Cameron Grimes’ WWE release surprised many because he never had a chance to prove himself on the main roster.
Grimes is under a 90-day non-compete clause and will most likely receive numerous offers from various wrestling promotions. He recently discussed being let go by the company during an interview with Busted Open Radio.
Why he believes he was released by WWE:
“That’s really what I’ve been trying to wrap my head around as well. You know, I got called up, well really, it was August of like 2023 is when I believe I was wrote off of NXT television to head up to the main roster. I started going up to the main roster, to SmackDown and going to the shows, but then still I wasn’t drafted on to the main roster until 2024 when they did the draft there. So there was probably like a good six to eight months that I was just traveling to the main roster waiting to make that transition.”
“At that time that’s when there was a different person in charge and everything. They just kind of told me that we’re waiting to get you started. So when the draft came around last year, that was their point of being like, ‘Okay, well, here’s a good way to lead you in now because we didn’t really have a story for you the past couple of months.’”
“I got drafted up. We had the match with Baron Corbin. It was funny because in that moment with Baron Corbin, he literally told me, ‘Hey, just so you know, nothing in NXT matters now.’ That was a quote that will always stick in my head. ‘Nothing in NXT matters now. Up here, everything’s new.’ Then literally two weeks later, everything in NXT mattered. You’ve seen guys getting brought from the NXT show onto our show.”
“I was just always told that they just didn’t really have an idea for me at the moment. I pitched a bunch of different ideas. I pitched a bunch of different character ideas because I had a feeling that the money thing just wasn’t going to work up there. They already kind of tried it with Corbin before I got up there with the JBL thing. I feel like that was very much because of the success that I had with the character of Cameron Grimes in NXT. I think that’s why they kind of went with that storyline.”
“Going right back to Baron Corbin the first time I met him, he said, ‘Hey, I’m the guy that stole your gimmick. Those are my two big quotes from Baron Corbin. Still a great guy, but it’s just things that stick in my head that make me remember.”
“Over the past few months, I had been going to writers and stuff and saying, ‘Hey, I just want to work. At the end of the day, I just want to work. I just want to work.’ I would hear that would make me kind of sound bitter. I don’t understand that process. I don’t understand how I came off as being kind of bitter. I guess every week when you’re asking to work, I guess it starts annoying people. I guess I could see that. It was strange to me.”
“Literally the last time I was at TV, I had a pretty high executive telling me because, you know, I was worried. Starting the stock market gimmick, it made me see businesses in a different light. Following these companies and playing with stocks, I would see things in a different light. I knew that I haven’t worked in over a year and I’m making a decent salary, so I knew that if someone wants to look at the books, I’m going to be the first person that’s going to be cut if you’re looking at it strictly as money-wise, but if you’re looking at it as like, ‘Okay, well, this is a talent that can do something for us’, they’re going to keep me. I was told by a high executive last week on Friday that I would always have a job here. I would never have to worry about losing my job here’, after expressing my concerns like that to him.”
If they had plans for him when he was brought up from NXT:
“There was never really like, we’re bringing you up for this reason. It was just more of like, we’re bringing you up because there’s not really much for you here on NXT anymore.”
“Before NXT 2.0 started, that’s when the Cameron Grimes character kind of started taking off and at that time, I remember Hunter telling me that he wanted the character to kind of transition into a more serious light and see what we could do with it because I’d kind of had the popularity going for me, so let’s let’s kind of make the character a little bit more serious and and kind of make him into a top guy type of spot.”
“Then the whole NXT 2.0 thing happened and it completely just changed the whole atmosphere of what was happening. Then instead of, you know, working guys that were all 10 plus year professionals, now I’m working guys that have been in the business for literally a second. We see those guys are doing great now, but in the conception of that, there were people there that were having to teach them and I became more of that role of like, okay, ‘Well now show these guys how to wrestle and get them into these spots.’ I was kind of pushed back to now being just kind of like a helper, which was fine. I mean, I was fine with that, but it got to the point in NXT where there was only so much I could do there.”
“So they’re like, ‘Okay, well, we’re gonna move you up to the main roster.’ Terry Taylor said, ‘You’re a stallion. You need to have a field you can run in and that’s where the main roster is going to be.’ I was excited to head up towards that and even if I didn’t have like a spot per se ready to go at that moment, I was just excited to get up there because where was I going to be able to learn the most, learning from the top guys on the main roster, or, or just kind of hanging in the back and at NXT and helping out those guys? So for me, I was just excited to kind of get up there and just get more knowledge. Even if it wasn’t ready for a spot, I knew that I would be ready for when that spot came. I got my body in the best shape of my life and I was ready. I was just excited to be up there.”
If he was excited to go to the main roster knowing Hunter was in creative after working with him in NXT:
“Yeah, that really excited me, but then what happened was as soon as I got brought up, there was that kind of struggle between the two, like Hunter wasn’t really in charge yet and Vince was still kind of in charge, so there was still that kind of battle going on between them. You were either like a Hunter guy or a Vince guy and at the time Vince was still in charge, so being a Hunter guy didn’t necessarily help you really that much during that period.”
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
