Aiden English says The Vaudevillians came together on a whim.
Before he became the hype man for the “Bulgarian Brute” Rusev, Aiden English was a Vaudevillian and before that, he was a Drama King.
Speaking with Chris Van Vliet, Aiden English opened up about his early days in NXT and how fortunate he felt being able to work with names like Sheamus when WWE was just getting started with the NXT brand and having main roster names travel down to Full Sail University to boost taping audience capacity.
“So, I started in February of 2012. Even before the Vaudevillains, I guess it was that Drama King. I got a little run. I was doing those matches with Big Cass and stuff like that on NXT first. That was a great time, though. I got to wrestle, to this day, I don't know why, but they were putting me in the ring with guys like Sheamus, Rob Van Dam. I know that I had a lot of matches with Neville/PAC at the time,” said Aiden. “I felt so lucky to get some of those matches. I worked a lot. I just kind of learning and I did a lot of, like, enhancement work for some of the up and coming talent. But probably about a year and a half after I started, maybe a little less is when I kind of started getting my first run at things.”
After his first push subsided, Aiden English was paired with Simon Gotch as part of The Vaudevillians tag team, a team that Aiden says came together because Triple H didn't know what else to do with the two of them and thought they would look good together.
“Dusty Rhodes pulled us aside and told us this, I think it was at an NXT I just finished up, I don't know if it was that run with Big Cass or I did something with somebody else and Triple H was at TV and Simon was new at the time and he had done like the rosebuds thing on TV a few times. He had the full handlebar (mustache) and he would show up to television pretty much in gimmick/in character dressing or dressed very well, mustache waxed up,” he recalled. “I heard Triple H was looking at him, thinking, 'interesting looking fella. Here's English, this theater, singing guy. He just kind of finished up what he's doing. So we're not sure what to do there or what.' We're like a vaudeville sideshow thing is kind of the way it was presented to me. They didn't know what either, but they were like two interesting looking, two interesting characters. What's there? So, Dusty Rhodes said, he's like, 'I don't know. But he goes, you guys kind of get together, figure something out, and we will present it to him because Triple H wants to see it.' So so we did. I mean, I just went home that night and I just kept it at the vaudeville thing in my head and I'm like, well, I've always been a bad guy. So if I'm still a villain, I guess I'll be a Vaudevillian and screw it. Let's go with that. They loved it and the rest is history.”
After that team disbanded, Aiden would move on to Rusev Day. You can hear his thoughts about that experience coming together at this link.
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