Former WWE Superstar Shane Thorne has said that there was a pitch for Vince McMahon to be revealed as the leader of Retribution.
As part of the group, Thorne competed as ‘Slapjack,’ alongside other NXT call-ups like Mia Yim and Dominik Dijakovic but had little success on the main roster.
Appearing on ‘The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling‘ podcast, Thorne discussed pitched ideas for the group, saying:
“We pitched ideas to have a lot of different people as the leader like Shane McMahon, Edge, or someone higher. We pitched for Vince to be the leader as well. We went as high as possible with who the leader would be. We wanted to be attached with one of the main characters. I guess, at the start, we were. We were doing stuff with Bray Wyatt and Hurt Business.”
Speaking about the name Slapjack, Thorne immediately knew it was a bad call, saying:
“We were in the opening segment, it could have been the first time we had the masks. We were running through it. We had to run backstage and as we run backstage, we get pulled aside and were like, ‘here are your new names; SLAPJACK, T-BAR, MACE, RECKONING.’ We were just like…the wheels are off. I know what a slapjack is, but I wanted to hear it from them. ‘What a slapjack?’ ‘It’s this badass weapon.’ I knew it was going to be bad.”
After Retribution split, Thorne was given a gimmick playing on Australian character Crocodile Dundee but was released from WWE in November before the character made it to air.
