Former WWE star David Otunga recently appeared on Insight With Chris Van Vliet, where he discussed various topics, including his current status regarding retirement from pro wrestling.
Otunga said, “No, I just consider myself as having not wrestled in a long time.”
On when he knew it was time to step away:
“It wasn’t necessarily my last match. That’s the thing, in my mind, I’ve never had my last match. It’s just where I was in the company and becoming an announcer and doing all that they didn’t really want me doing in ring stuff. You actually get a different contract where you are on an announcer’s contract instead of a talent one. So it just was they weren’t even thinking about me, booking me creatively, although I did pitch some ideas, and was gonna have my own stable. I wanted to, got a little bit of traction.”
On who was going to be in the stable:
“Well, I don’t know. I pitched something, I don’t know if I called it The Firm or what it was, but it was kind of what The Hurt Syndicate ended up becoming. But it was before that, so it was three years before that. I don’t know when they came out. It might even been longer, because it was 2019, this is before COVID, at least. But anyway, I was going to be the leader of that as a heel lawyer. And, yeah, they liked it, but it obviously didn’t [happen], they liked me better as an announcer.”
On his WWE exit:
“Ultimately, I was laid off with COVID, the grand layoffs in that. But before, so I called my last match on SmackDown, and then I was doing the pre-shows up until COVID.”
On whether he wants to go back to WWE:
“I mean, if they called, yeah, absolutely. Like I said, it was so much fun, although, now I’m still doing announcing with 4th Rope, which has been awesome. And I’ll tell you what, it’s pretty cool, because of the training that I received at WWE, like, prepared me so much for doing that. But the difference is there. I really can say anything I want. I’m still pushing forward the stories, but there’s nobody in my ear. So really, hey, that’s kind of how I really feel this.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
