Angel Garza's WWE debut came with a lot of obstacles, particularly with his promo.
Garza cut a promo and had a match with Rey Mysterio in his first night as a member of the Raw roster. The days leading up to that debut was a difficult one as he had to deal with learning a promo in English, which is his second language. In an interview with Alex McCarthy of talkSPORT, Garza said he memorized the promo he was given, but then when he arrived at Raw, they changed his promo and he had to memorize the new one with only hours remaining.
"It was a hard step in my career because it was like hey, we’re welcoming you, but this is the first step. It’s going to be Rey Mysterio and it’s like ‘Woah, Ok’. That’s a big deal. Then there was a bunch of crazy stuff that happened to me. They were like you’ve got to do a promo and they gave it to me one night before. I was reading my promo and I was trying to remember every single line and every single point they gave to me and then I came into the arena and they said ‘just forget about this, remember this’ [handing him a new promo]. I was like ‘really?! Are you kidding me?’ and they said yep. So I wasn’t worried for the match at the point, I was more worried about the promo! Then they started the show. It was all the pyro and ‘Welcome to RAW!’ and the writers just run up to me and said ‘Forget about this promo! Remember this one now’ and I was like ‘Dude! You know this is not my first language, right?!’ [laughs]. It’s my second language! You’re making me do this!?’ ‘Just learn the promo,’ they said, so I say Ok," Garza said.
The former NXT Cruiserweight Champion had to remember the new promo and once he was in Gorilla Position, Paul Heyman asked him to recite the promo. It was a unique experience for Garza, who looked at it fondly, but learned that the WWE and NXT audiences are different.
"I’m running and I’m reading the promo and just feeling it. Then when I was in Gorilla, Paul Heyman called me over. ‘Garza, come here. Do you know your promo?’ We started doing that chemistry in that promo and by the end of it, we got the crowd. We got me introduced to the crowd and it was an amazing experience. Then my cousin [Humberto Carillo] comes out, then Rey comes out and the match just flew like regular. It was a good experience with Paul Heyman, with the writers, with Rey Mysterio – I think it was amazing. ‘Yes sir, I know it,’ I said. Heyman says ‘tell it to me’ and I’m like ahhh [laughs]. I just started talking and talking and talking and he says ‘Ok, just relax. Take your time. If you go over your time, don’t worry. If you go under your time, don’t worry. Just relax and be you.’ I was like Ok, I can breath now! So I go to the side and my music starts playing and nobody reacts. It’s like ‘Hello? I’m from NXT? It’s Garza!’ [laughs]. In that moment I understood that it’s two different audiences. I thought this is so different. So I said really low to Zelina [Vega] ‘This is going to be hard’ and she told me ‘No, it’s not – just follow me,'" Garza said.
The full interview can be seen at this link.
