In Turnbuckle Times’ latest exclusive interview, Scott Mitchell (@Scott44Mitchell) sits down with Javi (@CoreKidJavi), formerly known as WWE’s Javier Bernal. Javi discusses his time in the WWE, training at the Performance Center, shares a fun John Cena story, shares how he met his wife Tatum Paxley, and so much more. You can watch it in its entirety down below.

When and why did you first become a fan of professional wrestling?

“I tell this story a lot, but the first thing that I did was play WWF: No Mercy on the N64. I know it’s everybody and every wrestler’s favorite game, but that was my first encounter with wrestling. Before that, I hadn’t watched wrestling.

My parents had the Nintendo 64. I was probably four or five years old. We had Diddy Kong Racing, 007 Gold, and then we had WWF: No Mercy. I loved playing it. The next obvious evolution of that was watching wrestling. My mom didn’t like it when we watched wrestling and me doing moves on my brother, and all that. So, I kept trying to sneak it. I had a friend give me a DX DVD. Of course, it was when they were doing some very funny, but also very adult things.

Fast forward to high school, and it was an independent wrestling promotion that came to town. I thought about getting in on it. I was still serious about football, though, at the time, but maybe I could become a referee. The training was like three thousand dollars, and I’m a high school student, so I don’t have that kind of money. So, I decided to wait. In college, when I was playing college football, I decided to put my deposit down to join the professional wrestling school. We have Ken Anderson, Mr. Kennedy’s school, up here. I put my deposit down, and then COVID hit. Naturally, I can’t do anything.

I’m an adult now, and playing college football. I decided I’m going to put my deposit down. So, whenever I’m ready to start training, I’m going to go. So, at this point, I played college football in Minnesota at McAllister College. And up in Minnesota, we have Ken Anderson, Mr. Kennedy’s school, up there. And so, I put my deposit down, you know, and then COVID hits. So naturally, it can’t do anything. I was working a dental job and all that throughout COVID, and so finally I just threw my application to WWE, I’m like, yeah, they’re never going to see this, whatever. Fast forward, I played arena football in Wyoming for a little bit before leaving the Wyoming Mustangs to focus on the next step of my life, which was professional wrestling.

So, I come home and email all the promotions in the area that are having shows soon. Asking, can I shine your shoes? Can I build your rings? Whatever I can do to pay my dues in the business and get to be a part of it. And I met someone there who was helping out with the show, but they ran their own promotion called Iron Heart Professional Wrestling. He was like, ‘Hey, man, I want you to help me with this promotion. I want you to be a co-promoter.’ So, I was a promoter before I was even a wrestler at the ripe age of twenty. So, that summer, I helped. Then suddenly, working at my dental job, I got a call from WWE saying, ‘Hey, we want you to come to Vegas and try out.’ That was pretty much the rest of history at that point.”


What was it like to start training at the Performance Center and sign with the WWE?

“It’s always a dream come true, and it’s a dream come true for thousands of people to even have a shot at being in the WWE Performance Center. I’m very fortunate and very blessed that I worked hard enough to get that opportunity. It was a dream come true and all things you’d expect and then some. But, looking back at it, it’s one of those things where when you look at the Performance Center, it’s a bubble.

Everything in there is your life. If you’re in NXT or that system, you’re in the bubble. Nothing exists outside of it. So, it’s kind of strange being on the outside looking in right now. I feel as though I’m about to experience totally different things. Whereas in NXT, it’s a bubble, and you know, it’s a job. You show up every day, you do what you’re told, and you do the things that you do for your job. It’s a job. So it was a good experience. And I was blessed and fortunate enough to learn from the best minds in professional wrestling. And I think a lot of it is going to bode well for me moving forward in my career.”


What was it like transforming from Big Body Javi to the Core Kid Javi, which we saw at the end of your run in Evolve?

“It makes me happy to see how much people liked Core Kid Javi. With the Big Body Javi stuff, I’ll start by laying out the groundwork there. I am a big Chris Jericho fan. When I first started talking about character in WWE, the first iteration of who I was was Van Halen, Steel Panther, Fozzy, and Chris Jericho; that was a lot of my inspiration, and you could see a lot of that. The whole thing was very WCW-esque, Chris Jericho type.

