WWE broadcast team member Peter Rosenberg recently appeared as a guest on the INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet podcast for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling.
During the discussion, Rosenberg spoke about the circumstances that led to him getting his job with WWE, interviewing Vince McMahon in the past and more.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts. Also below is a complete video archive of the discussion.
On interviewing Vince McMahon and asking for a job: “No, [it didn’t help me get a job], not whatsoever. It was a really interesting lesson, because I love that clip, and every once in a while, it’ll go a little bit viral, because it’s like a cool moment to see someone kind of shooting their shot and then look where they are now. Totally inspirational to even myself to see, it reminds me of stuff. But at the same time, the real behind-the-scenes was I took it seriously, and this shows how different the company was then. I tried to reach out to different people to make it happen at that time. I don’t even remember exactly who shot me down, but someone was very matter-of-fact, do not do that, don’t show up here.”
On if he showed up: “No, I was going to and then when I reached out to someone who I either was connected to or found a way to, was very much like, no, don’t do that. And it’s interesting. Who knows what would have happened had I shown up one day to Titan Towers and said, ‘No, Vince McMahon asked me to come up here. Can someone at least ask him?’ Who knows? Because he is a grab-the-brass-ring kind of guy, and that was me shooting my shot. I just thought at the time, when am I ever getting a chance to talk to Vince McMahon? It happened one other time. I interviewed him two times, very briefly at events in New York. So, no, it did not lead to that at all. It came. The opportunities came because of other great people years later.”
On how he got the job with WWE: “I just celebrated 10 years at ESPN. So 2015 16, ish, whenever. Jonathan Coachman started, he brought back doing those SportsCenter off-the-ropes segments where he started leaning back into his wrestling thing, and as I understand it, kind of convinced ESPN, who at that time were kind of wrestling averse, but convinced people hey, there’s something here. Let’s start covering the big events. So Coach started doing that. Coach and I did a radio show together. I don’t know if we did a whole show together, though I think we may have. And at this point in time, they were kind of figuring out where they were gonna put me. I was sort of hot at the moment, and they were like, We really like him, Where’s he gonna go? And I was doing different things locally in New York. I was just doing different things, Coach and I ended up meeting. He knew what a wrestling fan I was. We immediately hit it off and talked wrestling. So when he went to go to Sports Center at WrestleMania, I believe in New Orleans at that time, he says to me, cuz I’m already there at that point, I’m already going to Mania every year. I’m doing Cheap Heat live. I’m doing all my indie wrestling stuff on my own podcast interviews. I have a relationship with the company where they’re giving me talent. I was also one of the first people, Sam [Roberts] and I were on radio row in those very early days. Radio Row was much smaller and Busted Open would be there. It was very early days. Now it looks that way, at least. So Coach says, ‘If you want to come with me, I’ll get you a pass. You can just come with me to all the WrestleMania stuff.’ And I was like, okay, that’s awesome. So he got me one of the passes for the weekend, and I just kind of tagged along. So I went to the Hall of Fame with him. They did stuff there. I did a couple of segments with him on the desk. I don’t even know if it ever got used. I know me and him interviewed Snoop Dogg. So I’m doing ESPN stuff, and at one point on at WrestleMania, I’m standing off to the side watching him do a SportsCenter break, and a guy strikes up a conversation with me, his name was Chris Chambers. Chambers just starts asking me about what I do. I’m like, ‘Well, I do Hot 97 in the morning, and now I’m at ESPN, but I’ve really love doing wrestling, and I would love to do WWE, is kind of my dream, blah blah blah…’ I definitely had said this before, but Chris Chambers, anyone who’s watching from the company knows how important he is. Chambers was a big deal at this company. He is one of the quietest, kept most important TV guys we had, just like you have Adam Panucci. There are these characters in WWE who don’t get the big [recognition]. Everyone knew Kevin Dunn, but there are obviously other people who were really important. And Chambers came from Sports TV, had a really great eye for stuff. Famously, or at least famously to me, came up with the scratch design of the WWF Attitude logo. He’s the man. So he’s looking at me, and for the first time, it clicked for him like I always hoped it would. He’s like, ‘Wait, you’re on Hot 97 and you’re on ESPN, and you want to be with us? You should give me a call.’ He just sort of was like, seems like a reasonable thing to do. I hit him up the next couple of weeks, didn’t hear back from him. I waited like a month. Hit him up again. He’s like, ‘My bad, swamped post WrestleMania. Let’s set a call. ‘Then we set a call, and he’s like, ‘What do you think about joining our kickoff shows?’ He’s got two things for me. They’re thinking about doing a thing on kickoff shows where we bring in someone to be like a guest analyst. Meanwhile, Sam is having a separate conversation about the same thing through Michael Cole. I don’t speak for Sam, but I’m pretty sure through Cole. So Chambers says I want to talk about that. And we also have a show idea for you to maybe host, which turned out to be the show, Bring it to the Table, which we did for a season, me Graves and JBL, which was a ball. When I go back and watch it every once in a while, now it still exists, I think it’s up on Peacock. It was a pretty cool show that we did. We were straddling the line, but within WWE programming, it was cool stuff. And he said, ‘So what do you think about coming and doing that?’ I was like Yeah, dude, and that was it. I was a Chris Chambers guy, and then Chambers moved on and was doing different stuff, and then retired from the company in the last couple years, and plays a lot of golf in Florida now. But shout out to Chris Chambers. He’s my dude. And shout out to Coach, because without Coach asking me to come along for that journey, yeah, I never would have ended up here.”
