A recent episode of the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast featured NJPW talent Jeff Cobb, former JC Mateo in WWE, as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Cobb’s thoughts about how he had considered retiring from his wrestling career after reaching a low point following his release from WWE this past May.
“Part of me (knew I would return to New Japan), yes, but then a part of me was kind of like I don’t really like wrestling anymore. May was rough. I didn’t work out. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t like wrestling. That was the worst, the first time I’ve ever been like that where I was like, ‘Man, what the hell?’ And I’m not blaming WWE.
A lot of second guessing myself, and that kind of helped too, because just being, just trying to maybe taking a step back and kind of looking at, I mean, I had a good bunch of friends that were kind of talking me out of it. It wasn’t like talking me off a ledge or anything like that. I was just like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing. Did I make the right choices and whatnot?’
Yeah (was thinking about retiring). I was like, ‘Man, was that it? But then at the same time, I was like, I don’t want to really end on that note.
I didn’t even think about wrestling that much, and some people say they think of wrestling 24/7. I don’t. I got other stuff going on, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love wrestling. I love professional wrestling, and I enjoy everything about it. There’s things that I like about WWE, and there’s things I don’t like about WWE. Same with New Japan, same with AEW, whatever.”
Cobb also gave his thoughts about the rumors of him teaming up with “Big” Bronson Reed as a potential tag team prior to his debut in WWE and him being put in The MFTs despite him not actually being directly related to Solo Sikoa nor the Samoan wrestling family tree.
“Well, my strong family lineage, right? I didn’t even know that was the pitch to begin with because I heard a couple other rumors out there as well. I mean, just rumors from fans fantasy booking that I was like, oh, they’re gonna put you with Bronson Reed and be like the new Natural Disasters. I was like, oh man, so it would be like tsunami and volcano or something?”
Cobb also gave his thoughts about his past time working with Tama and Talla Tonga in NJPW made their on-screen dynamic work well in WWE and his praise of Sikoa.
“It was great. I knew Tama. Well, I know him as T, and Tonga Loa and Hikuleo from New Japan days. Solo, I feel like I met him at least once or twice before, just messing around at FSW. But I knew his dad more than him, so it was cool. So Rikishi, because I worked for him a few times at KnokX Pro. So yeah, and then Solo was so cool, man. He was very open. Tama and T were hurt, and Hikuleo was still in NXT, or just he was in NXT, but not on TV on there. So, it was just me, Jacob, and Solo. So, and that was pretty cool. So I got to know him. He’s super cool.”
Cobb also gave his thoughts about the list of ring names WWE had for him when he signed with the company for his ring name change that included “JONAH” and “Jafar Smash.”
“The day that I flew into St. Louis, well, actually the day of the PLE, Backlash, I went backstage and met everybody, met the writers, and then they gave me two pages of names. I haven’t released them yet, but I think it’s pretty funny. At that time I was like what the hell? The first page, I’ll say it was maybe 60 names on there. I was like okay, this is pretty cool, pretty cool. They’re trying to go into my background with Guam, my background in Hawaii. I was like, okay. Second page, I don’t know what happened. It just started doing random names. I was like, How are they choosing this? One that stuck out made me giggle because it was all caps, JONAH.
The guy that’s in your company. I was like, wait a minute, are you guys even trying now? This is why I really like Drew (McIntyre). After I narrowed it down, I chose the name out of the sheets. I was like, ‘Hey, can I have a copy of this?’ They’re like, why? I was like, ‘Well, I just want to keep it for mementos because I like collecting random, silly things.’ So I brought the list back to the locker room, and Drew was like, ‘Oh, what’s this?’ I was like, ‘Oh, this is my list of names.’ He’s like, ‘Can I see this?’ Yeah, sure. He looked at them, he’s on the second page. He saw one. He’s like, ‘I like this one.’ I was like, ‘Well, we’re not using that.’ He signed it, so it’s a Drew McIntyre authentic signature, which I’m not gonna sell because it’s funny, but it was Jafar Smash. I said, ‘What?’ So every time I saw Drew without hesitation I was like, ‘What’s up, Drew?’ He’s like, ‘What’s up, Jafar?’ I was like wait, Jafar is neither a Polynesian name, a Hawaiian name, nor a Guam name. I don’t know where that came from.”
