AEW star Ricochet spoke with Chris Van Vliet about his WWE run, his exit from the company, AEW, and more. We have some highlights below. Scroll down to watch the entire (highly recommended) interview.
On being written off WWE TV:
“I think they kind of left it open-ended for a reason. Nobody really knew at that point what was going to happen. I think they were trying to leave it a little open-ended. I think we were still talking. So I think that’s why they kind of did it the way they did it, especially because Ricochet, he could have come right back in a couple of weeks, but no, it just didn’t go that way. Then I went this way and I’m really happy with everything that’s happened so far. It’s been great.”
On if he knew he was done with WWE when he was destroyed by Bron Breakker:
“Not even necessarily, no. I knew my contract was ending in mid-June, give or take. All the way up to that point, there was never a point where I knew I was leaving. I think there was a point three and a half years ago into my WWE career where I just said this isn’t what I want to do, but I’m just going to do whatever’s asked of me, whatever they need me to do, whatever they want me to do, whoever they need me to lose to, or whatever move they need to make look cool, or whatever. I’m just going to do it because I’m here and I want to put in the work and show that I’m willing to do what they need me to do to get other opportunities. I feel if they did give me a bone here or there, and I was always on television. I was always showcased on television, so that was always nice, but I felt like it was always for Shinsuke, for Sami, for Sheamus, for someone else. It was never Ricochet’s story. Even with Logan, it was for Logan. They gave me little bits and pieces, but it was really for Logan to move on to something else. After a while, it’s just like, ah, man, and again, anything can happen at any turn of the road. The next week they could have been like, now we’re doing this. So that’s always a chance, but at the end of the day, I think I was really just trying to find out where I was going to be the happiest.”
On why he left WWE:
“I got to thinking, Okay, what will I be doing? Where will I be in three years, and after that, where will I be? Again, anything can happen. You don’t know the circumstances, but you just kind of have to play from your experiences because especially in the wrestling industry, everybody has a different experience. Just from my personal experiences and what I feel like Ricochet has been put through, I felt like I had already felt like I was able to be on the next level of performers there, but I still feel like I was starting over again. I felt like I was starting over with the Bron Breakkers and the Iljas and the Carmelos and the new guys just coming in. I feel like Ricochet was with those guys coming back in. It’s like, man I’ve already been here for five or six years. I want to be doing something else. Again, at the end of the day, I wasn’t going to go to the highest bidder. I was just going to go to whoever was going to make me feel good and ignite that spark again because I felt like that fire that was burning inside of me was still there, but it was just like little embers that needed that gasoline on it to really make it ignite. At the time, I felt like AEW could be the gasoline for my fire. Since being there, I feel like I made the right choice.”
On Samantha Irvin leaving WWE:
“She’s been talking about that for a while, even before my stuff was up. I think it happened at WrestleMania (40). For her, announcing was only supposed to be the way into WWE because she, first and foremost, is a fan. Before all of that, she grew up with it. Her dad watched it and her brothers grew up with it. So, of course, yes, she’s a performer. So her time performing and traveling the world performing got her to a position where Mark Henry found her and said, ‘Oh, this girl is amazing. We need her for something.’ The pandemic happened. She used to live in Vegas and did Cirque du Soleil, and she did Vegas and she did stage shows. So when the pandemic happened, luckily Mark Henry got a hold of her during that. She actually did the full tryout. They didn’t know she was going to be a ring announcer. Mark Henry said, we just need this girl for something. She’s so talented. We need her. She’s got pictures where she was hitting the ropes and her tailbone is bruised and her back is bruised, big bruises on her back. She did the whole tryout, taking bumps, body slams, and did the whole thing. Then I think she was in NXT as an interviewer. Then I think once Greg Hamilton did his thing, she replaced him on SmackDown because she was already interviewing, but they needed somebody. Then they just kind of said, ‘Hey, can you do this’, and she was like, ‘Yeah, sure’ because she was already doing 205 Live and she was doing things like that. But again, I think ring announcing was only supposed to be the way in. She wanted to be a character. That’s what she’s been her whole life. She’s been stage-performing her whole life, from drama club to stage-performing, to traveling the world doing stage-performance. So that’s kind of what she hoped, and then I think once WrestleMania happened, I think she was like, that’s the highest I’m going to get. For her, she’s a performer. It’s hard to explain. When you’re just a performer, I guess announcing, because now she’s getting hate because she said she didn’t enjoy announcing, but she enjoyed making the WWE Universe feel emotions, and she enjoyed using her voice to help promote and help move the company forward, but just literally, the act of ‘Coming to the ring and weighing at 230…’ This is just my example, it’s like having Mariah Carey, but she’s just a ring announcer, and you don’t get any of the other stuff.”
On if he felt he needed to tell the world Samantha Irvin was not coming to AEW:
“No, I guess I didn’t need to because, again, none of that’s real (Twitter). You need social media for a lot of promotion. You need it for a lot of stuff, especially nowadays, but as far as our lives, again, it’s not real because no one says that stuff to us in real life. No one. Anytime I meet anybody, and I’ve traveled the world, no one’s ever said, ‘You made a big mistake going’ or no one’s ever said, ‘You need to change the way you wrestle.’”
This interview is exclusive to WrestlingNews.co. If you use these quotes, please include a link back to this page.
