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James Ellsworth had a short, but memorable WWE run between 2016 and 2018. During his stint with the company, he even got a shot at the WWE Championship in a match against AJ Styles. Ellsworth later had a run as Carmella's manager and helped her win the first-ever Women's Money in the Bank Ladder match.
James Ellsworth was released from his WWE contract in 2018. In the storyline, he was fired by SmackDown General Manager Paige for disrespecting her.
James Ellsworth believes pro-wrestling is overexposed
During his recent interview with Lucha Libre Online's Michael Morales Torres, James Ellsworth gave his take on the biggest issue with pro-wrestling today.
James Ellsworth said that everything is too overexposed and social media is not helping. He feels like the problem began with Tough Enough, when fans were shown a lot of the secrets of the business.
"In my humble opinion, man, there’s not too much you can do. I think it's overexposed. As cool as social media can be and as helpful it can be, it can also be the devil and very hurtful and wrestlers are just overexposing themselves on there. Like you see good guys and bad guys talking to each other. I think it really started with Tough Enough. They just showed a lot of the secrets and it's just so overexposed. Then everybody is in everybody's business on social media. Like this person is a piece of c**p. This person did this is. This person did that. Meanwhile, none of us really because we weren't present at the time they're talking about. I think it has really hurt the business."
James Ellsworth added that the Attitude Era was hard to follow up on and touched on how ratings have been slowly declining since.
"Kayfabe is so dead. It's been dead for years, but now it's dead and people are peeing on the grave of it. If people would just not do that. I think had that would help. The Attitude Era it's just so hard to follow because they did so much cool content in the Attitude Era. Just people bleeding and bra and panty matches and like just all kinds of crazy wackiness caught, you know, guys giving their boss the middle finger. It's hard to follow all that. We haven't followed it for 20 years. The ratings have been slowly going down for 20 years to the point where now we're two million people or less.
"I hope it changes for the sake of everybody. I love the wrestling business. I want everybody succeed. Because it starts at the top. I do independent wrestling. Now if the top isn't doing good, independent wrestling suffers too because nobody's watching the main programming. I don't know what they can do man. They're trying different things. I really hope it gets back to the promised land but man like, Attitude Era, you had six to seven million people watching. Now it's 2 million. Where did that five million people go? It's gonna be tough. It's gonna be a rough road going forward.”
James Ellsworth has been wrestling on the independent circuit since his release from WWE in 2018. Ellsworth recently revealed AEW star Chris Jericho's role in his WWE run. You can check that out HERE.