The Big Body Javi thing was funny because I came up with that in a different meaning in a different way. In a land where everyone is huge, I’m going to be the one to call myself the biggest guy in the locker room. I know how people would feel about it. I’m like, that’s the point. That’s why it works and sounds cool. When you pitch things in creative to people in the office, it’s different than what I would be doing now on the indies because I have control over what I do. As far as WWE, think about it this way: there are however many people in a room, I’ll say five, more or less, but you’re trying to match your vision with them, and they’re trying to match your vision with their vision. It’s like six different voices coming together and trying to think of something.

Naturally, it’s going to be hard for it to be exactly what you want and all that. I was very fortunate enough, the things that got me most popular were my interviews backstage with McKenzie. The Big Body Products, like that, was something I wrote. We have this thing called promo class where we just go out and cut promos to get better and all of that. That was my promo that I wrote. I wrote it and I performed it, and then I’m like, they liked it and put it on TV. It was one of those things where it was like damn, I’m good at this. Like you had an eye for TV, it worked. So, making the transition to what I’m doing now came from my wife and I always going to concerts.

She would always tell me, ‘I think people recognize you more than they recognize me.’ I was like, well, I think it’s just because I’m just this goofball that people can talk to. Like that’s all that it is, you know? So, that’s where it came from. That’s the idea, these are my people, why would I want to represent these people? I wanted to do some different things before I got hurt. Well, getting hurt, I did a lot of stuff, it was very introspective, and all of that. I thought that now’s the time to make a change, better now than not.

The theme song and the video I released the other day, and the music that was a song that I wrote with a buddy of mine from The High Ground, a local Orlando band, Matt Brown. We wrote the song together. I had this riff idea, and I was like ‘hey, this is what I want to do, I want to play this part, I want this part to be here and structure the song,’ and he helped me put the song together.

So, I did the vocals and lyrics and all of that, but his brother did the guitar solo, and their lead singer did my backup vocals, and that was something I had pitched to WWE. I gave it to WWE. I didn’t care to make money for the song; all I wanted was for him to have credit for helping me to produce the song. You guys produce it, whatever, I don’t need anything other than to be shown to the world.

It didn’t take. I’m happy about that because now I own the song, and I released the song on my own. I figured like that’s how you know, naturally speaking, someone who hadn’t had a lot of luck being a bad guy or a jerk. At some point, the guy is going to get introspect and be like, ‘maybe I’m the problem.’ I always likened the character to becoming a born-again Christian or a recovering drug addict. I wanted to tell the story that my past is not who I am. So, I came back from my injury, and I’m still Big Body Javi, but I like people now. I want people to like me, and I desire that.

I was trying to hold onto a piece of me that wasn’t Big Body Javi. It was cool because I felt a lot of people, and I’ve said this in a couple of interviews in the past, but I felt like a lot of people relate to my past is not who I am now. Even if you don’t have any sort of checkered past or anything like that, you still think back to high school and think Why did I do that, but you’re not that person anymore, you know?

And I think it’s a very wonderful story to tell. I mean, hell, the thing with me is, like, I’m a very, you know, I try to be vulnerable. I try to be open with people. And I can get a little sappy sometimes. But, you know, I think it’s important to have stories and act out these stories and tell these stories about how people who are forgotten by society. You know, like… addicts or people who were not good in their past lives but are trying to make things right, you know, and people who maybe were acting in a way that wasn’t becoming of them, but this is who they are. That was something that I think speaks to a lot of people, and I thought that was such a beautiful story.

Moving on, I know I get to do the whole Core Kid thing, of course, with WWE, you know I’m like the only guy in the writers room, you know, talking to them, knowing what metal core is or how to describe it. You have to keep in mind that these are people that you know come from all different life experiences, and they probably don’t like what I like, and that’s fine. They did a very good job, all things considered. I think you know I will wear eyeliner moving forward? I don’t know. But what I can say is that moving forward, you will see a lot of this out of me, and I want to represent it. Here’s the thing. Like I’m a metal core kid through and through, and that’s great. And that’s, you know, it’s not a gimmick.

I don’t want this to come off blasphemous, but I want to kind of be like a Metal Core Jesus. You know in the sense that like if you are bullied or someone that was picked on for being different, if you are someone that feels left out or not one of the cool kids, someone that just feels like they don’t fit in, if people relate to that, I want them to come to me. I want to be the person they look up to and find comfort in. I want to be that person. I’ve always had that feeling in my head that I want people to find some sort of outlet through me. You can expect to see that transition, it’s going to be more myself and more tapered to who I am.

