Sean Waltman Says NJPW Was Ready To Hire Him When WWE Called Him Up In 1993
Sean Waltman reflects on interest from WCW and NJPW before he was hired by WWE in 1993.
Sean Waltman, performing as 1-2-3 Kid, provided one of the early defining moments in the history of Monday Night Raw when he defeated Razor Ramon on the May 17, 1993 episode. Waltman would be one of the names credited with changing the pace of WWE matches when he entered the promotion in 1993, becoming one of the defining Superstars of the New Generation era of WWE.
However, there was interest in the former Lightning Kid from both World Championship Wrestling and New Japan Pro Wrestling.
Sgt. Slaughter is the one who gave Waltman the call that changed his life in 1993.
“Sgt. Slaughter called me, and he even said, ‘Hey, this is Sgt. Slaughter from the World Wrestling Federation,'” Waltman recalled while getting a chiropractic adjustment from Dr. Beau Hightower. “I figured it was him, but somehow I spaced out the part where he said World Wrestling Federation. He’s like, ‘Yeah, we’re having TV tapings the day after WrestleMania,’ and I’m still not putting two and two together. Finally, he goes, ‘Yeah, we want to bring you in,’ and finally it hits me, and I go, ‘Oh, my god!’
“I had a tryout at WCW probably a year earlier, and it was great,” he continued. “It was great. I had a great match. I would have gotten hired, but they switched bosses the next day, very next day. So yeah, I wasn’t their idea, so I wasn’t coming in. So I was kind of bummed out a little bit. New Japan finally was going to bring me in. As soon as New Japan hires me, WWE calls me. So, I had a couple of different choices there.”
Ultimately Sean Waltman would finally go to WCW in 1996 as part of the New World Order.
Elsewhere in this interview, Waltman reflected on getting a nice check from the release of WWE 2K22, which featured an nWo version. Learn more here.
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