Ridge Holland Opens Up About Ending Big E’s WWE In-Ring Career, If He Was Forgiven

Ridge Holland has expressed sadness regarding the dangerous move that ended Big E’s WWE career during a match on SmackDown.

The WWE departure of former NXT Tag Team Champion Ridge Holland has been an ugly one. After suffering a foot injury in a TNA match, WWE informed Holland that his contract wouldn’t be renewed, which put an end to his seven-year run in the company.

After news of Holland’s release broke, he chose to vent online, which led WWE to terminate his contract early.

Ridge Holland has admitted regretting his decision to complain online, saying he felt like venting about the situation. This was done on a new YouTube channel that Holland, whose real name is Luke Menzies, launched to address his WWE release and other parts of his career.

During a tag team match on the March 11th, 2022 edition of SmackDown, Big E teamed up with Kofi Kingston to take on Sheamus and Ridge Holland. It was the last match that Big E ever had because Holland gave him a belly-to-belly suplex on the floor that saw Big E land on the top of his head. Big E suffered a broken neck, and in the 3.5 years since then, he hasn’t been cleared to compete in a WWE ring again. While it’s possible that Big E could get cleared in the future, it’s more likely that was his last match.

Following the Big E neck injury incident, Holland dealt with a lot of hate from angry fans who were mad that his move had injured Big E. It was even used in future storylines during his recent NXT run.

For the first time since it happened, Holland opened up more than ever about Big E’s neck injury. Holland expressed regret about it and obviously wishes it had never happened.

“Obviously the thing that affected me more than anything was the Big E thing. I just want to say that if I had a time machine, right here right now, the first thing I’d do is go back and not do that spot. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about what happened. There probably will not be a day where I don’t think about it.

“What happened was we were supposed to have a meeting with Vince (McMahon), and it kept getting pushed back because other people took priority, you had guys higher on the card that wanted to speak to Vince, so our meeting kept getting pushed back, and pushed back.

“We got in there, and we had a really good chat, and by the time we got out it was like 12 minutes to bell time, so we had 20 minutes to put this match together.

“The spot was Big E goes for that Suicide Spear, I move at the last minute, he eats s**t then I hit him with the Belly To Belly to put an exclamation point on that. On retrospect, what should have happened was Suicide Dive, that’s it, move on.

“Whether I didn’t give him enough, he didn’t give me enough, things go wrong, it’s not ballet, and it unfortunately happened and I’ll always regret that spot.”

Ridge Holland Is Grateful That Big E Forgave Him

As he continued, Ridge spoke about how Big E did find it in his heart to forgive him, and that meant a lot to Ridge.

“I’m grateful that Big E, the class of human he is, forgave me and he’s been able to be so positive and move on with his life and go into punditry and all the stuff he does for the community, so he’s killing it.

“He’s such a good human being and I wish nothing but the best for him, and just for people out there that think there might have been any malice in there, there wasn’t, and if I could change it I would in a heartbeat.

“But what happened was it really shook my confidence. I contemplated quitting to be honest. When you’re going out there on the main roster in a worldwide spotlight, the last thing you want is your confidence to go, because it shows in your performances. As soon as you go out of the curtain, the people know. I think that’s what really harmed me from connecting, and I wasn’t in the right headspace to go out there to be honest.

“I’m just glad I had people out there to support me, my wife, my kids, and guys like Pete (Dunne) and Sheamus to pull me up by my boot straps and say, ‘Come on, we’ve got this.’”

A GoFundMe fundraiser was set up to help Menzies/Holland and his family following his WWE departure. Several WWE superstars have already donated to it, including WWE’s Chelsea Green and Omos, along with TNA’s Nick Jackson and Kyle Fletcher, among others.

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