Cobb also gave his thoughts about WWE’s past attempts at trying to sign him to a deal including after he made an appearance on AEW Dynamite in February of 2020.
“The first time was when I made my AEW Dynamite debut when I just came and beat up Jon Moxley, and the very next day I started getting phone calls like, ‘Are you available?’ I told you this every November, ‘Hey, January is usually when I’m free. But I already committed to New Japan.’ So I just told them, ‘Hey, listen, I had signed a deal with New Japan for a year because they usually only do one-year deals.’ So yeah, I said, ‘Well, I’d sign for a year,’ and then the pandemic hit. So I just said no, and that was the first time. Was February 2020, I believe.”
Cobb also gave his thoughts about the unprofessional conduct from former Senior Director of Talent Development Canyon Ceman during a Zoom meeting they had that put him off on wanting to sign with WWE at the time.
“Well, the first thing that turned me off was like Zoom call, and he was in bed, wearing a white T-shirt and shorts. And I swear, I was trying to do a screenshot, but I don’t know how to. If I did a screenshot, would he have noticed I took a screenshot? I don’t know. Because when he called me, and he was in the bed in boxer shorts and a t-shirt, I was like, ‘What the hell?’
I think he told me there’s three tiers in NXT at the time for pay structure, and then the one line that got me that made me say no was, he’s like, ‘Well, you know, unlike other companies, we pay our talent during the pandemic.’ And I said, ‘You know, you didn’t have to say that line.’ That turned me off. I was like, ‘Well, I don’t really want to work with somebody like that who’s going to make a statement like that.’ So I said no, and then the final time was when I actually signed a three-year deal in New Japan. So they’re like, ‘Okay, we’ll come back in three years.’”
Cobb also gave his thoughts about him having a cyst removed from his scalp this past August and how he had been dealing with a lump on the back of his head since right before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Yeah. So I noticed I had this lump on the back of my head. I would say right before the pandemic, but it’s in the back of my head, so I don’t see it. Then your hair grows back, you don’t even think about it. But a couple years go by, and then I was like, oh wait, I still have my insurance from Japan because it lasts for the year. Then I was back in Japan, visiting friends, I wondered if I could just get this removed here. It’s probably cheaper than doing it stateside, and it was like 100 bucks for a 15-minute surgery.
So anyway, this is maybe six years after, I got it done. I’ll say it’s like June of this year. Then I remember going through that and they pulled it out. I was like, holy crap! Can I take a picture of this? I took a picture of it because it looked pretty gnarly. So, it was funny when he cut it and put it in the thing, and I’m laying on the table, and I was like, in my mind, I’m not a doctor, and I definitely don’t want to go to WebMD and ask about these things. Because the first thing they’re gonna tell you is cancer. ‘My nose is running.’ [WebMD says] Oh yeah, cancer. So he’s looking at it, and he says, ‘ah, yeah.’ He spoke a little bit of English. I was like, ‘I don’t think cancer because six years I would have felt something wrong?’ But he looked at me. He goes, ‘I send for a test.’ I was like, all right, cool. Then he just goes, ‘Maybe cancer.’ I say, wait, what? You can’t start with that. All my buddies in Japan, doctors there are very like [to the point] ‘Ah, maybe okay, maybe broken.’ I don’t know if that’s a language translation thing or whatever, but yeah, he just says, ‘Ah, maybe cancer.’ I was like, ‘Wait, what? Excuse me?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, maybe one week come back.’”
Cobb also gave his thoughts about how the medical results for his mass was benign.
“Oh, it was like a benign thing. Okay, it was like a cyst that went benign or something like that. I can’t really remember the full of it. Since then, I’m like, okay, you know your body more than anybody else. If something’s off or something feels weird, should definitely get it checked. Don’t wait a couple years like me, like an idiot.”
Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com 1, 2, & 3, Fightful.com 1, 2, 3, & 4
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