Pro-wrestling star and former WWE coach Scott Garland (Scotty 2 Hotty) recently spoke with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp about a wide range of topics, including how unhappy he was that WWE was not informing coaches about the cuts that were being made, adding that WWE had a constant problem communicating with their staff. Highlights from the interview are below.
How unhappy he was that coaches were not being informed about WWE releases:
I was finding out from you. I would literally be sitting in class with somebody and then three hours later—there was one person, in particular, I’m having a heart to heart talk with and I’ve earned that person’s trust over the last couple of years and I’m giving them the best advice I can and then three hours later my buddy from Nashville texts me and he says, ‘Hey, looks like releases are happening again.’ So I jump on Twitter and see this guy was just released. I always said, ‘I don’t ever want to know that one of my talents was getting a release before they know,’ but I feel like the coaches deserve the respect of being told as soon as the talent knows. I shouldn’t be finding out on Twitter. That was, really, my biggest beef, if anything.
On WWE having a lack of communication with their staff:
C’mon, man. Give me a little bit of respect. Give me a heads-up before I’m finding out on Twitter and it goes back to the same thing as a guy like Otis and Tucker, who I had worked with. When Otis came to me and asked if he could do the Worm and I told him to hold off, go out there and get over first, and then add the Worm in. That’s what they did. Heavy Machinery went out there, had maybe six months, they started to get over and I pulled him aside one day. I said, ‘Hey, go ahead. Add the Worm in now.’ So he started doing the Worm and I had this relationship with him and I love the dude. I find out that they’re going to RAW watching the show with everybody else. Like, dude. C’mon, man. Just a bit of a lack of communication there. I understand it’s a big machine, it’s running a hundred miles an hour and they’re probably not worried about my feelings. It’s an oversight. I don’t believe it’s a deliberate thing. It’s just an oversight.
How big a fan he was of the Forgotten Sons:
A guy like Maclin, him, and Wesley Blake, two of the best there are. We used to open a lot of the NXT road shows with Street Profits versus the Forgotten Sons. It was a perfect opening match and they understood how to go out there and work an opening match. Those are guys you can really use right now, in my opinion, when you have so many green people that you’re just throwing out there. Once you start throwing green people versus green it gets a little bit scary and dangerous, especially when it’s on live television.