What was it like to work and develop under the mentors you had at the WWE Performance Center?

“Honestly, I have a lot of mentors from that place. One that I mentioned a couple of times in other interviews was Terry Taylor. He’s a finishing class coach at the Performance Center. Not just with in-ring stuff, but he coaches a main event mindset that anybody who has a chance to learn from him should take up because he is a gold mine of knowledge. It’s not just the in-ring stuff, but also real-life things, too. He’s one of my favorite mentors. Another one that I’ve gotten is Booker T. He’s someone from day one who’s just had my back and has always been in my corner. I’ve heard him a couple of times ask why we aren’t giving me more ‘playing time.’ It’s one of those things that, for a legend, to say those sorts of things about you in public meant a lot to me.

As far as the coaches and mentors that I’ve got there, Steve Corino is another one. He was the minister at my and my wife’s wedding. So, he’s another one that I got close with. We also have Fit Finlay, Johnny Moss, Robbie Brookside, Norman Smiley, Oney Lorcan, Corey Westin, Sarah Amato, Shawn Spears, Lince Dorado, AJ Winkler, and all those guys were great. They don’t hire schlubs. For coaches, all those coaches are very knowledgeable. They know what they’re talking about. It’s very interesting, though, where one coach can love something and another coach could not care about it. You just must pick which coach is right for you.

I tend to have leaned towards Terry (Taylor) and what he thought. He would say all the time why I am doing something, and then, when I watch back matches at home, I’d say the same thing. I have been blessed with the coaches that I had while at the Performance Center. They were all very kind, very sweet, and very knowledgeable. I have nothing but nice things to say about those mentors. But, you know, I want to kind of jump back a little bit. A situation arose where we have these things at the Performance Center called “PC Lives.” Those are basically in-house shows that are strictly just for the reps. So, anyone you see on TV has wrestled on a “PC Live” show. It’s just for people on the PC and reps, right?

I wrestled Gable Steveson, and John Cena was there. Of course, the rest of my match was fine, and then everyone was talking to John Cena, and I went up to him afterwards and thanked him for showing up and asked him for his thoughts on my match. He told me, ‘It’s obvious that you were the most experienced out there on the show. You know your character.’ This is when I was doing the Big Body Javi stuff. Cena went on to add I knew my character, knew the assignment, and that I had the best match of the night and ‘blew’ him away. Later, I got a text from someone in the office saying, ‘John Cena is still talking about you, like he’s putting you over.’ It meant the world to me.

However, the other half of it was like if he and Booker T see all of this in me, what’s going on here? It’s very affirming, but also very frustrating. Cena and Booker T, especially, are two legends in the business, and they’re talking very highly of you. You have something going for you. If arguably the greatest of all time would say that about me, I mean, I must imagine I’m doing something right. Maybe. That’s the thing, too. Like you see on the internet, people who say things and all that, but anyone who’s been in the PC for longer than three months is not a schlub. It just comes down to whether you were picked or not; that’s about it. Nobody’s a schlub unless they’re purposely like doing stuff; nobody is a schlub. You don’t get to WWE just being like that, you don’t. That’s the truth.”

Unfortunately, you were released recently. What are your thoughts on getting to show the world the authentic you?

“It’s all me. And what’s cool and exciting is that, so I’ll peel back a little bit. There were plans for me. I was told there were plans after the last match I had on Evolve. There was going to be a triple threat, and there was going to be this and that. I was told all these things. Even though last month was weird because I was thinking, what are they doing with me?’ They even changed my render for the WWE website, where it’s the emo stuff. Which was great. Cool. Then that week, I wasn’t booked on Evolve, which I found interesting. I’m in the middle of a story, supposedly, then I asked about it, and someone in the office said they didn’t hear anything.

They told me that they wouldn’t imagine I was on any list to be released or anything like that. Again, there’s no security for anyone in WWE, and it’s not because WWE’s bad or anything, it’s just the nature of the business. It changes minute by minute. You’re not what they need now, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be late, you know? In the moment you know, that’s just not what they need, and that’s okay, that’s fine. Then, they had a creative meeting later, literally the Monday after whatever day that I got released, I had a creative meeting that was scheduled. It happened. You get this sense of security, which you never should, not just in WWE, but anywhere. There’s no sense of security anywhere.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see the full fruition, but what’s nice is that I have creative control of what I think would do best with this character. I can control what I say, do, and make a story. There are five or six people in a creative room, and again, there’s nothing wrong with that, because we all have different life experiences, but they might not understand. Anybody in the scene might know what I’m going for, but not necessarily these specific people.”

