Cain Velasquez Reveals WWE Initially Turned Him Down

On the October 4 episode of Friday Night SmackDown, Cain Velasquez made his WWE debut as he charged to the ring and attacked Brock Lesnar. The former UFC Heavyweight champion revealed soon after that he had signed a three-year contract with the company.

As part of WWE's celebration for moving to BT Sport, our very own Jack King sat down for an interview with Velasquez. During their chat, Cardio Cain explained watching Ronda Rousey at Elimination Chamber 2019 inspired him to pursue a career in professional wrestling. However, it wasn't plain sailing for Velasquez as he revealed that after he reached out to WWE about joining the company, both Triple H and Vince McMahon initially turned him down. This led to Cain joining AAA as he wanted to prove he was committed to becoming a professional wrestler.

The former UFC fighter then performed at Triplemania 27 in a Six-Man Tag Team match with Cody & Psycho Clown against Killer Kross, Taurus & Texano Jr. Jack asked Velasquez about the Lucha libre style he adopted for the match, to which he said he wanted to pay homage to all of the luchadors that came before him, but also because the moves "Look f*****g cool as f**k to do."

On transitioning to professional wrestling, Cain said: "When I was thinking of trying this out, I went to a show a couple of years ago at Ronda Rousey’s Elimination Chamber match. I was there with a buddy, Daniel Cormier, and we had other fighters there as well. So that’s where I kind of retook my interest again into pro wrestling, and before that, I was a fan as a kid. But watching that match, I was having so much fun, I’m like 'Why not? Can I do that?'"

He later added: "When I did AAA, I called the WWE first, I called them…And I was interested from that match that I saw at Elimination Chamber. This is obviously where the best guys are, this is the top, so Triple H and Vince McMahon weren’t going to give me a shot right away, that was clear. So I said, ‘Okay, let's do something else.’ I’ve always loved Lucha, Lucha was my first love of wrestling…So I thought why don’t we do a Lucha match….I wanted to wear the mask and do traditional Lucha moves just to pay homage to the people who have done it in the past and they just look f*****g cool as f**k to do."

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