What’s going on with Lars Sullivan?
According to Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Sullivan was scheduled to make his first-ever appearance as a member of the main roster at Raw last Monday — likely in a dark match. He either didn’t show up at the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida or left before his scheduled appearance, with the reason being given that he had an anxiety attack.
WWE management spoke to Sullivan and their feeling afterward was that “everything was fine.” His main roster debut — a dark match — was then rescheduled for the following night’s SmackDown LIVE event in Jacksonville, Florida, but he didn’t show up at the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena. He was said to have flown back to his home in Colorado.
Adding some intrigue to the story, WrestleVotes noted Friday that Sullivan did not fly home to Colorado since he was never in Florida. Instead, their source suggest he failed to travel to Florida.
Following up on this story with new details;, source tells us Lars Sullivan did not go home from TV this week, he was never in either Orlando or Jacksonville. Was scheduled to be, and just didn’t arrive. No word on what the reaction was just yet. https://t.co/07WLmvjWHt
— WrestleVotes (@WrestleVotes) January 12, 2019
WrestleVotes reiterated this today, saying Sullivan wasn’t at TV at all.
Lars wasn’t at TV. We never said anything about him “walking out.” As of last weekend, he was scheduled to be there, and he wasn’t. That’s it. https://t.co/pqlVXrfJNT
— WrestleVotes (@WrestleVotes) January 14, 2019
A WWE source said over the weekend that the report of Sullivan having an anxiety attack is indeed true as management tried to help him through the issues. Sullivan though has not been in contact with management since last week.
Prior to Sullivan’s no-shows, WWE planned on having Sullivan face John Cena at WrestleMania 35. According to the source, WWE planned on having Sullivan make his television debut next Monday on Raw in some sort of pre-taped, non-wrestling segment to kick off his storyline with Cena. However, with his continued absence and lack of communication with WWE, that segment is now in “serious jeopardy” and his scheduled match with Cena at WrestleMania is also up in the air.
According to the source, Vince McMahon is extremely unhappy at this turn of events and the heat is falling on Triple H, who reportedly pushed for Sullivan’s promotion to the main roster and advocated for his impending mega push.
There’s no word yet on whether Sullivan will be at Raw tonight in Memphis, Tennessee and/or SmackDown LIVE tomorrow night in Birmingham, Alabama. Both F4WOnline.com and PWInsider.com noted over the weekend that fellow NXT call-ups EC3, Lacey Evans, Nikki Cross, and Heavy Machinery are all scheduled to be at Raw and SmackDown LIVE, but they hadn’t heard anything about Sullivan.