How important is the creative control aspect to you?

“To be honest, it’s 50/50. So, on the indies. I’m excited to do all these things and have control. At the end of the day, though, it’s business. I must know what draws and what makes sense. I know that I’ll be very blunt for a second, if I were a company right now, I’d be very excited about myself. Look, I view it this way: there are three things that are important when considering hiring a wrestler. They’re good at wrestling, they’re good at talking, and they’re a good person. I know, sadly, the third one isn’t very important to professional wrestling, but I still think it’s important. If I were a good wrestler and a good talker, but not a good person,

I could get by. If I was a good person but not a good wrestler or talker, then I’m kind of sh*t out of luck. Knowing all three, it’s a very lucky time to consider me in any market. But, at the same time, it’s a collaborative process. The story isn’t always about me, and it’s not about Roman Reigns or CM Punk. It’s about Roman Reigns AND CM Punk. Or it’s about me. So, it’s like fitting all these things. If it were just creative control, it’s cool and all. But I’m not going to pass up any opportunities if I don’t have that. At the end of the day, you’ve got to make the business work too.“

When you were officially released, what went through your mind?

“I’ll tell you this much. I was in the shower when I got the call. I was washing my hair. And I’m like, oh, great. So, of course, I got out and saw it. My wife was on the phone with me. My wife had a worse reaction than I did. She was sobbing and all that. I just had to be strong for a little bit. I was mad. You know, I was mad. I was pissed off.

The same sentiment as before, I have people like John Cena and Booker T putting me over. I was mad for a minute, but after a while, it’s like back to work. I gave myself an hour to be mad, and then I got to work because I couldn’t just stop. Life doesn’t stop when this stops. So, I gave myself an hour to cry, and then we got to work. That was kind of where I went with that.”

How did you and your wife, Tatum Paxley, meet and become official?

“My wife and I met at a tryout in Las Vegas. We were signed together. We didn’t have very much interaction other than like, we saw each other, and we said ‘hi’ and ‘congrats’ and all that. I felt like we were very drawn to each other. Maybe a year or so later down the line, we’d go to concerts together and hang out and stuff like that. And then, one day, we were together, and you know as far as that goes. The thing about us is that we’re both very similar in the sense that we’re both kind of boring in a lot of ways. We stay home a lot. Right now, we have just got a dog. His name’s gorgeous, and we have a cat, Hanson. That’s our little family right now.

We stay home; we don’t do anything. We might go to a concert, but that’s about all we do. I think that’s what kind of drawing us to each other. I’m straight edge, so I’m already boring enough as is, but then she doesn’t drink or do anything either. So, we just kind of stay in. We just go to work, then come back. That’s kind of who we are as people. We don’t find trouble. We don’t go looking for trouble a lot of the time. I think that’s very helpful, especially in the industry that we’re in.

You don’t have to go far to find trouble, and that’s not WWE-specific. It’s just wrestling in general, it’s entertainment in general. It’s not even wrestling. You can be in music, art, whatever, you can find trouble. So, especially with how busy we are, I’m very blessed to have my wife, to have met my wife in WWE. It’s one of the many reasons that I was thankful for my time in WWE.”

Recently, you dropped a new vignette and song. What was it like putting this all together? What was the message you wanted to convey?

“Putting that video together was a little stressful because I had a venue, it was also another underground kind of venue, that fell through. I’m like, oh my gosh, what am I doing?’ I’m friends with a bunch of bands down here. So, I’m like ‘oh my gosh, what am I going to do, what am I going to do’ and I found you know one of my buddies who’s a band and tour manager, made up this place and it was a place called Grumpy’s Underground. Shout out to them because they weren’t going to charge me anything for using their venue. I said, ‘Let me give you guys some money because it’s very sweet of you.’

The next step is getting a bunch of people, fans and friends, and families that want to join. I am blessed with the best fans that just came out. They heard my song, and they learned the lyrics to it and everything. It was just crazy, to me, just after not having released it yet. So, I thought it was the best thing in the world. The message I want to convey is that this is a different version of myself. There’s a guttural, ethereal connection with what the music is and the people. In the metal core scene and the metal scene in general, you knock someone down in the pit, and you pick them up, and then you just, you guys hug it out.

