Eddie Dennis offers more insight into his departure from WWE.
In May 2023, former NXT UK talent Eddie Dennis joined NXT as a writer and producer. In November 2023, he announced that he had come to terms with "the release of WWE" and returned to the independent scene.
Speaking with Mark O'Brien for WrestleMobs (via Irish Wrestling & Entertainment), Eddie Dennis recalled getting the offer from WWE to join NXT as a writer.
“In January, I want to say, of 2023, the WWE reached out and formerly offered me the writing gig. They were like, but the thing is about the writing gig, it’s like a full-time job. While you’re living in the UK, you’ll sign into the office remotely every single day, you’ll work, and while you’re over here, you’ll come to the office every single day. Obviously, we filmed live every Tuesday, and that’s a full day. When you’re over in Florida, you go to coconut [shows] on Friday and Saturday. So they were like, so you wouldn’t be able to carry on wrestling. It wasn’t a contractual obligation of, ‘You can’t be a wrestler.’ It was more just like, you can’t be a wrestler. There just isn’t enough hours in the day. You can’t be a writer for WWE and have a part-time hustle. It isn’t logical. So I was gonna have to step away from wrestling if I wanted to take the writing job. I had to take the writing job because I was hemorrhaging money as an independent wrestler. I’m 38, this is was my root to stay within wrestling, which I wanted to do. I wanted to remain a part of the industry. This was a way of me remaining a part of the industry for the next 10 or 15 years," Dennis said.
Dennis was asked to comment on producing television, and he recalled that he worked several weeks as a writer. He noted that the idea was that he would learn how to be a writer in NXT, and ideally, there would be something for him in NXT Europe once that got up and running. Dennis then recalled how he was unhappy with the writing job, so he asked for his release.
"I started as a writer in February, so I’d already done five, six weeks, seven weeks maybe as a writer. I just figured that was my job, so I wouldn’t wrestle again. I never did actually emigrate out there. The idea was always that I would learn how to be a writer on NXT, and then maybe by the time I’d learned how to be a writer, there would maybe be something over here. It was kind of the blue sky thinking of what would happen. So I spent ten weeks in Florida in 2023, which was very difficult because they were five-week trips, my wife wouldn’t come with me. She runs a dance school over here. I missed being away from her, and I wasn’t terribly happy. Ultimately, that’s why I left the writing role I’m November. I wasn’t satisfied with it, I wasn’t enjoying the process. If it had been a different world and they’d have got us a visa and they’d have helped me and my wife emigrate out there and I would have been living in Florida, I feel like maybe it would have been different. But I was writing for NXT but living in [Europe], and I was signing into an office at 4 p.m. and signing off at 1 a.m. It’s a creative environment and there’s a room of writers, and you’re on a face on a screen and it’s hard to contribute creatively in that kind of environment because it’s very discussive. I felt like I was giving them a way, way better version of myself when I was in Florida. When I was over here, I was just finding it hard. It’s the middle of the night, and I’m not in the room to converse. I’m on a screen. So I didn’t believe I was giving them by best, so in the end I just decided to ask for my release from the company. At least to my face, they completely understood. Shawn Michaels and Johnny Russo, the lead writer, were super nice and understood, and [they were] almost apologetic that it hadn’t worked out the way that we all hoped that it would have worked out when I came on board. But [they] understood why I didn’t want to be in that environment. People talk about the braveness when I left my head teacher role to wrestle full-time, but it felt much braver when I quit the writing job because that was job for life with the company that was always supposedly the dream company. When I was a writer and I left writing, probably to have to go back to teaching, I’m like a 38-year-old giving up on his dreams. So that one is a lot braver, and that one’s a lot scarier because you’ve got this role in this company, and you’re like, ‘I’m a company guy. You ask me to be somewhere, I’ll be there. I’m always gonna be on time, I’m always gonna work hard.’ I had no reason to believe they would ever release me. Which is kind of why I knew that I wasn’t happy in the environment, the only way I was gonna get out of the environment if I was gonna ask to be released," Dennis said.
Dennis stated that he was torn about the decision, given the financial ramifications. He went on to note that he wouldn’t say anything bad about the company because they took care of him.
Dennis previously discussed his return to the ring. Check out his comments here.
In recent months, Dennis has been active on the independent scene, as he has wrestled for PROGRESS and other companies.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.
