Prior to the debut of his Funkasaurus gimmick, WWE superstar Brodus Clay briefly had a stint as Alberto Del Rio’s enforcer. During a recent interview, Clay openly discussed his early days in WWE and how being paired with Del Rio held him back:
“Coming out of NXT I felt that I was robbed and I finished second and I cut a pretty good speech on the crowd. I told them I was going to get some back because I was angry, and being with Alberto Del Rio was basically similar to when I was with Snoop. My role was to get his back and make him look as tough as possible and me smiling and cracking jokes wasn’t going to do that. So I had to put my personality in the back seat to take care of the job, but I knew it was a doorway for me to get my own personality an opportunity.
So the time with Alberto was good in terms of learning and Alberto’s a great competitor and his experience helped me a lot, but as soon as I got a chance to be me, I never was a guy who was angry, that mean tough guy is usually the scariest guy in the room, I always noticed the guy that looked the meanest and act the meanest was terrified, that’s why he looked mean. And the guy who was smiling at you before he fought you was the guy you really worried about because he’s not sweating you.
So that’s kind of like how I was, even body guarding with guys I was more of a talker and ran my mouth and smiled and stuff and it kept people off, especially if a guy’s is fired up and you’re laughing at him or smiling or winking at him it just messes with their mind. That was more who I am. Shaquille O’Neal was the same way. If you looked at him before a basketball game, he was silly, joking around, dancing, but come tip-off he was the business and I’m trying to be more like that.”