That’s it. Like, that’s it. This type of music is the only type where you can grab another sweaty man and sing in their face and not get punched in the face. You know what I mean? It’s funny. It’s a whole different experience, and you bond over it. When I was in high school, I went to a concert or two, and I had friends from those concerts. I made friends with those concerts, and that’s not such a weird experience, but I like to have such close friends and to be able to hug each other and sing together. That’s such a powerful thing.

Of course, you know what I wrote in this song, the lyrics, basically it’s kind of telling the story of what my character was. But, like I said, it’s a real story, you know? Like my past, with Big Body Javi, or you know, anybody’s past, if they were, they were a drug addict, if they were weird in high school, if they were maybe not a good person, maybe they, you know, they grew up in a poor area and, and, and their life sucked. Maybe they just weren’t a good person. They’ve learned how to become a good person. But you can’t shake the feeling that you watched everything slip away from you because you, because of whatever, anything happened to you, and you have to reflect on yourself.

Now, you are you. You shed everything from your past, and you’re destined to be who you want to be or who you’re destined to be. I want to portray it almost kind of like a Metal Core Jesus. I don’t want to be blasphemous but at the same time, I want people who relate to that experience, the people that maybe have a past and they want to be better, or you know if you got picked on or bullied or whatever it is that makes you feel some type of way to shed it off and to become a better person and to and to reach out into a community that you know is loving.

It’s very DIY. Everybody from my community had a hand in helping me. My album cover art for my song on Spotify and YouTube, or wherever you listen to music, the cover is a buddy of mine who is a graphic designer. A buddy of mine filmed the music video for me. My buddies from a band helped me with the music. It’s so DIY. It’s a community, and that’s what I want this to be. What I think is so powerful is that I get that everybody has their favorites and whatnot, but when push comes to shove, my community will come together and do something powerful and something great. I think that’s so cool and so moving to me.”

What’s next for you? Any future goals or opponents you’d like to face?

“As far as goals and accolades that I want, I want to be everywhere and anywhere. I want to be somewhere every weekend, every day if possible. I have my eyes set on some opponents that I’m looking at. Nic Nemeth is on my list. Matt Cardona is another one. My buddy, Zachary Wentz, is in TNA. He’s another one. I’ve got some people down in reality wrestling that I’d love to tussle with, like Will Allday and Danny Limelight. EFFY would be another one I would love to wrestle. I mentioned that on my Twitter account.

Trevor Lee, I had a match with him in NXT, but at that point, I wasn’t at my best. I looked at that match and thought to myself, ‘I’m so much better now,’ and I hope to erase that memory and wrestle him now and have a good match. I never got a chance to wrestle him, but Cedric Alexander would be cool. Mustafa Ali, too. I want to be everywhere and anywhere. If I were a company like AEW, TNA, Ring of Honor, MLW, NWA, I’d be very excited for myself because I’m a workhorse. I’ll be an ambassador pretty much anywhere. I’m more focused on getting out and going. Then, whenever I get the call, whenever the time’s right, you know it’s great. I want to be everywhere and anywhere and get my face everywhere.”

You’ll be wrestling at the Blitzkrieg! Pro Luau later this month. What are your thoughts heading into that match?

“I’m very excited. I was talking with them, and they mentioned it to me, and it’s very exciting to be part of their Luau. He told me it’s kind of like their WrestleMania. So, I thought to myself, ‘Oh hell yeah, that’s a hell of a debut to make.’ I’m excited. I have a bunch of friends up that way who are going to go watch the show. I was there for a buddy of mine who got married around Enfield, CT, and I like the area, and I’d love to wrestle there.

The day before I’m in North Carolina for PWF, and the day before that, I’m somewhere else. The week before I’m in Minnesota, and the week before that, I’ll also be debuting somewhere, but I can’t comment on that yet since it’s not confirmed. I can’t spoil it just yet. I just want to be everywhere and anywhere.”

Do you have a final message for anyone who might be reading this?

“My message is going to be relatively the same all the time, just keep going. Don’t let anybody or anything place a value on you; acknowledge who you are. Acknowledge the value that you have intrinsically. There’s beauty in everything, and there’s always going to be a meaning in tragedy. There’s always going to be a meaning in anything that you go through. So, embrace it. Be brave and have fun.”