Dexter Lumis: Whenever John Laurinaitis Didn’t Want To Talk To A Talent, He Just Put His Phone up

Dexter Lumis was signed by WWE in 2019 after stints with TNA, OVW, and various independent promotions.

Before he was officially signed, he was brought in to do extra work dozens of times, including once as a Rosebud for Adam Rose.

A decade before he was officially part of WWE, he made an impression on head of talent relations John Laurinaitis that landed him in FCW.

“Well, the 2009 tryout at FCW, that was my very first time going to Raw in Jacksonville, and I just stayed when everybody had left. I waited for John Laurinaitis to get off his phone because he’s always. That’s the old trick, whenever a talent’s coming to approach him and he doesn’t want to talk to him, he just puts his phone up. But I waited, and I saw my time to take advantage of the situation, and I talked to him, and he actually put me over and said I’ve noticed you waiting for the right time, it tells me a lot about your character that you waited till the end of the show and everybody’s gone, and you want this. I’d like to see what you can do. So he said, ‘I’m going to send you to FCW for a week and just get in that system and see how you do with them,'” Lumis recalled to Chris Van Vliet on Insight.

Lumis was not hired by WWE in 2009, but was brought into TNA in 2010 and was part of TNA Gut Check in 2012.

Elsewhere during the interview, Lumis discussed his WWE release in 2026. You can find his full comments here.