Category: International

Current Pro Wrestling NOAH GHC Heavyweight Champion Shane Haste reflects on the possibility of a potential WWE return.

Former WWE Superstar Shane Haste, known as Shane Thorne and Slapjack during his time with the company, recently spoke with Bodyslam.net‘s Wombeezy for an exclusive interview. During the discussion, the topic of a potential WWE return was brought up, to which Haste appears to be keeping the door open for a potential return one day, saying “I’d never say never again..”

Um, so yeah, I’d never say never again to us being there, but, uh, that’s, it’s all up to, you know, in like we, as wrestlers, some wrestlers do get to pick where they get to go and whatnot, but you just see like a lot of things with like fans being like, they should go to AEW, they should go to TNA.

I’m like, it’s not our choice. Like 90% of the time, it’s not up to us wrestlers to be like, yeah. Hey Tony, give me, yeah, I’ll go here. Give me what I want. You know what I mean? We don’t get that choice. We just got to go where the work is. Um, I’m very fortunate that my work has now led me back to NOAH and to the GHC title.

So you just never know when things are going to turn around and whatnot, but I would never say never to going back to, uh, New Japan again. I mean, TMDK is there. Um, I’d love to go back and be with the boys. I’d love the boys there to be with us in NOAH as well. Um, yeah, I’d go back to, I’d do TNA. I’d do AEW again for sure. I go back to WWE. I’m open to it. You know what I mean?

Shane Haste originally signed with WWE back in 2016 along with his tag team partner Mikey Nicholls. The two debuted on the NXT brand as part of the tag team TM-61. They competed in the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, making it to the finals in 2016 before an injury sidelined them.

Haste would then transition into singles competition under the ring name Shane Thorne, before briefly reforming TM-61 until his tag partner Mikey Nicholls, who was going by the ring name Nick Miller, would leave WWE in 2019. This would eventually lead to a main roster call up for Haste early in 2020.

In August of 2020, Haste would be repacked as the hockey mask wearing Slapjack as part of the Retribution stable, which also  consisted of Mustafa Ali, T-Bar (Dominik Dijakovic), and Mace (Mason Madden). The stable faced blowback from networks as it was viewed as being a “terrorist group,” which would lead to changes creatively before eventually quietly being disbanded.

Haste would then be kept off WWE programming before officially being released from his contract on November 18th, 2021.

(Please credit Bodyslam.net when using the quotes above as news.)