During a recent edition of the “Submission Squad” podcast, ACH commented on the WWE t-shirt controversy that eventually led to him going on multiple rants on social media and then quitting the company. You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On his initial reaction to the shirt: “It hurt my heart too, when the shirt got released, because I was angry. And then everything just kind of came to a head, because I was angry at the shirt, and then to me, it brought up a lot of s**t from ROH. Because again, that’s how I always felt ROH viewed me as. ‘Oh, you’re just a high flyer. That’s all you can do.’ You know what I mean? Like, that’s it. So when [WWE] released this shirt of the minstrel show, it was like, ‘Is that what I am? Am I just a joke? Am I just like something that no one takes serious? Is that what I am?”
On his smiling gimmick: “And it was funny because I was told to smile. No, I was told to smile because that’s a Vince thing. Vince likes that. Now, when I got there, I wasn’t smiling at all. I would just come out, have a straight face and I would wrestle. That was my thing, and I was told, ‘You should smile more.’ And I went, ‘Okay! You want me to smile more, you got it!’ [laughs] And I smiled. I smiled a f**king lot. And I’m one of those people, you tell me to do something and if I’m not feeling it? I’m gonna do it, because it’s my job. But I’m gonna turn that motherf**ker up to 10, and that’s exactly what I did.”
On having fun before the shirt situation: “I was having the time of my life there, I really was. I enjoyed my time there, I really did. But then when they released that shirt, is when I got angry. And then I made a lot of comments that I’m not gonna take back, because that’s just how I feel. Now, could I have said them a lot better? Absolutely. I said a lot of things out of anger. If I would’ve said those things with like, a little bit more intelligently and calmly, and came from a real place and not an angry place? I think it would’ve been okay. But the fact that I was just so angry and mad, and disrespected, and I just felt like a joke. You know what I mean? You work your whole entire life — and I don’t even take myself serious. But the fact that they did that was like, f**k, that’s embarrassing. This ain’t just a couple of people laughing at you or making fun of you, or talking about you. This is a [lot] — this is millions of people mocking you, you know what I mean? And I was angry, I was mad. And it just brought up a lot of s**t, the ROH stuff and everything. Like, that’s just how it is, man.”
On saying he was lied to about the situation: “My main concern when I would talk to them was like, ‘Yo, I was lied to.’ Like, the shirt, I was like, see, mistakes like that can happen. That’s what I was thinking, like ‘Maybe it’s a mistake.’ But I was also lied to. Like, this guy lied to my face. He said I approved the shirt when I didn’t approve the shirt. That was another thing that got me hot, when the released the, ‘Well, he approved it’ [statement]. No I didn’t! The dude told me that was Triple H’s vision for me. So how am I supposed to feel if I’m working for this guy and he thinks that’s what I look like? And then when you’re being told, ‘Oh no, I thought that was the Rolling Stones. I thought it looked like the Rolling Stones lips.’ What? How do you get that from that? I even had like, I had Googled it and I put them side by side. And the Rolling Stones lips looks nothing like this T-shirt logo. That dude lied to my face. I offered another logo. I even offered to work together to come up with something else as well. And like, he came back to me and was like, ‘Yeah, Triple H just didn’t like that one. He thought that this one fits more. This is his vision for you. This is the one he wants to go with.’ So I was like, ‘Okay, well, all said, so okay.’ But I knew something up, I just felt something, so I wanted to talk to him in person about it and kind of like see where he’s coming from. Like, maybe something could be wrong, maybe this is not what it was. So when I talked to him in person, he goes, “I thought you approved of that.’ What? I looked at him with this look of like, ‘No! What?’ So instead of lashing out at him like, ‘No, n***a, you did this to me,’ I was like, ‘No, I’m gonna talk to this dude Baker, I’m gonna holler at him and see what’s up.’ Because now, someone is lying, and it ain’t me because I didn’t approve of the shirt.”
On whether he’s been in touch with WWE since: “I haven’t heard anything. The only thing that I hear about is when I get my merchandise check, that’s about it. And it’s not from the T-Shirt, it’s from being in [WWE SuperCard] that I was in for SummerSlam last year. That’s the only thing, I haven’t heard anything. And at this point, I honestly feel like I’m not going to hear anything, you know? And it sucks because my mom, I feel in my heart my mom so desperately wants me to be there. Because she was like, ‘That’s your dream, you should maybe try to reach out, maybe try to talk.’ I can hear it in my mom’s voice, she wants me to be there badly. And I don’t know how to tell her how the business is, and I don’t know if she maybe knows everything that happened on the internet. I know she knows people say mean things about me, because she has approached me about it, and my aunt has told her about some of the things that people say. But I honestly don’t think they care. I don’t think they care. Because if they cared, they would have tried to fix it. You know what I mean? They would have tried to help the situation. And I don’t feel like they genuinely care.”
