October 20th 2024.
The highly anticipated debut of Motor City Machine Guns on SmackDown was nothing short of explosive. After years of making a name for themselves in TNA Wrestling and beyond, fans were finally treated to the debut of tag team legends Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin on Friday's episode.
But as it turns out, fate almost brought the duo to WWE much earlier. In a recent interview with The Agency, Shelley and Sabin revealed that they had come close to joining WWE in the past.
In 2020, Shelley made a brief appearance on NXT alongside his Time Splitters partner KUSHIDA. And the year before, Sabin was brought in as a guest coach at the Performance Center. "I was there for a week, got to go down and see the facility, see how everything works. It was an amazing, super cool experience," Sabin shared.
Unfortunately, things didn't work out and they both ended up back at TNA Wrestling. "They didn't offer me anything, they didn't say, 'Keep in touch' or whatever. So, I ended up just going back with [TNA] Wrestling, that's just the way things work out," Sabin explained.
For Shelley, the pandemic put a halt to plans that had been in the works for years. "I had actually just coached at the PC maybe like two or three months before [appearing in NXT], and I saw KUSHIDA there. That was an incredible experience in and of itself," Shelley recalled during our conversation in June 2023.
"To be called back and asked to perform as a wrestler – and then to be given a very different treatment to most of the people that they would bring in too, to be brought in for house shows and have these video packages and such, it's like, wow! This is crazy!" he exclaimed.
Shelley admitted that it was an amazing experience and that everyone in WWE treated him "really well". But unfortunately, the pandemic made it impossible for a permanent deal to be made as he was still working as a physical therapy clinician.
"I was in that phase [of getting offers]," Shelley explained. "But once the pandemic shut everything down, it was like, whoa! I didn't sign a contract with any particular company at that point because you could see the entertainment industry just doing a nosedive, right? Everything was shutting down, and that wasn't just pro wrestling. That's concerts, that's movies, that's Hollywood, that's absolutely everything."
Interestingly, Shelley could have joined WWE 19 years ago. In 2005, he wrestled a one-off match on Sunday Night Heat against Simon Dean. "I'd actually asked for my release from TNA in December and I got it in January. I didn't really know what I was gonna do, but I knew I was gonna work my hardest," he shared.
In the spring of that year, Jimmy Jacobs asked him to do "extra work" with WWE, which he initially turned down due to jet lag after returning from Japan. But he was eventually convinced and ended up having a match against Simon Dean. "I'd known Tommy Dreamer since I was maybe 19 or 20, and he was handling that day. He saw me - mind you, full disclosure, I didn't really wanna wrestle, I just kinda wanted to see everything. I'm pale and I haven't been to the gym in three weeks because I've been in Japan. He goes, 'Alex Shelley'. 'Oh f**k!'" Shelley recalled with a laugh.
Despite his initial reservations, Shelley ended up having a "somewhat competitive" match with Dean, and after it was over, WWE mentioned a potential contract to him. "Literally the next day, less than 24 hours, Scott D'Amore - who at the time was kinda like an interim booker for TNA - called me," he revealed.
D'Amore wanted Shelley to work that year's Slammiversary, and the decision to join TNA meant that Shelley could continue to travel the world and build his reputation with companies like ROH, CZW, and Zero-1 Max. "My heroes were always the guys who had done everything all over the world - [Chris] Benoit, [Chris] Jericho, [Eddie] Guerrero, these guys are the upmost excellent wrestlers," Shelley explained.
"I thought, 'Well, I have to do that.' I'd just got my job in Japan and I thought, if I go with IMPACT, I can do IMPACT, Ring of Honor, CZW, and Japan, and I ended up doing that for a little while - which is pretty cool for a 21-year-old kid to do. In hindsight, I'm very, very happy I did that because being in Japan was massive for me, just massive," he added.
It's safe to say that things have worked out for the best for Motor City Machine Guns, who have built their reputation together around the world. And now, they have finally arrived in WWE, ready to take the tag team division by storm.
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