Charlie Haas is not proud of his impersonation gimmick in WWE.
In August 2008, Haas began impersonating other wrestlers, a modification of the alter-ego character he was running earlier in the year. For the next eight months, Haas dressed up and mimicked everyone from The Undertaker to Beth Phoenix.
During a recent interview with Chris Van Vliet, the former WWE Superstar said that it came at a time when the company was trying to get rid of him. Not wanting to get a bad reputation, Haas took the opportunity and viewed it as a chance to honor the people he grew up watching. That said, he's still not proud about how it all shook out.
“I think that was when they were really trying to get rid of me and find a way to get me out of there. But I looked at it as a chance to honor the people that I grew up watching and embrace it. I did the best that I could, I didn’t want people saying ‘He has a bad attitude, let’s get him out of there.’ It’s crazy, I get so many people coming up to me about me doing this character or that character. It’s part of my career that I look back at and I did it because I had to. I am not proud of it; it was not something that I wanted my career to be based on. But I guess a lot of people watched it, because I get more people coming up to me, I guess they liked it," Haas said.
Haas continued on, explaining that there was one person he really didn't like impersonating. He said the following:
“If you are honoring them and they enjoy it, then that’s good. The only one I didn’t like was when I had to do JR. I don’t know what was going on with JR and WWE at that time, but they wanted me to really make fun of him. He’s the guy that signed me to my WWE contract, and my feet were put to the fire with that. I wasn’t too happy about that. I apologized to him for it, and I wish I put my foot down and said I don’t want to do that. But I didn’t have the pull to say we were not going to go in that direction. It wasn’t fair to him and it was wrong.”
After being released by WWE in 2010, Haas made his way to the independent scene, specifically finding a home in Ring of Honor. Though he announced his retirement in 2013, he would continue to wrestle a handful of matches each year for independent promotions.
Beginning in November 2018, Haas took two years off before re-emerging in SWE last year. There, he not only serves as the Champion but as a mentor to up-and-coming talents looking to make their way in the wrestling industry.
