In the aftermath of WWE CEO and Chairman Vince McMahon releasing 11 Superstars and a WWE writer as part of ongoing budget cuts, one of the 11 wrestlers, Brodus Clay, recently spoke about being terminated from the company.
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Clay appeared on the Who's Slamming Who show this week on the VOC Nation Radio Network, and spoke to host and former WWE/WCW/ECW wrestler Big Vito LoGrasso and co-host Tommy Fierro about being released from the company.
"If I'm not able to be out there and contribute I don't want to be there," Clay told the program. "If you're not going to bring it, then sitting around on the sidelines is not something I want to do. I was a little bit frustrated. This is where creative [was] in one of those funks where they don't know what to do. I probably could have handled it a little better but I'm one of those guys who, when I'm frustrated, do not get vocal."
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Clay started out as a menacing character but was quickly turned into a fan favorite dancer nicknamed "The Funkasauras" and eventually teamed up with Lord Tensai to form the team Tons of Funk, and he spoke about the origins of the gimmick.
"I was like, 'Well it's different,'" he said. "When something is put at you, when you've worked on something else for quite some time ... Once I was told the direction we were going, the Funkasaurus [name] I figured out with my trainer Rob, [Naomi and Cameron] were my pitch, and all I asked was could I see [Dusty Rhodes] and go down to the [NXT] school and figure it out .... It was a lot of support, and it wasn't a bad thing .... We kept running those vignettes of the juggernaut and the monster character so people had no idea what was going on. On this day of stooges and the Internet and all that kind of stuff it didn't get out."
Clay also talked about one of the biggest disappointments of his career when he, Tensai and the Funkadactyls were slated to take on the Rhodes Scholars and the Bella Twins in an eight-person inter-gender tag match at WrestleMania XXIX (2013) in New Jersey but the match was pulled due to time constraints.
"You're devastated. You're disappointed," Clay said. "You help your team get to the Super Bowl, then your coach, for some reason, doesn't call your number. You know, as it went down, they were fighting for every last minute. I was standing in gorilla and I saw them look at the time and they were trying to figure out any possible way to get us out there. It's the nature of the business. It's just like that nightmare of running out onto the football field without your helmet. You hate to be on the receiving end of it. It was what it was but it stung for a long time."
The match happened the next night on RAW and Clay's team won, but missing the biggest event of the year stung. Clay appeared in a losing effort in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania XXX this past April.
There is a fear in the WWE that more talents could be losing their jobs as McMahon has emphasized making budget cuts by scaling back on talent and crew members while he's also slashing other expenses such as pyro and other day-to-day things the WWE uses.
There has been some paranoia backstage that McMahon could be prepared to release some more lower-tier wrestlers in the coming weeks and the NXT roster is expected to be trimmed down soon.
While Clay will move on to other things, he was able to take some time out to speak about being released by the WWE in a barrage of releases earlier this month.
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