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Luke Harper announced during WWE’s two-night 2019 Superstar Shake-Up that he has requested his release from the company.
The 39-year-old burst onto the main-roster scene in the summer of 2013 as a member of the Wyatt Family alongside Bray Wyatt and Erick Rowan. The following year, he became a singles competitor and went on to win the Intercontinental Championship in November 2014.
Between 2015 and 2017, he reunited with Wyatt, while he also teamed with Braun Strowman and Randy Orton during their spells with the Wyatt Family, and he became a two-time SmackDown Tag Team champion (w/Wyatt & Orton x1, w/Rowan x1) following his move to the blue brand in the 2016 WWE Draft.
In recent months, Harper has been cleared to return to the ring after injury but WWE only used him once – a match against NXT’s Dominik Dijakovic in the Worlds Collide special at WrestleMania Axxess – before his appearance in the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania 35.
Although it took a long time for fans to hear what the man behind the Harper character, Jonathan Huber, is really like outside of the squared circle, he has given more interviews in the last couple of years which have presented an insight into some of the backstage goings-on in WWE.
In this article, let’s take a look at five WWE-related secrets that he has revealed.
#5 He and Erick Rowan hated each other
Luke Harper and Erick Rowan are former NXT and SmackDown Tag Team champions. From the outside, it has always looked like they get along just fine and they have great in-ring chemistry together as a tag team.
However, as Harper revealed on the E&C Pod of Awesomeness in 2018, the two men did not like each other when they were first put together as a tag team in the summer of 2012.
He said (quotes via Wrestle Zone):
“When we first started, me and Rowan hated each other. I don’t know what it was. We just didn’t get along. We were forced to room together. He’s taller than me. If you look at some of my old pictures, I clearly tried to put weight on and it didn’t work well.”
Eventually, they realized that their careers in WWE would improve if they got along better, so that’s exactly what they did.
“He’s a f*****g giant, and he snores. So…I didn’t sleep a lot. We just didn’t get along. But, there slowly came the realisation of, ‘Hey, man. We are stuck together. Are we gonna fight against it or are we just gonna do it?’ It took me a long time to realise that… but when I did, we made it work way better.”
#4 He and Erick Rowan were meant to split up years ago
Becky Lynch revealed before her WrestleMania 35 main event triumph that she was on a list of names to be released by WWE early on in her NXT career.
Well, in another revelation made on the E&C Pod of Awesomeness, Harper said that there was once a time in NXT when he and Erick Rowan’s run together as a tag team was supposed to be over.
During his time as a SmackDown Tag Team champion alongside Rowan, he said:
“Years ago, me and Rowan were told we’re done… we’re done being a team. [Since then] we’ve done everything we can and we’re here five years later in a whole new thing and we’re Tag Team champions, so I can’t complain.”
In total, Harper and Rowan have teamed together in 106 televised matches over the last seven years, winning 67 times (63.2 per cent win ratio).
#3 WWE ‘ignored him for months’ during his injury
Shortly before his WrestleMania Axxess match against Dominik Dijakovic, Luke Harper issued a lengthy statement on Twitter which explained how much the match meant to him and why he was treating the encounter as “his WrestleMania”.
During the April 2019 post, he also revealed that, six months after undergoing double ligament reconstruction wrist surgery in October 2018, he had not been brought to a single television taping during that time by WWE.
The former Wyatt Family member wrote that he constantly had doubts throughout his recovery from injury about whether he still had what it takes to perform against the up-and-comers in WWE’s system, especially when he was cleared in February 2019 and still not brought to television.
He added:
"Being ignored and left home for months exasperated these thoughts and it sucked."
Harper went on to defeat Dijakovic and the match was widely praised by fans on social media.
#2 Bray Wyatt pitched the Wyatt Family idea before he even signed
Luke Harper was due to work a tour with Dragon Gate in Japan in 2011. As his wife was pregnant at the time, he decided that he was going to step away from wrestling as a full-time career and he was only going to wrestle locally. Then, to the surprise of the former Intercontinental champion, he was signed by WWE.
In another conversation on E&C’s Pod of Awesomeness, Harper revealed that Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins and Cesaro all put in a good word to help get him signed.
He added that Bray Wyatt pitched the idea of the Wyatt Family to him before they met and before he had even signed his WWE contract.
The former Wyatt Family member said (quotes via Wrestling Inc.):
“[Cesaro] goes, 'Hey man, I need you to talk to this guy.' And I go, 'Okay,' so he puts Bray Wyatt on the phone and I've never met him. And this guy talks to me for 20 minutes about this idea he had, and how I would fit in perfectly, and how it's going to be great, and the best thing that ever happened. And, literally, my head was spinning.”
#1 He has asked for his release
Although this final point is stating the obvious, backstage secrets in WWE do not get much bigger than revealing to the entire world that you have requested your release.
Between Monday’s Raw and Tuesday’s SmackDown Live, Luke Harper took the unusual approach of publicly announcing that he wants to leave WWE. This has only been done by one other person, Tye Dillinger, in recent months and he was granted his release a few days later.
As for the rest of the Superstars who have reportedly asked for their release before their contract is up (The Revival, Mike & Maria Kanellis, Sasha Banks etc), they did not make their request public and none of them, as of the time of writing, have left the company.
Fans are now left questioning whether Harper publicly stating that he wants to leave will help him – after all, WWE will look bad if they keep someone against their wishes – or whether he will be made to wait until his contract expires.
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