Jeff Cobb Explains How He Got Out Of His Lucha Underground Contract

Cobb Explains How He Got Out Of His Lucha Underground Contract, Had WWE Tryout Before Signing With LU

In the latest episode of Talk is Jericho, Jeff Cobb spoke about his time in Lucha Underground as Matanza Cueto, how he got out of his contract with the promotion and his issues during his time there. Here are highlights:

On getting signed to Lucha Underground:

“I always say that my career, like how I got better in the ring was because of my trainer Oliver John. Konnan actually helped me out a lot. We did a tryout and I was really bummed, because I didn’t get…it was like a six-man tag and then the winners or he picked to go to the next round or whatever and I didn’t get picked because I only did one match, so I was like, ‘damn.’ But then Konnan was like, ‘hey man, I like you man. Here’s my number, I’m gonna keep in contact with you.’ And again I was just like, ‘This is probably just BS or whatever.’ But he ended up getting ahold of me eventually and said, ‘hey man, we’re doing this thing in LA, it’s called Lucha Underground, would you be interested in it?’ and I was like, ‘Heck yeah!’

On his Matanza mask:

“A leather, unbreathable thing. It was like a surgeon’s mask but with very little room to breathe. I was dying under there. And you’re just recycling hot air, your hot air. And it didn’t help that we took so long breaks in-between seasons, where it’s like we’d film, and I’d get used to it eventually, and then we’d break. Okay cool, and then we’d come back. ‘Put this mask back on.’ ‘Oh my God.’”

On choosing Lucha Underground over WWE:

“Yeah, so, I signed it, I really appreciate Chris DeJoseph, because he was cool to me. Konnan called me and said, ‘I’m gonna have this guy call you’ and it was Chris DeJoseph and he called me and said ‘Hey man, I wanna offer you a Lucha Underground contract.’ It was literally like, a week before I’d get a WWE tryout. So he told me, ‘Look, I get it. I worked there for x amount of years, go do that. If you get signed, great. If you don’t, call me back.’ I was thinking he was just like, kicking me to the curb or whatever. So I did my tryout, nothing came out of it, so I called him back and he said, ‘okay cool, let’s get the ball rolling on this.’ I signed with them and started doing this character.”

On his issues with LU:

“Eventually it just took too long in between seasons. On the indies is great but then you’d also have to fight with promoters about pay and everything like that where it was like, ‘hey I have a set price’ and they’re like ‘When can you come down?’ and I just don’t want to deal with that. TV’s where you make the most money, but I can’t go on any other TV spots because I’m stuck on this contract so eventually I renegotiated a way out of it. In the 20 months that we were off we weren’t getting anything. No, nothing. We were getting paid per episode, like, the day of. Like we’d get a check the following pay period or whatever.”

On how he got out of his seven-year contract:

“I don’t know if it’s like, the Lucha team or if it’s El Rey team or whatnot but I had a lawyer draft up a termination letter and he’s a big entertainment lawyer. They stopped returning emails and all that. I had emailed Chris DeJoseph like, ‘Hey man, what’s going on?’ and he’s like ‘Listen, I just write the stuff.’ So I didn’t want to get him involved in that side of it. So I always emailed the office or anybody up there and they would never return my calls. So eventually I just got frustrated with it, got ahold of an entertainment lawyer and he’s like, ‘yeah this contract is horrible.’ He drafted a letter because at that point we were eighteen months without work, so he drafted a [letter], sent it in. Lo and behold, two days later, get a phone call. ‘Hey Jeff, how’s it going?’ Eventually I just said, ‘Hey man, I just want to be done with this.’ And they said, ‘Alright cool, we can release you, just come back for season four.’”

(Pro Wrestling & MMA World)