PJ Black, formerly known as Justin Gabriel in WWE, has been a busy man ever since he left the company. He’s been able to make a name for himself in a series of different promotions, and now, he’s an official member of the Ring of Honor roster. During a recent interview with CBS Los Angeles, Black discussed a series of topics ahead of ROH’s 17th Anniversary pay-per-view.
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So you got an opportunity then to talk about booking before you put pen to paper. How big of a factor was that in your decision?
A lot of people don’t know who PJ Black is. I’ve been PJ Black for 15 years. Most people just know Justin Gabriel because he was on TV for seven or eight years. It’s very important for me to show the personality and the character of PJ Black, which is completely different to Justin Gabriel. And they give me freedom and that was the main thing. It wasn’t so much booking and stories that they were gonna give me, but they give me freedom to do whatever I want and that’s how you get yourself over. If people tell you what to do, what to say, how long your match should go, then you don’t have a lot of freedom. So, there’s no way for you to get over. For some guys, there is, but for a lot of guys it’s kind of like being handcuffed in a way.
Did you ever get the opportunity to talk to those guys [AEW] about coming in and doing work for them or was that the timing, you just kind of missed it?
I did a little bit, and one of the main guys kind of in charge of talent relations, if you will, he was the guy who got me into ROH, and I’m not sure if he thought I wasn’t gonna get the deal or what, he thought I was gonna be left open. Obviously, it was in that transition year where they signed one or two people, but now they’re going all out trying to get a roster together. But again, they don’t have a TV deal yet, they don’t have anything yet, which I know they will get, and it will be super successful. I know that. But it takes time… and I wasn’t gonna wait around. Plus it’s only a year. Anything can happy in a year. A lot can happen in a year, in fact.
Let me ask you about WWE and NXT. How strong of a push did they make to bring you in? You said Ring of Honor was really kind of lax with you and they gave you two months to decide. How much pressure was WWE putting on you with NXT?
Oh, no pressure at all, because they kind of just remembered me from what I was doing when I was there. And while they did like me and stuff like that, they don’t know the stuff that I’m doing right now. I’ll give you an example, Drew McIntyre, he went back to the indies and just reinvented himself. He did fantastic, and they had to have him back. I was out for a year or two, three years due to a base jumping injury, so I feel like in wrestling, out of sight, out of mind.
So they kind of forgot about me, and while they did make a decent offer, it wasn’t strong enough for them and they didn’t force anything on it. Plus, I live in downtown LA, so Survivor Series was in Staples Center, and that’s a block away from my place. So I just walked over one day just to say hi to everyone, and that’s where it all happened. I ran into Vince McMahon, ran into [Triple H], and we started talking. It was never like they kind of reached out first. It was kind of like I was just being at the right place at the right time.
I never told them that I had other opportunities. Maybe that was my mistake. Maybe I should have, they would have pursued it more aggressively. But yeah, I did tell ROH I had another offer, and that’s maybe why they pursued it so hard. Which, again, they win.
