Former WWE star EC3 recently spoke with Fightful to talk all things pro wrestling, including controlling his own narrative following his release from the company back in April. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
On finding out about his WWE release:
I didn’t realize how bad I was mentally until I was mid-yoga session. I had a phone call from Drake Maverick. I ignored it, and then the second after I ignored that call, I got a call from the WWE office and I’m like, “Oh, he got fired and so am I.” It made sense. I mean, something had to give with COVID. I was like, “Oh, yeah. Of course. I’m very easy to expel, I’m making good money and I don’t do anything. I have the conversation and I’m fairly close with who had to fire me. He was pretty bent out of shape. He’s probably having the worst day ever. Because he’s got to chop all these heads and it’s fine. It’s okay. Go ahead. Thank you. Because, in theory, I probably would have been, if there wasn’t a quarantine and pandemic, I would have not been the guy to post on social media and ask for my release. I would have been straight as a man and go to [best]. 100%. But, then there’s a pandemic, so I’m like, my parents’ business is probably going to go belly up because of them shutting down the economy, so maybe I need to stick it out a little bit longer. I hung up. I remember the first time I got fired. I was just like lost. I was at the gym and there was a little lap pool. But, this time I’m like, I finished yoga, went right back to it. It’s not like a workout where you can be intense. My mind was just calm. I was like, “I feel pretty good.” Then I go back to my phone. Word’s gotten out. But, this stupid astrology app I have had a notification pop up and it was, “You’re becoming the person you were always supposed to be.” When I read that, I was like, “Okay. We’ll see.” At the same time, this whole thing, I pitched it once in NXT, and never got a response. Then I got called up with a concussion, whoops!
Says he’s in control of his own narrative:
It would be very easy to put a percentage on it, but I think that’s the old mentality. So, a lot of what I’m preaching now is controlling your narrative, fighting for myself, and becoming free. When you harp on the past, when you look to the past, when you use the past. Granted, there was this one time WWE fired me and I was so livid. I’m going to make myself into the biggest possible star I possibly can, in the shortest amount of time, and they’re going to call me and come back. So, in addition to the injury I was not a happy person. Very sad. Constantly. I did not like day-to-days. The injury had a big part of that. The mental aspect. It was not easy. But, okay, so I got a raw deal. Who hasn’t? I could’ve done all this with it, but who cares? It’s the past. Fuck the past. Fuck nostalgia. There’s enough of that shit. I could use that as motivation to go forward and make myself an even bigger star, which I will do, or I could forget it and I could finally do something for myself. Which I have yet to do, not only in my career, but in my life.
Returning from his injury:
It was… Yeah, a physical challenge is one thing, but a physical challenge with rehabbing the injury, you see progress on a day-to-day basis. You improve, even if it’s very slowly, there’s always improvement. But, with that, a lot of it was mental. It’s hard to improve when it’s just not coming back together. So, at this juncture, I’ve tested myself sparring. How do I feel physically? I mean, I look fucking great. I look fantastic. But, I’m also functioning highly, physically, like I’m moving real well now. But, I’d say that hasn’t been tested because the only way to be test it is to actually do it, and I haven’t been free enough to do it until 7/18/2020. So, that’s the very first thing I’m going to do. I could get my block knocked right off and never wrestle again or I’m good to go.