Wrestling / Elias

Walk. With. Elias.

"...so if you could just silence your cell phones, hold your applause until after I'm finished, and most importantly, do me a favor and shut your mouths!"

Jeffrey Daniel Sciullo (born November 20, 1987) is an American professional wrestler and musician best known for his time in WWE, under the ring name Elias.

After the spending early years of his career wrestling in various independent promotions, he was signed to WWE's NXT brand as Elias Samson, where he made his television debut on April 24, 2014. In April of 2017, he was called up to the main roster. He is a four-time WWE 24/7 Champion.

After months of inactivity, his contract expired on September 14, 2023. He now wrestles in the independent circuit as Elijah.

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"Who wants to trope with Elias?"

• Always Introduces Themselves: All his segments start with a guitar riff and him saying "Hello, I am Elias." When he and Bayley were paired up for the Mixed Match Challenge, they not only introduced themselves individually but played a short guitar duo together.
• Anti-Hero: Even as a face, Elias is still rude to other wrestlers and isn't above messing with Baron Corbin when he's not even pulling anything on him.
• Arch-Enemy: Bobby Lashley and Baron Corbin. Jeff Jarrett and Jeff Hardy after his Face–Heel Turn.
• Ascended Extra: Was a former rosebud.
• Beard of Evil: As a heel.
• Berserk Button:
  • Never interrupt him when he's trying to sing.
  • Don't ever compare him to Jeff Jarrett. Or be Jeff Jarrett, for that matter. Double J found out the hard way when he not only interrupted Elias just as he was about to start to sing but also tried to do a duet with him at the 2019 Royal Rumble.
• Breakout Character: Was brought up to Raw for little reason other than jobbing. The gimmick struck a chord with crowds and by early 2018 he become one of the most over stars on the brand leading to a feud with Braun Strowman who enjoyed a similar rise in popularity around the same time.
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • The drawback of being a lone drifter is that you have no friends to give you advice when you're about to do something incredibly stupid - like smash a guitar over the neck of BRAUN FREAKING STROWMAN. Predictably, Braun was not happy about this, and he responded the next week by beating the hell out of Elias, dragging him up the ramp, and then returning the favor with a double bass. You know, the giant stringed instrument that's taller than most grown men.
  • Becomes the dragon later on, when Baron Corbin tries to shoo him off the stage when he's trying to cut a promo, going far enough to cut his mic. Elias, understandably annoyed, responds by smashing his guitar into Corbin's back.
• Butt-Monkey: Constantly, constantly, has his segments interrupted by another wrestler from the locker room; most of those interruptions end with him getting beaten up, sometimes with his own guitar. Occasionally he does get the upper hand on his interrupter, but not nearly as often. He also lost his first championship in the same night that he won it.
• Career-Ending Injury: "Ezekiel"'s young career was cut short by a back injury he received from his Arch-Enemy Kevin Owens.
• Casanova Wannabe: During his heel runs, he seems to have a bit of a horndog streak, which surfaces from time to time to varying degrees. During one time when he was interrupted by Trish Stratus, his condescending exchange with her indicated that he seemed to remember more that during her time there were bra and panties matches (rather than, say, Trish being a 7-time Women's Champion), which earned him a slap to the face; and there was the time at Fastlane 2019 where he stared too long at Lacey Evans doing her walk through the entrance ramp (which was her schtick at the time), allowing Randy Orton to hit him with a RKO.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "Who wants to walk with the Drifter/Elias?"
  • "WWE stands for Walk. With. Elias."
  • "Silence your cell phones, hold your applause, and shut your mouths." He omitted the "shut your mouths" part during his brief Face run.
• Charlie Brown from Outta Town:
  • After being fired from NXT, he came back the following week under a mask as El Vagabundo— the Spanish translation of his usual Red Baron. Other than the mask, he was wearing the same outfit and even carrying the same guitar around as usual. Oney Lorcan ripped his mask off mid-match before defeating him, and he was promptly ejected from the arena after the bell.
