Fired WWE Stars Say They Were “Banned” From TV
Two recently released WWE stars claim they were banned from television toward the end of their time in the company.
In the wake of WWE’s merger with UFC under parent company Endeavor, more than 100 staff members were let go from the company on September 15th. While the layoffs initially affected office staff, a report indicated that talent cuts were also on the way.
Sure enough, on September 21st, multiple stars were released from their WWE contracts, including former World Heavyweight Champion Dolph Ziggler. The releases have reportedly caused frustration backstage as the company announced a new huge money deal for SmackDown the very same day. A full list of talent released from WWE on the 21st can be found here.
Among the names of those given their walking papers were Maximum Male Models Mace and Mansoor, who hadn’t wrestled on WWE television since taking part in a battle royal on Raw back in May. Speaking on a Twitch stream the day of their release, the two opened up about the situation.
Mace told how he found out he was fired, revealing that he missed the initial call from WWE when he was driving his daughter to school.
“When everybody messaged us, they messaged us together, as we share one brain cell. We figured they would call us both at the same time. My firing story is, I was driving my beautiful daughter to school. We were going through a dead zone. There is a dead zone between my house and her school. I didn’t get anything.
“You had informed me that you were fired. I thought I was safe. I had driven through a dead zone, apparently, I should have stayed because when I left the dead zone after dropping off my daughter, I had received a text that said, ‘Call me back.’ I called back and it starts off with small talk. I have Twitter. I know why you’re calling. You’re not calling to say hello. That was it. Unexpected? In, maybe not today.”
Mansoor Claims Maximum Male Models Were Banned From WWE TV
Mansoor then chimed in, noting that the two had stopped traveling when they were “banned from TV.” He didn’t elaborate on that, saying he’d save the story for an eventual book.
“Unexpected in the sense that, I won’t get into it…it sounds egotistical. I personally felt like there was a lot of untapped potential. After the time we stopped traveling, when we were banned from TV. Not going to get into that, that’s for my book. Right after the time we stopped traveling, we put together these….we flew to Stamford to meet with the creative team of Raw and we presented two pitch videos.”
The star posted one of these pitch videos to social media, showing the two men in a vignette heavily inspired by Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs.
https://twitter.com/suavemansoor/status/1705301609645768850
Mansoor also revealed that he was asleep when he got the call about his release, and that he was confused as it was a Chicago-area phone number. The two joked that he thought CM Punk was calling him, but it was in fact the head of Talent Relations.
h/t Fightful