Luke Menzies, formerly known as Ridge Holland in WWE, has spoken for the first time about the circumstances surrounding his departure from the company. In an interview on “TMZ Inside the Ring,” Menzies detailed two separate communications from WWE: the first, a call informing him his contract would not be renewed, and the second, an early termination that he states was a direct result of his own actions on social media.
Menzies clarified that he was first informed of his non-renewal on October 13, about a month before his contract was set to expire. He made it clear he holds no ill will toward the company for its business decisions. “I just want to say for the record that, like, I’m never going to go out there and bash WWE… I love my time there,” Menzies said. “I had a great time. Met some great people, and I’m grateful for my time there, the opportunities that they gave me”. He described the news as “disappointing” and part of a “compounding of emotional effects,” which included an existing injury and a recent pay cut .
Menzies also shared the timing of the non-renewal call, which came while he was trying to have a family vacation. “What happened was I taking my family to we got, like a complimentary stay at one of the resorts in… Orlando,” he recounted . “So taking… the kids there, my mom flew over to tell with kids, and then we got there on the Friday, and that’s when I got the call. So I was like, oh, right, perfect timing, right? So that was on my whole… the whole weekend, and it’s just kind of dealing with that… news” . He explained the news was difficult to process, stating, “I’d come over from, from England, dropped everything… sold my house, everything, and took a leap of faith to come over here. And it had been, everything kind of been my identity” .
However, Menzies drew a clear distinction between the non-renewal and his subsequent early termination, which he stated was his own fault. “The most recent thing was definitely down to my… outburst on Twitter,” Menzies said. “So I’ve got to take responsibility for that, like I just needed to vent, and I didn’t go about it the right way. And… we all signed the contract. Unfortunately, that contract, there was a terminate, termination clause and and I breached that. So that’s a responsibility that I have to take” .
He continued to take full ownership of the situation. “I let my emotions get the best of me, and I just felt that like I had some bad news that day regarding the situation,” he said. “And yeah, I was embarrassed that I let my emotions get the better of me, and unfortunately, I got my wrist slap for it… So as much as people want to point the finger at WWE… You know, you probably want to point the other three fingers at myself. Really, it was just a lapse in judgment, and it’s something that I’m going to take responsibility for” .
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit TMZ Inside the Ring with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
