No Way Jose Gives Honest Thoughts On His WWE Name & Gimmick

Former WWE star No Way Jose, who was released last week, has spoken honestly about his character and ring name he donned while in the company.

In an exclusive interview with WrestleTalk, Jose, real name Levis Valenzuela, commented on his moniker, saying:

“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 itas 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 andyou 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 ‘s***, is that a thing?’ And he goes ‘got it approved today, what do you think?’ And I said ‘I love it, let’s go’.”

He went on to discuss the gimmick further, adding:

“It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the gimmick, but the name wasn’t my first choice. What ended up happening with it was it became its own thing, it took its own form. What I loved about it was the fan interaction. We could go into the crowd and we literally do conga lines, that’s how it came to be… it was me going out into the people and getting behind me… I never got the opportunity to show a more serious side and have something I could really sink my teeth into.

“They wanted the conga line with me. In NXT, I only did the conga line for big events. I was like ‘alright, whatever. I’ll do the conga line’, and then it stuck. I feel a certain way about the conga line. I love the conga line, I absolutely do, but I think that’s the line that maybe held me back a little bit.”