There was a rumor last month about MVP having backstage heat in AEW, and that included turning down pitches for The Hurt Syndicate to lose to specific teams like FTR.
“Speedball” Mike Bailey, Bobby Lashley, Shelton Benjamin, and MVP dismissed these rumors with a funny video cursing each other out, but speculation about it remained as MVP’s group dropped the AEW world tag team titles at Forbidden Door without being pinned in the match.
MVP more directly addressed the rumors of backstage heat in a new
interview with Chris Van Vliet, where he pushed back on the notion that The Hurt Syndicate is disliked by AEW’s younger talent. MVP did this while talking about the group’s move from WWE to AEW, and his immense dislike for a certain person in WWE management.
“The Hurt Business got shut down in WWE for reasons that have never been made clear to me. I begged Vince [McMahon]. Bobby begged Vince. Like, please don’t do this! Vince had his ideas of what he wanted to do, and everybody generally agrees that we got shut down way too soon.
So when it came time for our contracts, I made it very clear that I don’t want to be there anymore. There are people there in management that I dislike immensely. A person. I don’t even want to bother to get into that, but…that’s how life is. I don’t care where you work. When management changes, some people are out. Other people are in. And I knew it was time to go.
I wasn’t gonna re-sign. I was in Bobby’s ear constantly. Like, don’t re-sign, Shelton got released. Don’t re-sign. Let’s you, me, and Shelton get back together. Let’s go to AEW. Dude, I know we can go to AEW and we can pick this thing back up.
And I’m grateful to Tony Khan for seeing the value in us, and giving us an opportunity to come over there and continue to tell our story, and help some of these younger talents. You know, ’cause contrary to what the internet tells you, there are a lot of young guys that come up and ask us for advice, and ask us to watch their matches, and ask us for insight. And I love being able to pay it forward, because people gave it to me. So, thank you to Tony Khan for seeing something in us, and believing in us, and giving us an opportunity to end The Hurt Syndicate in AEW, and for us to finish telling our story.”
Does MVP’s answer change your thoughts about The Hurt Syndicate’s backstage reputation in AEW? Let me know in the comments below, Cagesiders.
