Ex-WWE Star Almost Made Shock Return
Former WWE Superstar Maven has revealed that he almost made a shock return to the company in 2019.
Maven Huffman rose to fame in 2001 after becoming a co-winner of the inaugural season of Tough Enough, a reality show searching for new WWE talent that aired on MTV.
Huffman was selected as a winner of Season One alongside Nidia Guenard, who went on to enjoy modest success in WWE as part of an on-screen couple with Jamie Noble.
Maven made a bright start to his WWE career, famously eliminating The Undertaker from the 2002 Royal Rumble. He has previously spoken about drinking with The Deadman before the career changing moment.
Unfortunately, Maven never hit the heights that the company had hoped and was handed his release in July 2005.
In a recent revelation on his YouTube channel, the 47-year-old revealed that he was close to a surprise return to WWE in 2019.
After contacting his friend D-Von Dudley, a WWE Producer at the time, about the possibility of working at the announce desk, and was soon handed a trial at the WWE Performance Center:
“Tom [Phillips] took me back into a room where they had several monitors set up. What they do with these monitors is they practice, they get themselves ready for live television and they get themselves ready by calling old matches. And that’s what we were going to do that day.
He knew I was buddies with Matt Cardona so he actually pulled one of Matt’s and Brian’s old tag matches out just to help aid me with my comfort level. So we then spend the next few hours just calling different matches and he’s guiding me.”
Huffman impressed bosses enough to be offered a position by the company, which he swiftly accepted:
“They say ‘Maven if you were given the opportunity to accept a job but we told you you had to move here and it would take you 6 to 12 months coming to this facility and just working by the monitors and just learning different matches is that’s something that you’re willing to do at this level and at this age?
And I said ‘Absolutely! I’ll start packing tonight! Tell me when I’ll move here as soon as possible!’”
Former WWE Star’s Return Ended By COVID-19 Pandemic
Sadly for the former Tough Enough winner, the arrival of COVID in 2020 saw the WWE change their plans and the opportunity was withdrawn:
“Within a month the entire world was on lockdown. WWE programming would stop. Live Events, they would only do studio shows in that location. Studio shows that only required a few announcers. Announcers they already had.”
H/T: SEScoops for the above transcription