Former WWE Superstar Mike Bennett recently conducted an interview with Wrestling Inc. He discussed his WWE tenure, requesting his release from the company in a public forum, and actively trying to upset Vince McMahon.
Here are some highlights of the interview:
On making his release request public:
“They were not happy, but I had known that it would piss them off, and that was the point because I was mad because I had gone to them constantly. And this is what, I think, a lot of wrestling fans don’t understand is that me asking for my release was just a last desperation effort. I had done all I could do behind the scenes. I had talked to Vince. I had talked to head of talent relations. I had asked for my release privately backstage. Twice I had asked for it backstage privately to which I was denied. My wife never asked for her release, which drives me nuts. My wife was fine staying there. She was like, ‘I’m good. I’ll do what they want me to do.’ She was good, and so like, it was always just me. I wanted to be done, and I had discussions with her. I was like, ‘if I ask for my release, are you okay with that?’ And she was OK, and so like this was a boiling point of building up to the point where I finally, I had reached out to them.”
On continually asking for his release:
“And the day I asked for my release, I had finally got to the point where I had texted head of talent relations. This was the third time I asked him for my release, and I think something came up that really, I was like, ‘alright, I’m done.’ And I said, ‘look, I’m done. I don’t want to work here anymore.’ I said, ‘I don’t want to discuss this because I’ve talked to you twice about it. You guys have denied it to me.’ I said, ‘I don’t want to be here anymore. I’m not enjoying it.’ I said, ‘let me go. Let me go for two years. Maybe I can come back.’ I was trying be very professional about it, and then, they ignored me. They ignored me all day. They didn’t respond to my text. They didn’t say, ‘hey, let me call you.’ They said nothing to me. They ignored me for almost eight hours, and then finally I went, ‘that’s not right.’ You’re talent relations. Your job is to talk to the talent, and they ignored me all day. So finally I said, ‘alright, I’m going to put it publicly because that will get their attention,’ and so I did and, was it the right way to go? I don’t know, but I had to take a stand for myself and that got their attention.”
On WWE not allowing wrestlers to just quit, even though they are ‘independent contractors’:
“No, you can ask. You should be able to as independent contractors,” Bennett pointed out. They have to approve it. They have to say, ‘yes, we’re letting you out of your contract,’ which is so ass backwards to me and doesn’t make sense. It was one thing that really bothered me when we got released in April because people were coming at me because in one of the first interviews I did, I was like, ‘it kind of sucks to be released in the middle of a pandemic.’ And people were like, well you asked for it blah blah blah, and I was like, I asked for it back in October when I had places to go and there were companies to work for. And they told me no, and then they released me when I couldn’t go work other places.”
Some interesting comments from the man once known as ‘The Miracle’. His WWE tenure wasn’t as successful as he would of liked, but hopefully in this next chapter of his career he can find a great wrestling company to work for, and continue his promising career.
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