Jacobs said it was difficult to adjust to not being 'one of the boys.'
René Duprée welcomed Jimmy Jacobs onto his Café De René podcast. As they were speaking about Jacobs' time as a member of WWE's creative writing team, Jacobs told the story of when he was talked to by Michael Hayes about traveling with Seth Rollins.
Rollins was the World Heavyweight Champion at the time, and Jacobs said he was told that them riding together could not happen because Jacobs was on the 'office side' now. Jacobs and Rollins held the ROH World Tag Team Titles together twice.
“As far as we interacted, he (Michael Hayes) was always gracious to me. I kind of f*cked up early on, like my first day on the road there, he pulled me aside and had a little talk with me… It was like my first day on the road. We were in the Northeast. It was a drive from Connecticut to that town and then SmackDown was on Tuesdays so then we would just drive from that town to the next town. We had to get rental cars -- the creative team did. I come from the indies where… (Jacobs laughed) Resources are limited. There’s limited room on this car. You’re squeezing people in so I’m not used to WWE where there’s like excess of everything so from Raw to SmackDown, the writers had rental cars but Seth Rollins who was the World Champion at that point, he’s also my old tag team partner. So he asked me to drive with him from Raw to SmackDown, and I thought, great, I got a ride and I’m not burdening the writing team with -- they don’t have to account for me. Like, kind of I’m doing them a favor by getting a ride somewhere else because who knows if there’s enough spots in the car? Because I still have that mentality of, like, on the indies and so, at the end of the night after Raw, the writers are in the room and they’re divvying up the car, who’s gonna be in what car and they go, ‘Aye Jimmy, you’re gonna be with Ryan here’ and I go, ‘Oh, actually, I think I’m riding with Seth,’ and then Seth pops his head in, he goes, ‘Hey, you f*cks! He’s riding with the champ tonight!’ And the next day, Michael pulled me aside and said, ‘Hey, I know you guys are friends, but, you’re on this side of things now. You’re on the office side…’ And that took me a minute. It took me a minute to understand that I wasn’t one of the boys, that there’s a difference between the office and the boys, and there is. That took me a second to really get that.”
Jacobs is currently working with Scott D'Amore on the Maple Leaf Pro promotion. He was previously with All Elite Wrestling and stepped away. To read Jacobs' thoughts about his time at AEW, click here.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit Café De René with an H/T to Fightful for the transcription.
