Maven was set to return to WWE, but the COVID-19 pandemic halted the plans.x
In a new YouTube video, Maven recalled how he nearly landed the opportunity to return to WWE. He first recapped his history with the company, as he noted that he turned down a potential opportunity to return in 2008.
"2005, WWE fires me, releasing me and ending a dream. 2008, they call back, they call back. Johnny Ace gives me a call, says, ‘Might have another opportunity for you to come back.’ This time, I wasn’t ready. After that, I went into other avenues of entertainment. BET, HSN, and I hope you saw the worst day of my life and watched my arrest video from 2012. So where was I at after that? What happened after that? So I took a lot of time off after the arrest. I basically just had to get myself together. I find myself in New York and working jobs that I wasn’t proud to admit I was working, coming from where I came from. By 2017, I had pulled myself out of a hole pretty well, and I was working with the Brooklyn Nets. I was with the Nets up until they signed Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving Once they signed those two, a lot of us were shown the door," Maven said.
Maven then explained how he reached out to D-Von Dudley and told him that he saw a potential role as himself as an announcer. He stated that D-Von connected him with Tom Phillips, who was working with WWE as a commentator at the time. Mave then detailed how WWE had him come to the Performance Center.
"In 2019, I reached out to D-Von, and knowing D-Von still had a great relationship with the WWE, I reached out and I said, ‘D-Von, I see a path forward. I see an opportunity, and I know I could work with the company, the company that I love, the company that brought me into this business. I see my opportunity, not as a wrestler, age wins, but I see my opportunity with maybe announcing, maybe backstage interview segments.’ D-Von agreed, and D-Von said, ‘Give me some time. Let me make a few calls.’ Week or two goes by, and D-Von calls me back and says, ‘I have a gentleman that I want you to talk with. His name is Tom Phillips.’ Tom helps find talent, along with Michael Cole running the whole thing. That kind of caught me off-guard because I remember Michael Cole’s role when I was in WWE, and to see that he had risen to where he was running that entire department, I was ecstatic. So I speak with Tom, and I think that our very first conversation was at last about an hour, and it was just an opportunity for the two of us to get to know each other. So Tom told me that there was an opportunity to perhaps get into the commentating side of the business. To do that, I would have to come down to the training facility. Now, it was going to be all expenses paid. They were going to fly me down, they were gonna take care of my hotel. I was gonna spend an entire day pretty much in Orlando, where NXT is located. To be honest with you, I was excited to go down, and I had heard just how amazing the facility was, but I had never seen it. So I knew it was going to be, if nothing else, just a good day," Maven said.
Maven went on to discuss his experience at the WWE Performance Center. He noted that Phillips was a gracious host, and he helped him a lot. Maven stated that he practiced calling some old matches that Phillips hand-picked.
"Tom had given me a bit of advice leading to that, and he asked me, point blank, he said, ‘Maven, are you familiar with the product?’ I didn’t want to lie to him. I said, ‘I’m actually not.’ I explained to him why I do not watch. He said, ‘No problem. Just familiarize yourself with our product.’ So the day of the interview, I arrive at the facility, and it’s actually one of the times that I’ve been on time in my life. I immediately met with Tom, and he comes up and could not be more gracious of a host. [He] takes a few minutes out to show me everything, and I’ll tell you, when they talk about the facility there, they undersell it because it’s amazing. So after I said my hellos, after I met a lot of people, then Tom took me back into a room where they have several monitors set up. Now, what they do with these monitors is, they go over and they practice. They get themselves ready for live television. They get themselves ready by calling old matches. That’s what we were gonna do that day," Maven said.
After noting that he spent a few hours calling old matches with Phillips guiding him, Maven stated that he thought it went well. He also recalled how he spoke with Triple H, and they caught up with each other about their personal lives.
“I thought it went extremely well. We called matches for a few hours. By this time, training was in full effect. He took me over to the ring, where guys were preparing for an upcoming live event that they were gonna have. Some of the talent was in the ring, some of the talent was getting their hair cut, some of the talents were getting a workout in. During this time, while there, I happened to bump into Hunter, and it was good catching up with Hunter. He and I probably talked for a good two-to-three minutes, caught up. We didn’t even talk the business. We talked family and just how we’ve been on a personal level. So it was good catching up with him," Maven said.
Once his practice was over, Maven explained that he spoke with Phillips again. He stated that Phillips called Michael Cole and told him that Maven had something, but he would need some time to hone his craft. Maven stated that WWE offered him the idea of working at the Performance Center for several months so he could practice, and he was ready to accept.
"Tom called Michael Cole, and Michael Cole asked him, immediately said, ‘How is he?’ Tom was honest with him, he said, ‘There’s something here.’ But is he TV-ready today? No, of course not. He would need to be here for several months, working on his craft.’ They come back to me, they said, ‘Maven, if you were given the opportunity to accept a job but we told you you had to move here and it would take you six-to-twelve months, coming to this facility and just working by the monitors and learning different matches, is that something that you’re willing to do at this level and at this age?’ I said, ‘Absolutely, I’ll start packing tonight. Tell me when, I’ll move here as soon as possible," he said.
Maven expressed his excitement about the opportunity but revealed that it all came crashing down when he got back to his hotel. There, he saw the news about the NBA canceling the rest of the regular season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As it turned out, his interview was on March 11, 2020, the day the world essentially shut down.
"I leave, go back, get to the hotel, and then I see it. Flashing up on the TV screen. Every hope that I had was dashed in a second. What I see flashed up on on the TV screen was, ‘NBA to cancel their regular season.’ What I didn’t tell you was the date. The date of my interview was March 11, 2020, the day that the entire world shut down," Maven said.
Maven noted that people were aware of COVID-19 at the time, but no one knew what it would turn into. He explained how his focus turned from the WWE job to his immediate future, as he was concerned about getting back home due to the lockdown. Maven pointed out that WWE started doing studio shows with a small crew of announcers they already had. He also revealed that Phillips later told him WWE was ready to offer him what they had pitched.
"Worrying about that job, it took second place because obviously, we started hearing about what was going on, people getting sick and family members being lost. My goal immediately turned into getting back to New York. At the time, we didn’t know if things were going to be shut down. So I got back to New York. Within a month, the entire world was on lockdown. WWE programming would stop live events. They would only do studio shows in that location, studio shows that only required a few announcers, announcers they already had. Years later, I would actually bump into Tom Phillips again. By this point, he had been released from the WWE. But I’m happy he landed on his feet, working with IMPACT Wrestling. He told me, he said, ‘You did a good job that day, and it’s a shame that you interviewed when you did.’ He says, ‘We were ready to offer you exactly what we spoke about. Have you come down, have you just accept a contract and work to see where you would fit into the rotation of the WWE programming.’ Who knows? I might have got down there and sucked. I might have got down there, and they’d be like, ‘Wow, we fired this guy in ‘05, we should have stuck with our instincts.’ The opportunity for me to be hired during that time was nothing. Life is not what happens to you. Life is how you react to what happens to you. I could have just gotten more bitter, but I didn’t. Instead, I waited for my next opportunity. You might ask, what was my next opportunity? Well, you’re watching it right now," he said.
Maven recently stated that he thinks he could have something to offer WWE as an announcer or as part of the talent development team. Check out his comments here.
Click here to see what Maven had to say about turning down his previous chance to return to WWE.
Bruce Prichard previously discussed Maven's run in WWE. Click here to see what he had to say.
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