fightful

Backstage Reaction To "Big Men" Drawing The Frustration Of Vince McMahon

Added 2020-12-11 20:10:14 +0000 UTC

Fightful learned more about the edict to send several big men to take classes at the Performance Center under Drew Gulak and Adam Pearce.

Those that we spoke to say that many wrestlers were told to keep this quiet for obvious reasons, but word inevitably leaked.

Otis, Omos, Dabba Kato, Dio Maddin (Mace) and Keith Lee were among the names mentioned, but we're told there's supposed to be more. We're told this isn't in relation to heat on any specific wrestler.

Understandably, the locker room, and those at the PC I spoke to were baffled about the decision to send Keith Lee there, as he's considered one of the better workers regardless of size. Many believed and shared the sentiment that he was caught up in the group based on his size and otherwise would not have been included.

Dabba Kato was planned for Raw Underground, and since that was nixed, there have been no firm plans for him. The same happened with Arturo Ruas, Ruas was mentioned in the original report, he's not a part of this class and is out for a "significant amount of time" with surgery.

Otis is well liked backstage, but we were told of a couple of spots in recent months that got the attention of people at Gorilla Position that believed Otis could also be safer in the ring. There wasn't said to be heat in association with that.

Omos was a name that many expected to be sent to the class, but we were told that WWE had planned to have him on Raw during WrestleMania season, and didn't do much to prepare him for the spot from an in-ring perspective. He's had a half-dozen matches and is said to need either a lot of work, or some major smoke and mirrors at this point.

Most chalked up Dio Maddin/Mace, to being out of the ring for the majority of a year after being taken off WWE Raw as an announcer. He wrestled house show matches in prominent spots earlier this year.