Former NWA Television champion Zicky Dice recently spoke to Fightful to discuss his free agency, and what occurred behind the scenes leading to his departure from the promotion. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
Says he was grateful for the opportunity NWA gave him:
Let me start off by saying something before things get miscued. A lot of people listening and watching right now — some words i may say might tear their thin skin right off the bat. So I want to clear the air and say this, ‘Outlandish’ Zicky Dice was forever grateful for the opportunities that Billy Corgan and the NWA have presented. Very grateful. I was very proud to be a part of it and I was very proud to have won the Television Championship from Ricky Starks and start my title reign. This was supposed to be my breakout. Before we dive in deep here, let me let me start off by saying when I was when I was invited to the NWA, deep down I knew that it was going to be a lily pad for ‘Outlandish’ Zicky Dice. NWA was meant to bounce me to the next stage that I wanted. The bigger stage that I feel that I deserve where I can really let my wings go and see the full potential of ‘Outlandish’ Zicky Dice. We had talked once before, you know I wrestled for Championship Wrestling From Hollywood, Billy Corgan saw me there invited me to the first tapings in December of 2019 and then that led to me winning the championship in January, where I was then offered a contract.
How he was expecting to get paid more for his time:
I was told that I would be offered something that I was happy and comfortable with and I was like, ‘okay, this is good.’ Then I come to find out I was offered $250 a month as Television Champion. I turned that contract down. Nope. No disrespect, no offense, but I’m good. I don’t need to sell ‘Outlandish’ Zicky Dice for 250 bucks a month. Turned that down got a call from Billy Corgan and we raised it up a little bit more during the pandemic. ‘Zicky, if you move to Atlanta, we’ll pay you more. Zicky, if people turn down their contracts, we’ll pay you more Zicky if you over-deliver we’ll pay you more. These are all things that I heard. What did I do? I got my own camera crew. I got a guy that can write jingles that’s released platinum records. I’ve been taking over entertainment. So what did I do? I over-delivered every single time. Go ahead and look back at those Carnyland episodes. Look at the quality of the content that I sent in look at how clear — the high-resolution, the editing, that was all done here. So I over-delivered, I made sure because I wanted to take the brand to the next level. To circle around, I started seeing a lot of empty promises and a lot of true colors coming out. It started changing the way I looked at the brand and my job. So there was an email that was sent out and I know you had reached out to me about this comment before and my reply was, ‘outlandish.’ I did not speak on a single word of this for the last nine months. I didn’t say a damn thing.
How he was looking to leave NWA last summer but wasn’t able to for contractual reasons:
There was an email sent out that was like, ‘hey, if anyone doesn’t believe in the vision moving forward, speak up.’ So I raised my hand. I said, ‘listen with all due respect as your Television Champion, I’m willing to do work. I’m willing to do another season. I will go and wrestle at AEW or one of these other stages — which is baffling to me as a Television Champion, I didn’t even get to defend on YouTube. I think it’s do any of that. I didn’t get the in see ‘Outlandish’ Zicky Dice on TNT on Wednesday nights when his co-workers were up there. You didn’t see any of that shit. They didn’t even post about my birthday. They post about everybody else’s birthday except for ‘Outlandish’ Zicky Dice. The NWA did not wish me a happy birthday this year, and how do you think that makes me feel? It hurts my little itty-bitty feelings sometimes. But you know, as a wise man once said, ‘if you’re going to sign on the dotted line, don’t don’t bitch about it,’ you know, and I did I signed on the dotted line and I continued to over-deliver and try and make the best out of what it was.
Says communication with Corgan was difficult:
So after asking for my release when I was told that it wouldn’t be taken personal, it was taken personal and I saw I saw a little bit of backlash from that. I had reached out to Mr. Corgan twice about trying to get on the phone together and I never heard back from them and that was six, seven months ago. So here we are free agent ready to take over professional wrestling and entertainment as a whole. I let him know I was uncomfortable with some of the stuff that had happened at NWA which caused someone, a higher-up leave the company and that kind of made me feel a little uncomfortable and uneasy. Then there were some other just bullshit locker room politics and I’m an easygoing guy, Sean. I have very few enemies and if they don’t like me, it’s probably because doing something right. I found that right off the bat from one of the big fish in the company.
Hints that Nick Aldis was sabotaging him backstage:
I saw some of that so I knew going in and I made an impact in NWA right off the bat. You can go back and watch the very first episode of Powerrr, I come out, there’s murmurs. I remember hearing people [say] ‘who is this?’ By the end, I had everyone booing me by the end of the match go ahead and watch it back. I was able to take control of the masses and some people didn’t like that. Some people thought that I came into NWA like I owned the place or that was some big shot. No, I just came to do what I do best and that’s entertain and grab the attention, steal the attention from the room so that led to you know, I didn’t hear back from Billy, but then I see some of these big dirt sheets with these fabricated stories about how ‘Outlandish’ Zicky Dice had major locker room heat backstage and it seems like somebody was trying to sabotage my career. I don’t know what’s causing Al-dis, I’m sorry, ‘all this.’ I don’t know what could have caused something like that. But I feels like someone was trying to sabotage me from behind from moving on what’s next because I didn’t have heat with anybody except for one person I butted heads with and that was that. Aldis] had reached out a few days before the championship match aired and he said, ‘hey, are you free to talk?’ I said, ‘yes, here’s my phone number.’ He didn’t call after 45 minutes of myself pinning Ricky Starks and winning the championship, I received a novel in my direct messages about him going off on me and how I’m a f’n embarrassment because I swiveled my hips too long before doing the finish and I’m too jokey and blah blah blah.’ So I said, ‘oh I’m so sorry sir. Is there anything I can do to help you? Let me know next time. Can I talk to you before matches?’ You know, I tucked my tail. I’ll be honest with you. Then I find out that he texted his buddy saying, ‘Well, I just let Zicky Dice have it.’ So I was like, ‘alright, we’re playing a game now.’ So that was that. I let that go and then that led into a little Cameo debacle and that led us to us butting heads again, but in five plus years that I’ve been doing this I’ve never really butted heads with anyone in any locker room and to be honest with you, I’ve had just about every NWA talent on my Twitch stream and I don’t know why they would do that if we had any heat together. So I just wanted to clear the air there. As you can see I’m a free agent now, so obviously I wasn’t released from any contract. I was under contract. NWA rolled over my contract in September until December 31st at the stroke of midnight.