Dinsmore got a similar response when WWE creative team members would come down to Louisville. He eventually came up with a plan to try to manipulate his way onto the main roster: Tell his friend, Doug Basham, who had already been called up, that he was looking to quit WWE and go to Japan…despite not having any actual contacts in Japan.

“I just wanted to see what would happen,” Dinsmore continued. “So Doug tells Dean Malenko, Dean tells Johnny Ace, [and the] next thing I know, February 2004, I’m sitting in a meeting with Vince McMahon and Stephanie. Vince goes ‘I want to get back to character-based wrestling!’ And I just spit out that idea. Right after that, ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin walks in.”

Vince asked Austin if he had ever seen Dinsmore wrestle, and Austin said he didn’t think so, but then Nick mentioned that he was trained by “Nightmare” Danny Davis, who he knew that Austin had befriended when they both worked for the USWA in Austin’s early years.