His instincts proved to be accurate. Speaking as someone who was not familiar with his work prior to being called up to WWE’s main roster two years ago, the first impression I got from the name “No Way Jose” was a silly comedy act. No serious wrestler is going to make it to the top of the card in world championship matches with that name.

His conga line also had an uncanny resemblance to Adam Rose’s failed Rosebuds gimmick, which was still somewhat fresh in memory. Even to this day, whenever Jose’s conga line got involved in the storyline, I would mentally refer to them as “the Rosebuds” who were getting beat up by heels like Rowan. In that sense, Jose took over the same jobber role that Rose left behind.

I still have no clue how good Jose is in the ring, or what his strengths and weaknesses are as a performer. That’s because he was so quickly moved to a jobber role on Raw that he never had a chance to show what he can do. To say that the name and gimmick put a ceiling on him is an understatement, if anything.

Jose was called up to Raw in April 2018. According to the data at CageMatch, he won two matches that month (vs. John Skyler and Baron Corbin) before the losses began to pile up. His third televised win came in June 2018 against Curt Hawkins. I can’t find any more Raw or SmackDown wins for No Way Jose after that. Within two months of his Raw debut, he was a jobber with no hope of climbing the ladder in WWE. He only wrestled on the main card of two pay-per-views, and that was to be a warm body in Battle Royal matches.

No Way Jose is a great example of a wrestler who simply never had a chance to succeed in WWE.

You can check out the full interview at WrestleTalk to see what else No Way Jose has to say about his time in WWE, and his thoughts on the conga line.