Former WWE star Jimmy Wang Yang recently shared a remarkable backstage story about how an accidental encounter with Vince McMahon unexpectedly led to his WWE return.
Speaking on the Insight Podcast, Yang recalled attending a WWE event socially after already being released by the company, only for McMahon to seemingly have no memory of firing him.
“Steve Rubin used to hook us up with tickets and I take this girl out wanting a dinner, all this kind of stuff. So I go down there, I get to the building, I go down, I’m standing around greeting everybody and all of a sudden Vince is walking down toward me.”
Yang explained that McMahon casually greeted him backstage before confusion quickly set in.
“I’m like, ‘Hey, Vince,’ he’s like, ‘Jimmy, where the hell you been?’ I was like, you fired me. ‘What? I did? Oh, we got to talk about it. I don’t want to talk to you in a minute. Just stay here. I got to go do this. I’ll be back.’ He didn’t know he fired me,” Yang said.
According to Yang, the interaction immediately led to WWE using him in a D-Generation X segment involving the Spirit Squad, followed by appearances on both Raw and SmackDown shortly afterward.
Yang then revealed that former WWE executive John Laurinaitis later approached him backstage to officially inform him that WWE was bringing him back.
Yang’s second run with WWE lasted from 2006 through 2010 and included his popular cowboy-inspired Jimmy Wang Yang character.
Following that stint, Yang wrestled extensively for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling before later returning to WWE in a producer role. That third WWE run was brief, however, as he was eventually released once again.
