Stevie Richards discusses WWE vs AEW, the 24/7 Championship and conspiracy theories (Exclusive) 

SK: My personal favorite is your Stevie Night Heat run. We saw the "losing streak" storyline happen again recently with Curt Hawkins, but I thought you actually made Heat must-see TV. Did the losing streak give you freedom or was it annoying?

SR: It wasn't so much the losing so many matches because the responsibility for me was, when new talent came in, to make them comfortable in the company and get them over - so it was a huge responsibility and a great spot. People didn't see it that way, but I'd already been on the road with a Batista or a Randy Orton for a couple of weeks on house shows to get them ready.

What it always came down to for me was getting booked, making money, hopefully having some merchandise or video game money and trying to save as much as I can because, when you're hired in wrestling, you're one day closer to being fired each day that you're there. It's the nature of the business.

It's not like the NFL or the XFL, or a competitive sport. My true ability can always be masked or hidden. When they say talent can always overcome, I'm not always in agreement with that because look at how many times I got myself over and they put me on Heat or sat me at home. They have a remedy to try to put themselves back in control.

I'm not saying it's hopeless because I still showed up in the best shape I could, I still had the best matches I could in the time they would give me, but I say today, Curt Hawkins - great example, great guy, same with Zack Ryder, other guys - it's unfortunate that your value and your sacrifices as a human being are always tempered as less important if you are lower on an imaginary, subjective card - which is really what it is.

Those guys and girls, no matter who they are, what they do, whether they work or not - they take the same flights,they get in the same rental cars, they have the same lack of sleep, they have to find gyms, they have to eat right - and then after all that sacrifice, to sit down and watch everyone get to play or perform.

You hear about football players who want to go to teams where they can start when they're making more money in a team where they're on the second string. That's how you understand it. You don't want to sit there and waste away, and that's kind of what I felt at times.

It's funny, because when I wasn't frustrated, they thought, "He doesn't care enough to want to get pushed," but when I complained, I had a bad attitude. It was a very, very thin line that, quite frankly, I'm so glad I'm out of it and doing my own thing because that's very mentally and emotionally taxing after nine and a half years in WWE. But it's cool, I chose to be there. I could have asked for my release at any time and I didn't, I stuck it out, so it's on me as much as it would be on them.

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SK: Right To Censor were a hugely successful faction. Given the current controversy surrounding "free speech", "hate speech", "political correctness" and so on - do you feel like Right To Censor were maybe ahead of their time, and could they be a lot more successful now?

SR: They could always bring something like that back, you could rename it to match the labels of the people who try to control and censor people. The right would say the left is doing it, the left would say the right is doing it. Whatever your local government is, whatever two sides of what I call the same party anyway.

It's weird, with the nostalgia of WWE, if I came out at the Royal Rumble and people heard the sirens, the way the crowd has switched is it would probably get initially cheered because it's just something they remember and it's so backwards to cheer the censor guy that the fans would do it. It's weird.

I think I could still get heat. My friends have joked with me, friends in the business that I do podcasts with, Big Sal from ECW. Great guy. Papadon's another one and also Bin Hamin. We all do a podcast together, but they always joke, like, if I came out on the RAW Reunion and said, "We won," that would be it.

They wouldn't want that, it's never meant to be. People say about the right opportunity or the right payday, but I'm so far past that. There's so many things that we're going to talk about that supersede money now that if I went back to WWE or any other company - if they're paying me a full-time salary or a full-time guarantee, they deserve my full, all-in attention which would mean I need to sacrifice my fitness business, the podcasts and all my other ventures that I've invested my time in so, sorry, fans, it's over.

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