There was a lot of frustration behind the scenes in WWE last Saturday night at the Royal Rumble as plans changed several times throughout the day.
That included the Women’s Royal Rumble match. The producers assigned to the match included Finlay, Shane Helms, Pat Buck, Michael Hayes, and Molly Holly.
Tyson Kidd, real name TJ Wilson, has been praised by the female talent for his dedicated work with helping them out and he’s usually a producer for the majority of the women’s matches in WWE. However, Kidd wasn’t at the show and Finlay was brought in to help produce the bout as he has been working behind-the-scenes in WWE NXT for the past year.
Fightful previously reported that Kidd has not been producing matches for WWE for several weeks now. At the time, it was said the reason for Kidd’s absence was actually tied to the Royal Rumble, but no other details were provided. On today’s SRS Q&A Podcast, Sean Ross Sapp reported some additional details.
“A few weeks ago I had heard that TJ Wilson had grown frustrated. The reason I didn’t run a story on this is because I had heard conflicting things from people that work with him, that are close with him, the company itself. So one person who told me the information said, ‘heard he wasn’t there, he didn’t show up, wasn’t happy with how things were going, and he’s no longer there.’ However, I follow up with WWE, I follow up with people close to him and they say, ‘no, TJ is still with the company.’ A couple of weeks go by, he’s not listed on any of the internal producer’s lists. Now, Shane McMahon wasn’t listed as a producer either, but he helped produce the Royal Rumble, TJ Willson did not. To the point where there were women that were contacted for the Royal Rumble that said TJ isn’t doing it, I’m not doing it, and they brought in Fit Finlay.”
Sapp continued by adding that Kidd wasn’t listed at Monday’s Raw, which made him think Kidd might be just taking time off.
“There is a lot of burnout for producers…beyond this week with the Royal Rumble.” WWE had a short staff of producers last Friday for SmackDown because some of them were at SmackDown while the rest was at the Royal Rumble to go over the match.
Sapp stated that a lot of the producers have been overworked and exhausted and they don’t complain about the hard work. Regarding Kidd, it was said that people close to him and in WWE are adamant that he is still with the company and beloved by the wrestlers. It was added that Kidd not producing the Rumble match bummed out a lot of people.
Sapp is working to find out more on the situation, but Kidd’s last night producing for WWE came on the January 14th SmackDown. Kidd’s absence had nothing to do with his wife, Natalya, losing in 3 seconds on that episode of SmackDown.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit SRS Q&A Podcast with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription
