Ricardo Rodriguez Would 'Definitely' Go Back To WWE If Given The Opportunity

Does anyone on the WWE roster need a personal ring announcer? Ricardo Rodriguez is available

Matt jeff hardy

Jul 14, 2023

Ricardo Rodriguez WWE.jpg

Former WWE star Ricardo Rodriguez wouldn't turn down the chance to return to WWE.

Speaking with Steve Fall for WrestlingNews.co, Rodriguez said "I would definitely go back to WWE if given the opportunity."

Though he is also a trained wrestler, Ricardo is best remembered as the personal ring announcer of Alberto Del Rio.

While this is the role he is best known for, the 37-year-old did not intend to become an announcer, as he explained:

"That's definitely not what I had in mind. However, my story is very different than everybody else's. I did a wrestling tryout at the Staples Center in August. It was after SummerSlam 2010, whatever day that was. It was a RAW. We got there around maybe 10 o'clock in the morning, we did a full on wrestling tryout for a couple hours. They pulled me aside. The guy's name at the time was Ty Bailey, he was the main Talent Agent Scout kind of guy who now I believe is Canyon Ceman. I think he's not there anymore. I don't know. But either way, back then it was Ty Bailey. He approached me afterwards and he basically gave me the rundown of a bunch of questions asking if I was under contract, if Id be willing to move to Florida if given the opportunity, to which eventually that's kind of how it went down.

"I went into catering later that day at RAW. I was approached later on and I was asked if I wanted to do ring announcing the following day on SmackDown. I didn't know for what, they just asked me if I was available the next day in Bakersfield, California, to which obviously I said, yes. They had asked me if I've ever done ring announcing before, which I never had, but I said yes. They asked me if I had a tuxedo, which I said yes, which I didn't. I went to the Goodwill that was near my house and I bought a cheap little suit and then I bought some bow ties. So then I went the next day to Bakersfield, which is just maybe like two hours north of Los Angeles. I did my whole spiel at the tryout. They asked me again for the second day in Fresno, because they were doing a double taping of Smackdown because the Smackdown guys were going overseas the next week, so they wanted to do a double taping. After the second day of SmackDown, they basically offered me a contract, and it went from there."

Rodriguez - who also wrestled for the NXT brand as El Local - was released by WWE on July 30, 2014. He worked as a Spanish-language commentator for one AEW television taping in October 2021.

Cultaholic Wrestling has an account on Threads! You can follow us here. You can also follow us on Bluesky here.

Recommended


Latest posts