Joe Alonzo chats all things related to him signing with NWA.
For the greater portion of 2022, independent talent Joe Alonzo tweeted daily that he was going to sign a professional wrestling contract. Those words became reality when he was offered a deal from the National Wrestling Alliance.
Joe was recommended to the NWA by his trainer Robert Anthony (Cyon). To discuss his signing, Joe was invited onto Robert’s ‘Podding With Ego’ podcast.
To start off, Joe stated that he was first presented with the offer on December 5th. Several months prior, he was contacted by an unnamed person who told him he should stop tweeting that he’s going to sign a contract.
Alonzo: January 1st, 2022… I was tweeting before but I had to be more specific on it and I tweeted on January 1st, 2022, I said, ‘I, Joe Alonzo, will sign a professional wrestling contract.’ I tweeted that every single day. Every single day up until October and I was told, ‘Stop doing it.’ It wasn’t Chuck E. Smooth who told me, it was somebody else and they said, ‘It’s a bad look…’ So I stopped tweeting it and I let the manifestation do its work and the grace of God… December 5th is when it happened. On December 5th, I was called into an office and right here in my hand, the manifestation has come into play and I, Joe Alonzo, am signing a professional wrestling contract.
Anthony went on to share that several months after joining NWA, he suggested Alonzo, Frank The Clown and Storm Grayson as names that the organization should take a look at and consider bringing in.
All of those names were initially turned down, but there came a point when the NWA was looking for someone who could go on the microphone and Anthony brought up Joe’s name again.
Anthony: I got into NWA a year ago coming up soon. Maybe last month, a year ago and after three months, I pitched you [Joe Alonzo], Storm Grayson and Frank The Clown, okay? Because I needed Frank at that time. So I pitched all of you to them and they turned everyone down. Did I tell you that? They just didn’t need it. They didn’t need the guys at that time, they weren’t bringing new people in and I said, ‘You gotta give me one. You gotta give me one. We need guys that can go. You gotta give me one.’ So, I fought for that for a while. I threw Frank away because then Frank started not listening and blah, blah, blah, stop pitching Frank and it’s fine, and they said, ‘We need someone that can talk’ and I said, Joe could talk over Storm. Storm knows this, not burying you buddy, sorry. So then Joe became the guy, like , ‘Listen, bring him in, bring him in, bring him in.’ You do all this stuff. I may or may not have told that story to someone in the office about the handshake [with Vince McMahon while Joe was doing extra work for WWE] to initiate you coming into the NWA. But it was a package deal.
In Joe’s first match for NWA, he wrestled Anthony and came out of the match with a concussion. Joe added that he thought he would not be back after that because he felt he was being a ‘pain’ about what occurred.
They then talked about NWA wanting to alter Joe’s name. The suggestion was to just call him ‘Alonzo’. Joe cut a promo after the match with Cyon while he was concussed and expressed that he’s ‘Joe Alonzo’ and that was never going to change.
Anthony: I get you in [to NWA]. You got your match with Cyon, it was 20 minutes.
Alonzo: Cyon dumped me on my head.
Anthony: Cyon did dump you on your head. He’s f*cking reckless. You got sent to the hospital days later when you came back to Chicago but I was like, ‘You gotta give the kid a promo, you gotta give the kid a promo’ and they were gonna give you a promo and then that promo got cut and then turned into an internet pre-tape. That was real weird as he’s concussed. So he does well in that.
Alonzo: I do wanna say I thought I was never coming back to NWA… [Because of] the concussion because I felt like I was being such a pain in the ass with that.
Anthony: When they brought Joe in, they wanted to cut the name ‘Joe’.
Alonzo: And they wanted to just make me ‘Alonzo’.
Anthony: Or Alfredo.
Alonzo: Alfredo Alonzo.
Anthony: He was so mad [Anthony laughed]. He is like, ‘I am not going. I am Joe Alonzo’ and then when he got concussed and he got that promo, he was like, ‘My name’s Joe Alonzo! It ain’t never gonna change!’ But yeah, they wanted to take his first name away.
Circling back to the topic of Joe signing with NWA, Anthony revealed that he told Pat Kenney, Director of Talent Relations, that there was a chance Joe might not sign the deal. He wanted to ensure that there was not going to be any backlash towards Alonzo if he opted not to agree to the offer.
Anthony: He [Pat Kenney] told me some things I can’t disclose and I said to him very point blank, I go, ‘I’m gonna warn you. There’s a chance Joe says no to this contract’ and he looks at me, he goes, ‘That’s his right to do’ and there’s reasons why I told him that. I wasn’t just burying Joe. There’s some things that cannot be discussed and I said, ‘He might say no’ and I go, ‘Is there gonna be heat on the kid?’ And he goes, ‘No, no, no, no.’ He goes, ‘Here’s our plans, this is why we wanna sign him,’ all these things and he says, ‘No, that’s fine. That’s on him’ and I go, ‘Okay,’ because I didn’t want him to be thrown off. As he’s laying out the terms of Joe’s deal; the money, how many years it is, all that sh*t, I’m just looking at Joe’s face going, it’s about to happen. He’s about to get up and go, thank you but f*ck off, right? And I’m just going, this is gonna be wild, it’s gonna be wild and then when Joe f*cking says, ‘Yeah,’ I was like, ‘Woof!’ He accepted it!… You did have a couple questions but after those questions were done, I was like, he’s committing. I was like, wow! This podcast would have been way better if it was, I, Joe Alonzo turned down a professional wrestling contract [Anthony laughed].
Along with Alonzo, Missa Kate signed with the National Wrestling Alliance. To read a breakdown of NWA deals, head over to this link.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit ‘Podding With Ego’ with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
