Chris Hero reflects on the difficulties he faced when he was first set to join WWE.
Chris Hero will return to the ring for the first time since 2020 when he faces Timothy Thatcher at West Coast Pro's Whiplash on November 17.
Speaking with John Pollock for POST Wrestling, Hero was asked about Wrestling Retribution Project, where he first faced Timothy Thatcher. He described how WWE rescinded his contract in 2011, and he was left in limbo because he had wrapped up with the other places he was working.
“I had met Jeff Katz years earlier, and he had talked about doing something, but those set of tapings were really important for me because I had signed with WWE and because of my testosterone situation with the medical, they rescinded my contract. So I moved down to Tampa to start with FCW, and I wasn’t able to start with FCW, and I wasn’t able to start with FCW. So I was in this weird limbo of, I finished up with everybody that I’m working for, and now I have no money coming in. So if you look at it, it took me five months, from the moment I moved to Tampa to actually starting with FCW. So that was five months of limbo where I was able to get on a handful of shows. I did a PWG, I did a Final Battle appearance and a follow-up for ROH. But these tapings, four days, went to Hollywood, shot it, and I got four, five days of good pay, and I really, really needed it. I got to see so many people from different areas of my career, people that I had met for the first time, people that I’d worked with for a very long time. We got to be a part of this special thing," Hero said.
Hero was then asked whether he looked at WWE like a closed door at that point. He stated that he was told to not come to the shows. Hero went on to describe the process of how he failed his physical, and he had to figure out what was going on. Eventually, he passed his physical, so he was able to start his journey in WWE.
“I was told to not even come to the shows. I was like, damn, I’d like to see people and say hi, and they were like, ‘Yeah, you probably shouldn’t.’ I was like, oh, cool. That gets depressing, like oh my god, I just moved. I was still paying rent in my place in Pennsylvania, I hadn’t completely gotten rid of it yet. So it was just a lot. I was basically told, like, paraphrasing, ‘Hey, it’s your issue, deal with it. We don’t know why you failed the physical. These are the numbers that we got.’ So I took it upon myself, and I went to doctors, I messaged a ton of people, and it just was really hard. People either didn’t know what to, because it’s this whole T/E ratio thing, like your testosterone over your epitestosterone. Basically, if it’s in a certain window, it throws up flags. But if it’s in that window, you have to find out what your baseline is first. I found a doctor, actually an incredible doctor from the World Anti-Doping Agency, Dr. Don Catlin, who did not know me, who responded to my email, pointed me in the right direction. He actually helped me figure this out. I had to figure out what the frick a carbon isotope ratio is, and then figure out all these things that I don’t know anything about. I got that test, and then gave it to WWE and said, ‘Hey, look, this is coming from my body. It’s not coming from outside of my body.’ They were like okay, cool, and they set me up with another physical. Went back to Pittsburgh, did the physical again, and they said, ‘You failed the physical.’ I’m like, no shit. That’s the whole point. So after working my way through that a little bit, they set up a different set of parameters for me, then I was able to start. But I didn’t know what the problem was, I didn’t know if something was wrong with my body. It made me nervous to take any kind of pre-workout or protein. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. So that’s why I had five months of purgatory. Claudio and I are coming in together, and then he gets a five-start head start on me, and he just passes with flying colors. Then I get there, and Dr. Tom’s on his way out," Hero said.
WWE released Hero in 2013. He later returned to the company in 2016, and he was released in 2020 in a wave of cuts due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Click here to see what Chris Hero had to say about returning to the ring.
Tony Schiavone previously spoke highly of Chris Hero as a coaching hire for AEW. Check out his comments here.
Fightful will have coverage of West Coast Pro's Whiplash once it airs on November 17.
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