Ridge Holland’s WWE story is fairly well documented at this point, and his new interview with 4FWonline covers much of it, and specifically from the point when Big E’s neck broke taking a suplex from Holland on SmackDown in March, 2022. The former rugby pro from England discussed his relationship with E, who seems at peace with not being cleared and now works as a host/panelist/interviewer for WWE and others. Ridge, whose real name is Luke Menzies, discussed getting death threats from fans throughout
the remainder of his run with the company, and being demoted through the system while being told everything was fine before finally being released while injured.
It’s all in the 4FWOnline’s conversation with Holland, who’s now healthy and hoping to reinvent himself on the independents at age 37. One new anecdote stood out about the days following the suplex to E that went horribly wrong four years ago.
Holland doesn’t go so far as to say he knows WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon and one of McMahon’s longtime lieutenants, Bruce Prichard, played a joke on him about an incident that changed his and E’s lives, and for which someone else in the company had just offered him mental health services. But given pro wrestling practical joking/ribbing culture, and knowing what’s out there about McMahon being a bully and Prichard being “Vince’s avatar”, as Ronda Rousey put it? We’ll say it.
Here’s Ridge:
“So initially, I was offered to go to counseling and stuff like that. Like it would be like, you know, obviously, like speak to someone, which I declined at that minute. I just didn’t really wanna speak to anyone, to be honest. The initial backlash, obviously, it’s funny ’cause the week, the week after, which I thought was kind of rough, they wanted me to do an apology promo live before I went out for a match.
“And I remember there were Vince [McMahon] and Bruce [Prichard] standing there, and they were counting down like thirty seconds till we go live. And I’m thinking, ‘I don’t know what I’m gonna say. I’m just gonna speak from the heart.’ And then it got to like five, four, and then they cut it. They just didn’t do promos right then. And then I had to go out and wrestle a match. So I think that was in poor taste. I think they did that to mess with me, and it really put a bad taste in my mouth, and I never really looked at those people the same, to be honest. I thought it was in really poor taste.”
Prank or no, it’s pretty heartless to make an already guilt-ridden Holland believe he was going to have to emotionally beg for forgiveness from a crowd looking to tear him apart.
But then heartlessness is just one of many things McMahon’s been accused of. At least Prichard is gon… oh, right, they told us all the problems went away with Vince.
