Bobby Roode on His Decision to Leave Impact Wrestling, His Booking on the WWE Main Roster So Far

WWE Monday Night Raw Superstar Bobby Roode was recently a guest on Lilian Garcia's Chasing Glory podcast.

Appearing on WWE events early on in his career:

“We were backstage at RAW and Sgt. Slaughter was in charge of all the extra matches and the dark matches and the enhancement matches, I guess you can say. So I was one of the guys who was just hanging around and I remember Perry Saturn had a match. Perry was with Terri Runnels and they were just kind of getting started I believe around that time. They had a match on, I believe I want to say it was Sunday Night Heat back then. Perry needed an opponent for an enhancement match as a quick 5 minute match and I think Terri must have mentioned something to Sarge and Sarge came up to me and was like, ‘Yeah, we need you to work with Perry tonight.’ and I was like, ‘Woah, okay! Here we go.’ and I went out there and actually had a fairly decent match with Perry. That was 98’ so from 98’ to 2004, I probably showed up at WWE TVs, I’m gonna say at least a dozen, if not more times just to network and show my face and show them that this is where I wanted to be.”

His decision to leave TNA/Impact Wrestling:

“I was reaching that 40 years old, in and around that age and I was like, ‘I don’t think I can do this.’ I don’t think I can go out there and sit at home for 6-8 weeks and then have me come to work and expect me to work 8 days in a row, twice a day in a studio of 200 people and really be able to give it my all. For me, just the passion was starting to go away and in my mind I was thinking like, ‘If I don’t want to leave my house and I don’t want to do what I’ve loved to do for the last 17 years, then I really have to rethink what I want to do here.’”

Meeting Triple H and joining NXT:

“He goes. ‘Hey, what do you want to do here? You’re going to be 40 years old. I know you’ve had a long career and been in the business for a while. Do you want to come down and be a coach? What are you looking to do?’ and I was like, ‘I’m going to be honest, I don’t want to coach-I mean eventually, I’d love to, but the schedule that I’ve had the last 3 years at TNA has been very light and I feel like I’ve got a lot left in the tank and a lot left to give and I’d love to have an opportunity there, that’s all I want is an opportunity.’ ‘Okay cool. We’ll give you an opportunity. We’ll give a shot and see where it goes.’ So they flew me down to WrestleMania 32, went down there, met Hunter face to face. Kind of met everybody, met the crew, and I just immediately felt at home. I know what I said, ‘I don’t like change.’ but I walked in there and everybody was really cool.”

His response to people who criticize his booking in WWE since joining the main roster:

“It fuels me, it definitely fuels me, but in a way, they don’t get it. They don’t know what’s going on. For me, it’s patience, it timing. Like I said, ‘Timing is everything in the business.’ and people can say whatever they want, but I came up here, I came up to Smackdown and had a great run there. I got work with Randy Orton, I got to work with Shinsuke, I got to tag with those guys, I got to work with AJ tagging. It may not have been on television, but Live Events and different things, I got to work with some amazing people, and became the United States Champion, was a part of a WrestleMania. I haven’t had a weekend off in a year. Even though you don’t see me on television every week, I’m still working, I’m still doing stuff and having great matches. I came over to Raw for the draft and I was the surprise tag partner for the Main Event, coming over from Smackdown. I Main Evented Money in The Bank and that was just two months ago, so it’s funny how people can think, ‘Oh, he’s not doing anything, he’s lost everything, or he’s nothing more than a midcard guy.’ Just be patient. I honestly think if you work hard enough and you take every opportunity they give you here and make the most of it, the cream always rises to the top."