Former WWE Superstar Shannon Moore has opened up about backstage tensions surrounding his return to the company in 2006, alleging that John Laurinaitis deliberately interfered with one of his matches after Moore contacted Vince McMahon directly about getting his job back.
During a recent appearance on INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet, Moore recalled reaching out to McMahon personally to express his interest in returning to WWE. After McMahon failed to answer his call, Moore left a voicemail explaining that he wanted another opportunity with the company.
Later that evening, Moore received a call from Laurinaitis, then a WWE executive, informing him that the company was interested in bringing him back. Jeff Jarrett also contacted Moore shortly afterward about a potential opportunity.
Although Moore ultimately returned to WWE, he believes his decision to bypass the usual channels and contact McMahon directly may have created resentment behind the scenes.
One incident that particularly frustrated Moore occurred during WWE’s ECW relaunch at the Hammerstein Ballroom, where he was scheduled to face longtime acquaintance C.W. Anderson.
“One of them, which is still disheartening to me, because it wasn’t about how it affected me; it was more about how it affected C. W. Anderson,” Moore recalled. “Ultimately, whenever I ended up back in the WWE, we went to Hammerstein Ballroom, and there was a big ECW show there.”
Moore explained that his history with Anderson stretched back to his teenage years, making the opportunity to share the ring particularly meaningful. He also expressed a desire to eventually discuss the situation directly with Laurinaitis to better understand what happened.
“We’ve never had this conversation, and I would love to one day, if I ever run into Johnny, so we can have this conversation and just understand what happened,” he continued. “But that night in Hammerstein Ballroom, C.W. was on that show, and C.W., we go way back, C.W. is cracking me in the head with chairs back whenever I was 14 years old.”
According to Moore, he wanted Anderson to have an opportunity to showcase his abilities because he was not under contract at the time. However, Moore now believes WWE had a different motivation for bringing him back under his “Prince of Punk” character.
“That night I wanted to give C.W. his moment because he wasn’t contracted, but he was on that show, and Johnny Ace was in gorilla position on headset that night,” Moore said. “Understanding now what they were gonna do with CM Punk, and the reason that I ultimately got hired back as that character, it wasn’t to bring me back to make me a star.”
Moore speculated that WWE wanted to prevent confusion between his “Prince of Punk” persona and CM Punk, who was preparing to become a featured performer on the relaunched ECW brand. He emphasized that he was unaware of the company’s plans for Punk when he returned.
“It was to introduce CM Punk, because at that point I was the Prince of Punk,” he explained. “I didn’t know nothing about CM Punk getting ready to come up yet, and that they were gonna start pushing him. But their idea was probably just to get the Prince of Punk off the street so that way there could only be one Punk whenever they started building CM Punk, but Johnny played into that.”
Moore then alleged that Laurinaitis intentionally disrupted his match against Anderson by repeatedly changing instructions communicated to the referee from the backstage gorilla position.
According to Moore, the referee was continually told to switch his character’s alignment between babyface and heel, creating confusion during the match.
“I think that night in Hammerstein Ballroom, he tried to sabotage my match by switching the call back and forth on the headset to the ref, ‘Hey, tell Shannon that he’s a babyface.’ ‘Tell Shannon he’s a heel.’ ‘Tell Shannon he’s a babyface.’ ‘Tell him he’s a heel now.’ ‘He’s a babyface now.’”
Moore said the situation left him furious, particularly because he believed Anderson had been unfairly affected by what he perceived as a personal issue between himself and Laurinaitis.
“Then he had the referee just doing some corny stuff in the ring,” Moore continued. “Whenever I got back, I didn’t know what to do. I was wanting to jump across the table and make it physical because I was really upset about that.”
The former WWE star claimed that fellow wrestlers ultimately persuaded him not to confront Laurinaitis, warning that escalating the situation would not be worthwhile.
“Not only for me but for C.W. Anderson, but ultimately, some of the guys were like, ‘Dude, don’t. It’s not worth it. Just let it be.’ But I just felt like it was just a sh*tty move to sabotage me, just based on the fact that I went over his head to get my job back.”
Moore’s comments offer his perspective on the backstage circumstances surrounding his 2006 WWE return. His allegations regarding Laurinaitis’ intentions and the company’s motivation for bringing back the “Prince of Punk” character remain his personal interpretation of events and have not been independently verified.
Despite the passage of time, Moore made it clear that the incident continues to bother him, particularly because he feels Anderson deserved better treatment during what should have been a meaningful opportunity for both performers.
