Jusitn Roberts worked for WWE for nearly a decade, and was never an integral character. Yet he found himself in the middle of controversy.
Roberts, who was choked with a tie during the Nexus debut in 2010, spoke to Cult Of Whatever about the iconic moment. The visual of him being strangled with a tie by Daniel Bryan led to Bryan's short-lived WWE firing that year.
"That was crazy, every week for years I would look around and the people around me would get beat down but they never got me. They would always get the timekeeper and I was always safe. On that night when the Nexus invaded Monday Night Raw Arn Anderson told me before hand I may not be safe and that is when we found out what was going on," said Roberts.
According to Roberts, the idea of introducing the tie was Bryan's idea.
"As far as the tie is concerned it wasn't planned like Daniel came up to me and said he was going to get a tie and do this to me. He had a general idea of what was going to happen and Daniel Bryan is very smart, he is great at what he does and when he saw my laying there with my shirt off and tie around my neck instinct just took over and he saw an opportunity to get the job done which he was supposed to get done. They were told to go out there and cause havoc, nobody said don't do this or don't do that, they were told to make an impact," Roberts explained.
The visual is one WWE has worked to erase from history, but sticks with viewers. Roberts said his unique facial expressions weren't an act, and Vince McMahon wasn't mad.
"He really did strangle me and people still to this day ask me if I was acting and I wasn't acting, I was legitimately getting choked. I tried to get my finger in-between me neck and the tie but I just couldn't get it to go in, I was choked for a short amount of time but I was fine and when I got to the back everybody was happy with the way the segment went. Vince was happy, I was happy, Nexus were happy, the fallout came afterwards when one of the sponsors wasn't pleased," said Roberts.
You can read the full interview at this link.
