Ridge Holland says Vince McMahon and Bruce Prichard had him standing in gorilla position with five seconds left on the clock to deliver a live apology promo on WWE SmackDown the week after the Big E injury, then pulled the promo off the show at the last second, in what Holland believes was a deliberate move to mess with him.
The story came out of a new interview Holland did with F4Wonline, where the released WWE wrestler walked through the week after his March 11, 2022 SmackDown match against Big E and Kofi Kingston, in which Big E suffered fractures to his C1 and C6 vertebrae on a belly-to-belly suplex outside the ring and never wrestled again.
Holland said the apology angle was pitched to him as a way to clear the air with the audience before his next match.
“It’s funny ’cause the week, the week after, which I thought was kind of rough, they wanted me to do an apology promo live before I went out for a match. And I remember there were Vince [McMahon] and Bruce [Prichard] standing there, and they were counting down like thirty seconds till we go live. And I’m thinking, ‘I don’t know what I’m gonna say. I’m just gonna speak from the heart.’ And then it got to like five, four, and then they cut it. They just didn’t do promos right then. And then I had to go out and wrestle a match.”
Holland said the moment changed how he viewed the people running the show.
“So I think that was in poor taste. I think they did that to mess with me, and it really put a bad taste in my mouth, and I never really looked at those people the same, to be honest. I thought it was in really poor taste.”
He framed the aftermath as the most personally difficult stretch of his career.
“From like death threats to all the social media things, it kind of marred my, kind of like drove a certain perception of me with fans that I struggled to kind of shake. And I’m sure that kind of went up into the higher up into the office and stuff. And I just think their confidence in me, and especially my confidence in my own performance, was definitely affected ’cause I didn’t really wanna get in the ring. I was very nervous about getting in the ring after that. It shook me. So yeah, it affected everything, home life, everything.”
Holland did say WWE initially offered him counseling at the time, which he declined.
“I’ve had a couple of conversations with Big E. I actually saw him at WrestleMania. You know, I met his fiancée, and we just swapped pleasantries. You know, we were never close friends, but I respect him, and I hope that goes both ways. I sent him some things to say sorry and profusely apologized, and I was in contact with him via text for days and weeks after the accident, checking in.”
