Jaxson Ryker (real name Chad Lail) says the 2020 tweet supporting Donald Trump that got him pulled from WWE television also ended the plans WWE had for the Forgotten Sons.
Speaking with Ben Veal on Wrestling Life, he said the group, which included Wesley Blake and Steve Cutler, had just moved from NXT to SmackDown when the tweet went out.
“Oh man, we had just started on our SmackDown run. A lot of vignettes they were doing for us. I really thought that they were going to push us pretty well,” Lail said.
Later in the interview, Lail said there was talk of a program with The New Day that would lead to a tag team title match. He said the trio never met with Vince McMahon as a group, but that McMahon liked their look.
“There was talks of like really giving the Forgotten Sons kind of a push,” Lail said. “So there was talk, from what I hear, and then obviously my tweet buried it.”
Lail described the tweet as a message of support for Trump along the lines of “thank God for Donald Trump, God bless America, something like that.” He said he was at home in North Carolina when his phone started blowing up within 10 to 15 minutes, and that he then saw Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn and Ricochet tweeting about him.
“It wasn’t long after that. I think maybe a day later, we got a call from the office in WWE, Mark Carrano, and hey, we’re going to pull you guys off TV for a little bit. We’re going to let this tweet settle down. And I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me right now? It’s not like I come out there and said something racial or hateful.'”
Lail said the backlash went beyond social media.
“My address was put online, my phone number was put online. People are threatening to come burn my house down and kill my child,” he said.
He said what hurt most was that co-workers who knew him posted about him publicly instead of calling him. He said Chris Hero disagreed with the tweet but called him, and that the two “agreed to disagree.” Lail said he later had a similar phone call with Owens.
“I hold no grudge towards anybody. Me and Kevin Owens spoke about it after the fact, and got on a phone call, and once again we agreed to disagree,” Lail said.
Lail said some family members told him to put out an apology, and he refused.
“It’s not like I was on there slurring like racial slurs or hate speech. There was no reason for an apology,” he said.
He said older tweets were then dug up, including one from a bodybuilding competition in which he had a spray tan and referenced the 1986 movie Soul Man, which led to people calling him a racist. Lail said that was not true and called it “nitpicking stuff.”
Lail said he was off television until December 2020. He had just moved his family back to North Carolina from Florida and bought a house, and said he worried about his job.
“In my mind, I’m thinking, dude, are they going to fire me? Like I just bought a house,” he said. Lail said he shut out a lot of people during that period and leaned on his faith.
He said he feels bad about the effect the situation had on Blake and Cutler, who now wrestles as Steve Maclin.
“It put a halt on their careers as well, and that was never my intention,” Lail said. He said he and Blake have talked about it over the years with no hard feelings, and that there was a time when there were hard feelings with Cutler, but that all three have since spoken and come to terms. Blake previously said the tweets derailed the group’s push.
Veal pointed out that WWE and TKO are now closely tied to the Trump administration. Lail said that after Trump was reelected, he saw Triple H and Linda McMahon “kind of supporting” it, and that his friend would text him about it.
“He goes, ‘Do you remember when you were like basically blackballed from the business,’ and I go, ‘Yeah, I do.’ And you know, I can’t sit here and say that there aren’t times where I’m like, dude, why?” Lail said. “But for the most part, I’m a happy person. Like, I left the business not jaded.”
Lail added, “That’s just the entertainment business. That’s the world we live in now with social media, and it is what it is.”
After returning, Lail teamed with and then feuded with Elias on Raw. He said WWE released him on November 18, 2021. He had his final match in August 2023 against Casey Kage in North Carolina and has worked in law enforcement for the past three years.
Lail first spoke about the tweets on the Wrestling For The Faith podcast in 2021, where he said some WWE co-workers turned on him.
Lail now hosts the Walk Worthy podcast, where he discusses his faith.
