5 WWE backstage stories we learned this week: Raw star used toy Undertaker casket to propose, why AJ Styles stopped riding with The Club
The biggest on-screen WWE storyline right now involves Roman Reigns, who got his revenge on Daniel Bryan on this week’s SmackDown Live by hitting him with a spear at the end of the episode.
Off-screen, meanwhile, it has been another week of newsworthy moments behind-the-scenes, with various Superstars revealing interesting stories about their characters and the real-life trials and tribulations of working for the biggest sports entertainment company in the world.
One of the most amusing stories of the week emerged on Thursday when a Raw Superstar revealed that, before proposing to his girlfriend earlier this year, he hid the ring in a toy Undertaker casket throughout the day, and he later told “The Deadman” the full story.
To find out all the details behind that story, plus four other backstage anecdotes, let’s count down five revelations that have been made over the last seven days.
#5 How Shinsuke Nakamura helped Karl Anderson
Shinsuke Nakamura recently teased a possible alliance with AJ Styles, Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson by posing in a picture with all three members of The OC on social media.
SmackDown Live’s Nakamura is unlikely to join forces with the trio on Raw, especially as he now has Sami Zayn as his advocate on the blue brand, but it would have been interesting to see the on-screen relationship between the four men after hearing what Anderson had to say on this week’s Chasing Glory.
The former Raw Tag Team Champion said on Lilian Garcia’s podcast that he was inspired to become a wrestler after watching The Rock, Triple H, Chyna and Tony Atlas on an MTV documentary in the late 1990s.
After spending six years on the independent scene, he was spotted by NJPW and flew to Japan to begin working for the promotion. The problem, however, was that Anderson only had $14 when he got to the country.
Nakamura found this out and asked Anderson to prove it by showing him his bank account. “The King of Strong Style” realised that NJPW’s new recruit was telling the truth, so he bought him food every day for six months until he made some money.