During a recent interview with The Independent, WWE Champion Big E. commented on being worried about his future in WWE around the time of the Extreme Rules pay-per-view event in 2014, and more. You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On when he worried about his WWE future: “I was in a program with Bad News Barrett. He was super over and had that scissor lift and was getting great reactions. The night that I dropped the title, I was blowing my comeback and getting booed and, as a babyface, that’s the worst! When you’ve got your heel rocking and rolling and you’re getting booed… oh no! Things have gone awry! I ended up losing the title that night and it got to a point afterwards where [WWE agent] Road Dogg said: ‘We need to get you to work on something and find something because we have no plans for you right now.’ Thankfully, that same day [Xavier] Woods came up to me and pitched doing a faction [group]. That took some time to get going of course!”
On being restricted to one show before brand split: “It said that [I] wasn’t going to Raw anymore and was only needed for SmackDown… at the time it typically meant those people were either doing dark [non-televised] matches, and not long after were either back on [developmental show] NXT or were fired. For me that felt like, ‘Oh, my career is not going the way I wanted it to…” and that I was either going to be either demoted or let go very soon. Those were moments where I thought, ‘I need a life raft here,’ and I’m very grateful that some idea, some person came along at the right time and kept my career afloat. I look back at those moments and I’m thankful that I survived, thankful that I could ride those waves and those rough times, and I’m still here.”
On being seen as a nice guy: “I never want to lose myself to fit a certain mold or to feel like I need to be less nice to be a champion or a locker room leader. If that’s what it takes to be successful in this industry, that’s an industry I don’t need to be a part of. It is vitally important to me to be a human being I can be proud of and be the kind of person I want to be. That has been a point of emphasis for me during the pandemic: working on myself and growing. I feel like I have worked through a lot in my life, and I feel more clear about my purpose and direction. I don’t want to sit here and pat myself on the back for always doing the right thing, because I’m flawed, we all are – but it is very important to me to continue to do my best… to have a positive impact on people. There’s the mantra that people will often forget what you did for them, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel. I don’t know when my time on this earth will be over, but I hope that the world will be better off for having me.”