13 Things We Learned From Dark Side Of The Ring: Zach Gowen
10. The John Laurinaitis Story Is Still Hilarious
Yes, yes this is still some laugh.
WWE bosses tasked John Laurinaitis with signing Gowen when they’d spotted him working for TNA. Johnny (so called) Ace came back and said you couldn’t really tell that the guy was missing a leg and seemed to be in his 30s. Huh? That’s because he had the wrong one-legged wrestler. No, that's not a joke.
Steve Keirn was training someone with one leg in Florida, and Laurinaitis just assumed it must be him. Eventually, WWE stopped short of offering that poor dude a contract and called up Zach. Those had to be some red faces around the table when someone had to look the other guy in the eyes and say: 'Sir, we thought you were another one-legged pro wrestler'. His heart would've dropped right through the floor at Titan Towers.
VICE aired audio clips of Bruce Prichard talking about Johnny's error on his 'Something To Wrestle With' podcast in 2019. Nobody in WWE could quite believe that he'd been given marching orders on something totally unique yet somehow managed to scout out another one-legged grappler who wasn't even working for TNA. Hmm, maybe that should've been the biggest clue for Laurinaitis, eh?
All's well that ends well. Johnny Ace called Gowen and asked if he'd be interested in working for WWE. It was a no brainer for Zach. Of course he wanted to work for the biggest company in the industry and the one all of his childhood idols wrestled for. He was hardly going to say no.
Behave, John.