Adam Cole Reveals That Chris Jericho & Joey Mercury Are The Inspirations Behind The “Adam Cole Bay Bay” Catchphrase
Adam Cole reveals how the catchphrase that wrestling fans adore came to fruition.
The first-ever and current NXT North American Champion Adam Cole is looking to edge his name in the NXT history books as one of the best to come through the brand. Prior to emerging onto the NXT scene, Adam Cole found success for himself becoming a three-time holder of the ROH World Championship among capturing other titles around the world. Other than making a name for himself one thing that has been synonymous with "The Panama City Playboy" is his "Adam Cole Bay Bay" catchphrase. Jim Varsallone of the Miami Herald caught up with Adam Cole to go over his run in NXT thus far and also asked Cole how did the " Adam Cole Bay Bay" catchphrase come to fruition.
"Well it’s a combination of a couple of things. So I think subconsciously for sure I was a huge Chris Jericho fan and every time he would put his foot on someone’s chest and flex and say ‘Come on Bay Bay’, they used to love that as a fan. That was something that always captured me, but as far the yelling my name part; so Joey Mercury, when he would wrestle for the independents he would wrestle as ‘Joey Matthews’, and at one time I saw him working and he kept over and over and over again, throwing his hands up in the air, just his fist and being like: ‘Joey Matthews, Joey Matthews’. And it was so annoying but so awesome." Cole shared. "Like I thought ‘Oh my gosh, what a brilliant way to kind of get your name out there’, because if anyone wasn’t familiar with Joey Matthews by the end of that match they all knew his name by the end. So when I had started, and I had first started working kind of as a bad guy for independent companies. I started throwing my hands in the air and yelling “Adam Cole Baby” and then people would do….. no one really got behind it, no one got into it. It was something that annoyed everybody, and for some reason, after years and years of working on the independent scene all over the world; at one point they [the fans] decided that they liked it. They decided that they wanted to do it with me and you know, the rest is history at that point. That’s kind of what I've been known for now. So its fascinating to me that something like yelling my name and saying ‘Bay Bay’ really obnoxiously has taken off so well. I’m happy it has though, because its fun for me to do it so I’m sure everyone in the arena who’s doing it is having a good time too."
If you are going to use the quote above, please credit Jim Varsallone of the Miami Herald with an H/T to Fightful.com for the transcriptions.
