It is not much remembered by the world of wrestling that Frankie Kazarian had a small run in WWE as well. The former five times TNA X Division Champion was singed with WWE in 2005. But he was never given a chance to show his face on the main roster.
Frankie Kazarian was mainly signed to be a member of the Cruiserweight division back then. He appeared a number of times on the WWE Velocity, which used to be the sub-brand of WWE Smackdown back then.
Frankie Kazarian Comments On His WWE Run
He was first signed on the Ohio Valley Wrestling which was the Development Territory of WWE back then. On his Velocity appearances, he picked up some victories over the likes of Nunzio, Scotty 2 Hotty, Funaki, and Paul London.
Kazarian recently appeared on the Wrestling Perspective podcast where he talked about his forgotten WWE run. He said that he understood the business aspects of WWE very soon;
“So for me, when I got to WWE, my short stint there, I never really took wrestling seriously as a business. What I mean by that is, wrestling was my passion. It was what I always wanted to do. What I loved. I worked my ass off, moved across the country to train to do it. I did every show.
If you set up a ring, I would be there. I worked so hard at it, and all the sudden I started getting paid to do it. Then all the sudden I got a contact. Then all the sudden I was getting weekly paychecks, and it was just like, ‘Cool, this was all part of it.’ When I got to WWE, I realized quickly, ‘Oh, this is a business.”
He says he was not mentally matured enough at that time when he was in WWE:
At that time of my life, I don’t think I was mentally mature enough to handle the professional wrestling business on that level. WWE is — they’ve been around forever. They have it nailed. WWE is never going anywhere. I wasn’t ready to be the businessman that I needed to be.
So, what my short run there taught me is that, yes, this is my passion, this is my heart and my soul, but I’m a businessman and I need to treat this like a business. So I’ll always be grateful for my time there for that because that was one of those lessons that kind of slapped me right in the face at the right time in my life.
Kazarian was doing pretty impressive in a small period of time in WWE. But as he was mainly signed by the promotion just to revamp the Cruiserweight Division, a time came around five months of Kazarian’s contract sign when WWE thought that they do not have to extend their Cruiserweight division anymore, and they released him.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)