Days after former WWE Superstar Shad Gaspard was found dead at Venice Beach, a GoFundMe campaign was launched to aid his widow, Siliana, and their 10-year-old son Aryeh. The campaign broke the $100,000 goal with a whopping $40,000 coming from an anonymous down going by “CTC RIP.” Fans quickly guessed that John Cena was behind the donation given that he and Cryme Tyme briefly worked as a trio called Cryme Tyme Cenation back in 2008. JTG, Gaspard’s tag team partner, supported that theory when he appeared on this week’s Chasing Glory podcast with Lilian Garcia.
“I don’t know. I can’t 100 percent confirm, but I’m 99.9% percent sure,” JTG said “There was a donation for $40,000. The person they said donated the money was ‘CTC RIP,’ and CTC was a faction between Cryme Time and John Cena in 2008. That was the most fun I’ve ever had in the WWE was teaming with John Cena because I learned so much,”
Videos by ComicBook.com
He then recalled working together with the 16-time world champion on Raw.
“Shad and I were doing rookie mistakes every night. We had no clue and then teaming with him and making little, small change,” he said. “I remember, for example, there was something that I would do before I start the match. I would go to the crowd. I would lean over and say, ‘let’s get this started. Let’s get it poppin,’ just to get a reaction. John tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘don’t ever do that again. Don’t do that tomorrow,’ and I’m like OK? And then he explained to me why. You don’t need them to validate you in the beginning. You don’t go to them for validation. You let them validate you, just be you.”
He also recapped how he learned about Gaspard’s sudden disappearance last Sunday.
“Siliana called me Sunday night. I was getting ready to go to bed, and she called me from Shad’s phone, which when Shad calls me, I pick up on first, second ring,” he remembered. “We speak to each other every day. We text and speak on the phone everyday, but he called me that evening, and it was his wife. His wife had told me that Shad was missing. The first thing I thought was it was a prank because we always pranked each other. That’s Shad and I’s relationship. We roasted each other. We pulled pranks on each other, and that’s the first thing that came to mind, but for some reason, in the tone of her voice, if that was real, then she’s a good actress.
“I said I’m gonna go along with it,” he added. “I went to the shower, brushed my teeth and rushed over there, and then we were on the beach with flashlights looking for Shad. We were there for a few hours so it was a little past midnight. I think that day I accepted it. I had to accept it. I was waiting for a big bear hug from behind like, ‘hey, I got ya.’ Part of me is still waiting for that big bear hug from behind.”
