During his first post-WWE interview with Hugo Savinovich via Lucha Libre Online, Andrade talked about the end of his WWE run. Here are a few highlights translated from Spanish…
When he decided to leave: “When the pandemic started, they put me with Drew McIntyre. Drew was great with me and behaved well with me in NXT and on the main roster. We had the matches and a producer came to me and said, ‘Make sure Drew looks like a monster, because he’s the champ.’ Drew came to me and told me to wrestle how I know to wrestle, saying that he doesn’t need me to make him look good, but to wrestle how I wrestle best. A lot of people treated me well, Drew too and Randy Orton. [Randy] would ask me, ‘Why aren’t they using you?’ I didn’t know what to say and didn’t know what was going on. After that, I made the decision [to leave].”
Getting his release: “When I asked for my release, it was on a Monday. The following day, I had things with the company and I got COVID and my girlfriend also tested positive. No one knows about this. I got COVID and after I got it. On Sunday, [roughly a week] after getting COVID, I got a call and they gave me the release. It was what I wanted.”
How much he was making: “I’ve been with WWE. I had a great contract with WWE, a great contract. Three million per year. Several million dollars per year, a lot more than plenty of guys coming up from NXT. I heard about some of those contracts. I made a lot more than those guys.”
“Thank you for giving me a good contract. WWE is the 1 company in the world. Thank you.”
Hardest part of leaving WWE: “To make the decision, the hardest part was not getting to be close to Charlotte and going to events with [Charlotte].”
Future plans: “I want to go to Mexico. We are in talks with Chile. I want to go to Puerto Rico with Los Colón. I want to go to New Japan and there are many plans.”
How he started dating Charlotte: “Charlotte always caught my eye, but our love arose on a tour of Europe. I had fulfilled the dream of fighting Rey Mysterio and when I went to sleep, Karl Anderson called me to introduce me to a friend. It was Ashley [Charlotte] and out of respect I didn’t want to do anything. There were a lot of people from WWE there and I am very reserved. We started talking and we became friends. That’s where the relationship began. Charlotte introduced me to Ric Flair by surprise. I was paralyzed at the time, but Ric has always been very good to me.”
