Former WWE star says racism "from Shawn Michaels and some of the other boys" played a part in him leaving the company

Former WWE Superstar Ahmed Johnson has opened up about his departure from the company, noting that racism certainly played its part in it.

The 60-year-old was a prominent member of WWE for nearly three years between 1995 and 1998, during which he won the Intercontinental Championship once. Johnson left the company during the taping of No Way Out of Texas in February 1998 as his sister was battling cancer, and he didn't want her to see the storyline the company had planned for him.

During an exclusive interview with Wrestlingnews.co, Ahmed Johnson shared details about his departure from the Stamford-based promotion. He claimed that racism from former colleagues like Shawn Michaels also played a part in his exit.

"I think racism did play its part in it, but not from Vince [McMahon], from Shawn Michaels and some of the other boys. I mean, like they did that thing with DX when Bret Hart and the Hart Foundation and the Nation of Domination was getting into it, and they wrote all that stuff on the wall that was pushing it for me, and I couldn't have done that."

The former champion also touched upon one of the storylines the company had planned for him:

"The thing with the Truth Commission was, what they wanted to do, they wanted him to hang me from a rope. You know how lynching is a very sore subject with black people? They wanted to hang me from a rope. That just wouldn't happen with me, brother. I'll do any other angle, but the rope? No."

Johnson further mentioned how the abovementioned angle would have sent the wrong message to the African American community.

"I didn't want her [his dying sister] to be in her last minutes watching me get beat up. She was a big fan, and then she passed like a day or two after that after I left. So she would have had to see me get beat up and hung from a rope before she passed. That was not an image I was trying to put out, not for her, not for the black kids out there, to anybody. That is going too far.”

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Ahmed Johnson had a short career after leaving WWE

Ahmed Johnson took a brief hiatus from pro wrestling after leaving WWE in 1998. He joined WCW nearly two years later and was a part of the promotion for over a year before he was released from his contract due to weight issues.

The former WWE star hung up his wrestling boots for a while before returning to the independent circuit. He retired from professional wrestling in 2003 but returned for one-off matches in 2020 and 2023.