Former WWE star Brad Maddox recently spoke with the Wrestling with Rip Rogers podcast in a rare interview covering all things pro wrestling. During the discussion, Maddox talked about his push when he first got brought up to the main roster for WWE:
“I didn’t appreciate any of it. Not a bit of it. I wanted to work. They brought me up. Cena was supposed to work CM Punk, but Cena got hurt, so they had to throw Ryback in the title picture at Hell in a Cell that one year. Ryback wasn’t ready, but they didn’t want him to lose, so they brought me up in that referee gimmick so I could heel on Ryback. So I had to be a referee for my first three months up there and I didn’t really embrace it. I was one of the stories where they just kind of lost their way a little bit. I got caught up in some things. Now I’m sure you know the news, fairly old at this point, right? Some stuff leaked. I mean, it was kind of that time period when I got, so I had a porn addiction and then that cascaded into a sex addiction and that was a whole thing for me that was just very mind consuming. So I wasn’t very focused right at the time when I should have been. Then I’m going up there as a referee and I’m having to carry a walkie talkie around, and my ego is just fu**ing too big and it didn’t fully take advantage of opportunities, I don’t think.”
If he embraced his GM role on RAW:
“I didn’t like it as much as I should have. I mean, it was a huge opportunity. I hear you talk about being grateful for every day and every moment and all that sh*t, but that is such a mindset thing that if you don’t have that, there’s no amount of goods that’s gonna make you happy. So when I got that gimmick, I mean It was cool, but I still wanted to work and I was still not really embracing it and I don’t think it was nearly my best promo work. I did get to stay up because after I did the gimmick with Ryback and Punk, they had me go out and cut a promo. Vince had no idea who I was or anything about me and that was in Manchester. They just had me cut a promo and I was pretty nervous, but luckily that played into who that character was supposed to be as an amateur dream chaser. I hit that one well enough that Vince wanted, he decided right then I guess, that he wanted to keep me up and do more with me, so that bought me time and probably eventually that GM role.”
His WWE release:
“I was just getting in with Vince. I mean, I’ve been talking to him for a while trying to find gimmicks. Then me and Adam Rose were about to do a tag team. We’d gone to see him that day and he had signed off on it, so we were going to start a little gimmick. Then I had a singles dark match before the show. I cut a promo on my way up to the ring and I called the Indianapolis crowd, cocky pri-ks, at the end of my promo, and he (Vince) kicked me out of the building. The next day Carano called me and told me.”
You can check out the complete interview below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