  • Happened again on the Raw after WrestleMania 38, this time claiming to be Ezekiel, Elias' younger brother. With shorter hair, a shaven face, and trunks. Interestingly, he was promptly established as a face by way of (a) acting completely earnest and polite, and (b) chronic liar Kevin Owens being the only one not buying this identity, and losing his mind over it while reminding everyone how much he hates liars. But there are photos of Elias and Ezekiel together (totally not Photoshopped), and if Ezekiel just happens to do some of Elias's moves, well, obviously he would've learned some things from his older brother, right?
• Cloudcuckoolander: He's not entirely there, given that he was coming up with lyrics in his head while Baron Corbin was trying to get him to leave the stage. At that point he outright admitted that he was lost in his own world for a moment. There's also the fact that he tends to appear strumming his guitar in the most unlikeliest of places, most of the time just a typical backstage area, but also one time atop a production truck.
• Curse Cut Short: Baron Corbin cuts off his mic just in time to get past the censors.
  Elias: But now you're just a giant puppet with Stephanie's hand up your a—
  Corbin: Cut it!
• Deadpan Snarker: He's not without his witty moments.
  Baron Corbin: And I was talking to Stephanie McMahon, the commissioner of Mo-
  Elias: I know who Stephanie McMahon is.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Sings and plays the guitar for his own theme song, Amen (I'm Going In).
• The Drifter: It's his entire gimmick, even down to being his Red Baron.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: With a gimmick that's 90% about talking to the audience and either insulting the crowd or running down an unpopular heel, you'd never guess he was originally booked as more of a strong, silent type.
• Eye Take: His reaction to having his segment on the RAW after WrestleMania 35 interrupted by The Undertaker's gong.
• Face–Heel Turn:
  • After Royal Rumble 2019, Elias turned heel again after insulting the crowd, proclaiming that they dissapointed him for lackluster reactions towards him, and was subsequently interrupted by Jarrett and Road Dogg, who proceeded to sing "With My Baby Tonight" until Elias attacked both men with his guitar.
  • In the 2020 WWE Draft, Elias made his return to RAW by attacking Jeff Hardy with his guitar.
• Finishing Move: The Drift Away, a fisherman neckbreaker.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: A minor recurring gag consisted of Elias foreshadowing the interruption to his musical segment himself, overlapping a bit with Speak of the Devil.
  • During the RAW after WrestleMania 35, he spoke on John Cena interrupting his WrestleMania segment, and said that "the next one to interrupt [him] is a dead man." Cue gong.
  • The next week, on RAW's Superstar Shakeup show, he said that if anyone interrupts him, they will never "be able to show their face again!" Cue Rey Mysterio.
  • And yet the very next day, on Smackdown Live, he said that as the "biggest acquisition of Smackdown Live" by Vince McMahon, he will be "taking the rei(g)ns" of the show. Cue The Big Dog.
• Flipping the Bird: Downplayed. During the RAW after WrestleMania 35, while speaking about how John Cena had interrupted his segment at the PPV, he gave a PG version of the bird, simply holding up three fingers and dedicating the middle one to Cena.
• Foil: Surprisingly, both Elias and Ezekiel are polar opposites of each other. Elias is a musician who works alone and is a brawler, while Ezekiel has the looks of a 80's wrestler who gets along with everyone and is a powerhouse. Even their catchphrases are similar: "Walk With Elias" and "Speak With Zeke".
• Fun with Acronyms: If you ask him, WWE stands for "Walk With Elias."
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • On the October 22, 2018 edition of Raw, Elias turned face after attacking Baron Corbin from behind, who had previously told him to stop playing his song.
  • In early 2019 Elias turned heel. After returning from an injury in late 2019, Elias was a face again.
  • In 2022, after being absent for several months following his last heel run, "Ezekiel" was received as a face due to his earnest demeanor being a foil to Kevin Owens' hypocritical lying heel.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: The first time he turned, he was only a face for barely three months before turning heel again.
• "I Am" Song: In this video, he sings about the NXT title history and ends it by singing on how he will be the next champion.
• Improbable Weapon User: Will not hesitate to El Kabong you - that is, smash his acoustic guitar over your back.
