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One of the most surprising releases from WWE this year was undoubtedly former WWE Cruiserweight Champion TJ Perkins.
The winner of WWE's first ever Cruiserweight Classic, and former TNA X-Division Champion would go on to seemingly becoming a mainstay of WWE's 205 Live brand - before disappearing late last year and then being released from the company earlier in 2019.
But why was Perkins released? And how did it come about? We asked the man himself.
You can check out our entire interview with TJP here.
I was ready to go. I had thought about leaving as far back as November/December. A year prior, I had met with Vince and expressed to him that I believe I have no value to him as I was. I was just a wrestler on a wrestling show and he has a lot of great wrestlers. I wanted to get back to representing my culture and doing what I had done in the CWC.
Moving to Raw, they separated me from that. Vince was interested in the change and asked me how we could use me better and I said I would show him. I spent the year making my own appearances with Filipino events, doing my own red carpet interviews and news and media appearances for Filipino media outlets and publications.
Met with Pacquiao and trained with him. Did some research in Filipino demographics so he could see the effect my community can have. I brought this all back to Vince around Survivor Series 2018. He loved it and wanted to find me a spot on Raw and suggested we brainstorm creative ideas.
I wrote pitches for every character on every roster and how I could work with them. The creative team basically pocketed everything I wrote and never turned them in to Vince. Much of it was used on other Superstars and still is to this day in fact.
Eventually, I met with Vince directly and he asked why I hadn’t given any creative pitches and I gave him everything I wrote.
By then, the creative ship had sailed on many of my ideas and Vince ultimately couldn’t find a fitting story or a place for me on Raw with so many Superstars on the roster. The office knew I was unhappy and wanted to leave, or at least to pursue other opportunities - both in the ring and outside of it - that WWE wasn’t allowing me to achieve.
A huge thanks to TJ Perkins for taking the time to speak with us. You can check out the entire interview here, and you can follow TJP here, and check out his brandDetonation Kick here.
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