The more time passes since Montell Vontavious Porter and Bobby Lashley left WWE to eventually arrive in AEW with Shelton Benjamin as The Hurt Syndicate, the more information MVP has shared about his behind-the-scenes issues with WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque.
In a video posted today (May 25) on the YouTube channel for Marking Out, MVP’s podcast with his friend Dwayne Swayze, we see The Syndicate’s manager answering fan questions during “Brawl Crawl”, a wrestling-themed night out
that Porter was a featured part of during WrestleMania 42 week in Las Vegas last month (specifically Fri., April 17).
John, the fan who got this particular answer, kind of seemed to be asking his question about the Hurt Business’ WWE exit in storyline, at least to me. That didn’t seem to impact MVP’s lengthy answer, which doesn’t sound kayfabe in the slightest:
“So once we saw how things were going, when the Hurt Business was broken up, and then Shelton, after 20 years, was unceremoniously released — just like, ‘okay, you’re done.‘ They didn’t offer him a job as a trainer, as a producer. Like, yo, Shelton is one of the all-time greats. He’s under-appreciated, and he doesn’t get the flowers he deserves. But legitimately, Shelton is great… So, having said that, they just released Shelton.
“So, me and Bobby were still under contract. At this point, I was with Omos, and Bobby was doing his thing with The Pride. And I made up my mind, my contract was coming up, me and Bobby had contracts at similar times, and I made up my mind that I don’t want to be here anymore.
“And if Triple H is in charge, then I definitely don’t want to be here. Because I don’t like Triple H. I don’t respect Triple H. I think he’s a coward and a liar. And there have been many situations where he was dealing with Bobby, where he didn’t have the balls to tell Bobby the truth, creatively about what he wanted to do.
”There are multiple times that I tried to talk to him. And he would always, ‘I’ll get with you in a little bit’. Or the few times that I got a chance to get him in his office alone, he would call somebody to come in — he didn’t want to be alone with me. I don’t respect that. Tell me. I’m a professional. Tell me how you feel. We’ll do business based on that. You ain’t got to like me. There’s lots of people throughout my career that I’ve worked with that I don’t like. But we’re making money, we’re doing business.”
So, having said that, when I saw the political horizon, I told Bobby, ‘Triple H ain’t for us. Triple H won’t even talk to you. You try to get — you’re a two-time WWE champion, one of the most decorated champions in wrestling… Triple H wouldn’t give Bobby one-on-one time. Bobby wanted to talk to Triple H about, ‘Hey, what’s my direction? What am I doing here?’ Triple H always had something to come up… Other people had all the access they wanted.
“So, I told Bobby when we were sitting in catering, ‘Dog, I’m not going to re-sign. Don’t re-sign. You and me, get Shelton, and let’s go to AEW. Let’s go.’ Bobby was like, ‘Man, I don’t know.’ Like they were paying Bobby bank. And you know, hey — Bobby was on that level that he could just show up and you get easy money.
“But Bobby’s not that kind of guy. So, after a few weeks, Bobby started to kind of see the environment for what it was, and he was like, ‘Yeah, P, you right. When our contracts run out, let’s stop re-signing. Let’s get with Shelton. And let’s take this show up across the street.’”
Porter goes on to talk about how he already had the trademark filing on “The Hurt Syndicate” in process for the trio at that point, and all it took was being free of their WWE deals (which MVP insists was 100% his and Lashley’s choice) and a call to Tony Khan.
Somehow, we doubt that portion of the answer will be as dissected as what’s transcribed above.
Watch in yourself in the attached. It should be queued up to the right spot (approximately 17:30), or watch the whole thing!