• Irony: The post-Takeover episode in Brooklyn had Bull Dempsey completing his repackaging by beating Samson in his new gimmick's infancy. Four months later, the post-Takeover episode in London had Samson completing his repackaging by decisively toppling Dempsey.
• It Only Works Once: Drake Maverick learns the hard way in his pursuit of the 24/7 championship that you can't pull the "referee-in-disguise" trick and fool him when it's already been pulled so many other times throughout the title's history. He promptly gets choked out and thrown back into the box he was hiding in for his efforts.
• Jobber Entrance: The August 8, 2022 edition of Raw had Ezekiel come out to one, foreshadowing his No-Holds-Barred Beatdown at the hands of Kevin Owens.
• Large Ham: When he has his guitar and the spotlight on him, Elias milks his screentime for all its worth.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain:
  • Despite the number of times he's been beaten up over the years, he's still a good wrestler, and occasionally gets a chance to show that fact off by winning his match.
  • At the Greatest Royal Rumble, he scored five eliminations, including Kofi Kingston, Xavier Woods, Kurt Angle and Randy Orton.
• Odd Couple: He, a grumpy loner whose gimmick heavily incorporates live music performances, was paired with Bayley, a cheerful All-Loving Hero whose gimmick had no music other than her theme song, during the Mixed Match Challenge.
• Only One Name: The 'Samson' was dropped at some point in 2017.
• Running Gag: Has he gotten through a full song in a promo without getting interrupted by someone else's entrance music at any point since he started this gimmick?
• Sitcom Archnemesis: For a long time, Corey Graves, who wasn't happy that Elias is from Pittsburgh as well and was incorrigibly convinced that Elias was a Dreadful Musician.
• The Stoic: Not particularly expressive unless he's either singing and playing his guitar or beating on an opponent. Not much can get a rise out of him period, as when an irate Braun Strowman came up behind him upon overhearing him revealing that he saw where Baron Corbin went, he changed his song around to rat out Corbin's hiding place without even missing a beat.
• Tempting Fate: On the April 8th, 2019 RAW, Elias declared that the next man who interrupted him was a dead man. Oops...
• Took a Level in Badass: Was initially still a jobber in the Drifter gimmick's early stages.
  • On the main roster, he goes from jobbing to Jason Jordan on Pay-Per-View to pinning former WWE Champion Jinder Mahal clean on live TV.
• Troll: His Catchphrase is... well, catchy, which has given him something of an Ensemble Dark Horse status. He often pops the crowd with his catch phrases much like a face would, before immediately going into one of his songs, which are not only annoying, but typically have lyrics cutting down the crowd, city, and/or home sports team(s) du jour. As of May 2018, this effort at cheap heat has started to fail; he's gained enough popularity with the crowd that he still gets cheered for calling them idiots. Finally led to a Heel–Face Turn in October, which included redirecting one catch phrase pretty much verbatim toward Baron Corbin:
  "...so if you could just silence your cell phone, hold your applause until after I'm finished, and most importantly, do me a favor and shut your damn mouth!''"
• Unexpected Character:invoked His jump to the main roster came out of nowhere and was not preceded by any sort of push or high-profile feud on NXT.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The whole chain of events that resulted in Finn Balor challenging Brock Lesnar at Royal Rumble instead of Strowman, and Strowman in turn replacing John Cena in the Rumble match itself, was set off by Elias ratting Baron Corbin out to Strowman in an earlier show, who turned out to have hidden in the limo of Vince McMahon.
• "The Villain Sucks" Song: As a face, he uses his musical talents to insult and mock heels.
• The Worf Effect: Ezekiel, in the few months he was on Raw, was established as an old-school powerhouse who could mix it up with Chad Gable and Kevin Owens. So when Kevin Owens reverted to his old "Prizefighter" self, Ezekiel became Kevin's first victim with an Apron Powerbomb sending him into early "retirement".
• Wild Card: Elias's morality appears to be proportionate to people's willingness to get behind him and let him finish his songs. He pulls a Heel–Face Turn when the crowd is going wild for him, and switches back when he's convinced that they've turned on him. Any attempts to interrupt him when he's trying to cut a promo will invariably end in either a match or guitar smash, regardless of who's doing it. True to his status a Drifter, he's far more independent with his endeavors, very rarely getting into any tag matches or interferences.