Sam Roberts Explains How He Found Out About WWE SmackDown Appearance On Three Hours Notice

Sam Roberts was called into action at the last minute. 

Roberts made an appearance on Friday’s WWE SmackDown, conducting a backstage interview with the Usos (Jimmy & Jey Uso) that was interrupted by the Viking Raiders (Erik & Ivar). 

Speaking on his Not Sam Wrestling podcast, Roberts revealed that he was at home in Westchester, New York when he got a call at 4:38 p.m. ET seeing if he could make it to Hershey, Pennsylvania by 7:30 p.m. ET. 

While Roberts couldn’t quite make it in three hours, he immediately jumped in the car and headed to the area, arriving shortly after 8 p.m. ET. 

“I walked in to the back of the arena, my producer is there and working with Happy Corbin on the segment before I’m on. ‘Sam, you’re here, great. Here’s what you’re going to do.’ Here come the Usos, they’re like, ‘You just show up whenever you want Sam?’ ‘Uce, I literally just got here. They called me at home at 4:30.’ ‘For this? I’m sorry.’ I said, ‘Sorry? I get the privilege of getting to talk to you on Friday Night SmackDown, don’t ever say you’re sorry. You’re the SmackDown Tag Team Champions. You’re part of the Bloodline.’ It’s literally, out the car, into the arena, hello to the producer and writers, and onto the interview set. Your boy has never been on SmackDown. Is this really happening? ‘First thing we’re going to do, you talk to the Usos, there won’t be any audio. It’s just a preview, talk to them, no audio, and we’re going to break.’ I probably didn’t know we were ‘on the air, on the air,’ because my brain was still all over the place. I’m thinking to myself, ‘four hours ago, I was building Lego with my son thinking it would be an easy Friday.’ We do the thing and it’s live. We do it, we’re talking and showing our fingers, and we go to break,” recalled Roberts about the segment. 

Roberts continued, saying WWE put a lot of trust in him to make sure the segment would be delivered without issue. 

“They put an obscene amount of trust in me. They put more trust in me than I have in myself. I get treated very well at WWE. ‘You know what you’re doing, you know how to talk into a microphone.’ ‘If you say so. I don’t know if I’d put that much faith in me, but if you’re putting that much faith in me, you seem good at your job, so I’ll trust you.’ ‘Introduce yourself, introduce the Usos, ask them about the contract signing,'” he said.

When the Vikings Raiders attacked The Usos, Roberts immediately got out of dodge. 

“If you look at the segment, there is a split segment where I’m looking at the camera and not saying anything, but I’m smiling. In that moment, I’m thinking about everything. I’m thinking about the fact that I’m there at all. A lot of people talk about a dream come true. This is it. This is that moment…When I get called at 4:38 in the afternoon and the call is, ‘we have the coolest opportunity in the world for you if you show up and can get here.’ Ain’t no time in the world I would have said, ‘I don’t think I can do it.’ Five minutes before we were live, I had a text from Bruce Prichard and he said, ‘Are you here?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘I was hoping you would run out of gas.’ I would have hitchhiked,” he said.

Along with the backstage segment with the Usos, Roberts also did a WWE digital exclusive interview with Drew McIntyre. 

Roberts was thankful to Michael Cole, Bruce Prichard, and produce Tommy Cullen. 

If you missed anything from WWE SmackDown, check out Fightful’s full report on the show by clicking here. 

If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.