WWE star Karl Anderson recently appeared on the Out of Character podcast for an interview covering all things pro wrestling. During the discussion, Anderson commented on why he returned to WWE:
“When we were released by the WWE in April of 2020, I think it caught us by surprise. Being an emotional and fiery person that wants the best out of his profession, there were feelings of angst and anger about it. I wasn’t sure that we’d come back either, so that’s why we made sure that for those two years that we were gone, we hit it hard and we didn’t take any breaks. I was almost busier than a lot of people in the industry for those couple of years. It feels like the more that we were gone, the more we started feeling like, some conversation started happening, and then some of the angst goes away, and then you start to just realize that some of that might have just been the passion that we have inside of us anyway just to be the best.”
“So next thing you know, it’s two years later after being released and it was just time. We got a couple texts, a couple texts sent back, and then we got a call from Triple H and it was like right around the time our Impact contract was finishing. We sat down and we fixed it and figured it out. I’m happy that it happened, I’m happy it worked out, and everything’s going really well right now.”
“Sometimes you gotta man up. Maybe I said some things, absolutely said some things, that I think were said out of passion. When you’re angry about something or if you’re worked up about something, you’re gonna say what you feel and say what you think might be right or might not be right, but who knows what was going on behind the scenes that time. Who knows what was going on behind the scenes now sometimes. I don’t know all that stuff and who knows who was calling the shots at certain points at that time in 2020. I’m just glad that we’re able to work it out, fix it, and just be men and move on.”
Mia Yim being part of the O.C.:
“I always thought Mia looks great. She is a good wrestler. She’s done her thing, she’s been around, but we never talked. It was just like a quick hello and you know, never hung out. Didn’t know her well. Like, yeah, she’s gonna be in the OC and we were all kind of like, ‘Well, I mean, okay. I don’t know how it’s gonna work.’ Now that we’ve been around her, it’s like, dude, how did we miss this because she’s such a good sister. Not to be a pawn or whatever, but she really is. She’s so cool. She fits in so well. She’s so easy to work with. I think she’s got such an upside. I mean, there’s so much there that hasn’t even been, like lately, especially with the OC now. There’s so much to it with AJ just now coming back. There’s so much that we can finally start doing. It’s like we all are just kind of itching, like, let’s get us rockin’.”
“She’s the equalizer of the group. I think she adds such a cool element because everyone’s AJ Styles. They’ve seen the Good Brothers with AJ. They know what we have and it just adds another really cool element with her. She really is so cool and she’s so nice and she’s got like this visual charisma that the WWE really hasn’t got a chance to see. She was in NXT before and I think her only chance up on RAW before was with that group where she had a mask on or something. I think it’s good that she can be herself now and like I said, we’re itching to get The OC moving.”
You can check out the complete interview below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
