The Authors of Pain (Akam & Rezar) were one of the more dominant tag teams in WWE, winning the 2016 Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic and NXT and Raw Tag Team Championships.
They were aligned with Seth Rollins as his heavies when Rollins turned heel following his WWE Universal Championship run.
In September 2020, they were released by WWE.
Speaking to Ango, Authors of Pain discussed their WWE releases.
"We departed from the company, it was nothing negative about it. COVID had just started, we were in a pretty big storyline at the time. What happened was, we couldn't travel anymore. COVID was very strong, we were asked to do something, like go back, and we opted out of it. We didn't feel comfortable doing it. That was the big thing. Nobody really knew. 'What happened with AOP?' Nothing, we opted out to stay with family, take care of our family and be home," said Akam.
He continued by saying, "There was a lot of uncertainty, all across the board. WWE officials, there was uncertainty with what they wanted to do and as far as humans and family men,new had our own uncertainties of what we wanted to do for our families. That's all it was, there was nothing else to it. We have no ill will towards the company. They booked us good and treated us well. Nothing negative about it."
AOP were off television from March 2020 after Rezar suffered a biceps injury.
"I healed fast and was fully recovered in four months time. I took a hotel next to the facility in Pittsburgh to do my rehab. They came back with a plan, we opted out of it. We thought our personal needs were more important at that time. COVID hit, we wanted to be with family. We took that decision to go home, recover fully, we stayed in really good contact. The last twelve months, we worked harder than we ever did," he said. "We stayed silent for a reason, we wanted to come back with a bang. We obviously had a lot of offers, a lot of talks. We felt like the right thing hasn't really got us yet."
They said that they missed the fans and now that crowds are back, they wanted to get back with them.
The duo has now created BulleApePlanet NFT and are working on a wrestling project that takes place in the metaverse. They noted that Paul Ellering, who managed them in NXT, has invested in the project.
They noted that it's not just wrestling in the metaverse, it's living in the metaverse.
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