Justin King On WWE Tryout, FCW Pay Cut And His Bones Nickname

Justin King says he called WWE for 30 straight days to get a referee tryout. Speaking with Bryan Asbury on Developmentally Speaking, the former WWE official also recalled the financial hit of joining Florida Championship Wrestling and how Dusty Rhodes gave him the nickname Bones.

“I called for 30 straight days. You know, I was annoying. I’m sure I was annoying, but to get to where you have to be, you got to be persistent.”

King said his eventual tryout included a two-minute match in front of several WWE figures, including The Undertaker. He believed some were there because it was rehearsal time, though their presence added to the pressure he felt.

“I had every person you can think of down there watching this match. Undertaker was down there. Vince and Stephanie and Hunter were there.”

“Taker walked past me, told me, ‘Great job.’ And I thought that that was it.”

Signing was only the beginning of King’s adjustment. He said moving from Illinois to Florida meant giving up a better-paying restaurant job, and his excitement about the contract initially obscured what the move would cost.

“You don’t realize you got to move, you know, you got to pick up everything and go from Illinois to Florida. You got to take all your stuff with you. So, you got to drive down there. At the time, I was making so much money at this pizza place that I work at currently. I was making so much money. And then I took like a $60,000 pay cut. So, you’re not thinking about expenses. You’re not thinking about money. You’re not thinking about moving. You’re not thinking about any of that.”

King said he was told during his first month in FCW that he might be fired. He described asking Steve Keirn what he needed to change, then taking on jobs around the building in addition to his referee work.

“I got a call from the uppers that they were going to fire me in my first month. So now, mind you, I’ve just moved to Florida and one month later I’m being told that I’m going to get fired. So what do you do in that situation? Some people would fail. Some people would fold. Some people would say, ‘Okay, well, they don’t like me.’ I took that as motivation. Okay, you’re going to fire me. Cool. Well, I’m going to turn this around in one month. You gave me one month to screw up. Now I’mma fix it in one month.”

“I asked him, ‘What can I do to change?’ He gave me the narrative. I took the narrative, I embellished the narrative, and I changed the structure 100%. From November to December, by December, I was running the entire building. I was doing it all. I made every rope. I vacuumed every ring. I cleaned every bathroom. I swept and mopped every single floor. I did all the cameras.”

That work put King in Rhodes’ promo class, where he says an impromptu turn at the microphone led to a name that followed him through WWE. King recalled that Rhodes was frustrated with the promos and asked him to stand up and deliver one.

“I got my nickname because Dusty was frustrated with promos one day and asked me to get up there and cut a promo.”

“He’s like, ‘I’m talking about you, Bones. Get up there and cut a promo.’ So that’s how the name Bones stuck.”

“From that day forth, my nickname was Bones. And a lot of people in WWE didn’t know my name, my legit name. Nobody knew I was Justin King because I went by Bones. Even backstage with all the writers, the producers, and everybody. Everybody knew me as Bones.”

Sources: Developmentally Speaking with Bryan Asbury, Justin King interview; WWE’s Steve Keirn profile.