TJP: WWE Allows Me To Be Who I Am
TJP loves being in WWE because they allow him to be himself.
Speaking to Fox Sports Asia, TJP discussed coming into WWE and playing TJP as opposed to characters other companies asked him to play.
“It’s funny actually, I don’t often think about it, but I did reflect on it sometime early this week, talking with friends and stuff like that,” said TJP. “It was a really nice thing for me, primarily because I was able to represent Filipinos and South East Asians and the reason that was big for me was because wrestling at times can be kind of archaic, (laughs) medievally speaking, and you know I have done this since I was so young and I never had a chance to really just represent my own culture, and who I am, you know where my family comes from and things like that and there are times where I would wrestling somewhere and a lot of people know that I was brought up in Lucha Libre and I played a lot of masked characters and things like that and yeah there have been times when I was asked to portray different characters to fit in with what was believed to be portrayed by me.”
TJP continued, “I have never been able to just be myself so really the thing about CC was such a big deal for me is that here have been times I have been asked to be things I am not – a Mexican wrestler, a Japanese wrestler or things like that and been portrayed as something I am not. For once I came in and again this is why it feels like home here because I just simply asked if I could be myself and they said: ‘Yes, that’s exactly who we want you to be.’ You know winning and everything and all that was nice but it made it special for me because it was the first time I got to be myself.”
TJP signed with WWE in 2016 to take part in the Cruiserweight Classic. He won the tournament, defeating Gran Metalik in the finals to become the first-ever Cruiserweight Champion. He is currently featured on 205 Live.
