EC3 On Being Released By WWE, Coming Back From Injury, Controlling His Own Narrative & Much More

Former WWE NXT Superstar EC3 recently spoke with Fightful, where he talked about his release from WWE, and how he now has control of his own narrative. He also talks about recovering from his injury, and much more.

Check out the highlights below.

EC3 on his release from WWE:

“7/18/2020 I become free. The very first thing I do when I become free is I’m going to get into a fight. But, yeah. I’ve had a lot of oppression, a lot of angst, a lot of rage, a lot of creative ideas, a lot of word vomit. Threw it on social media. People seem to love it or hate it. I don’t care, ‘cause I do it for myself and yeah, we’re going to take that show on the road and in a COVID world, we’ll see what happens.”

EC3 on not complaining about the past:

“Let me lay it out for you—so, my great Wall of Truth lies over there where I do most of my venting, my ranting, my raving. I had their video airing on the Wall of Truth as I dissected it and I am dressed similarly to the masked figure in their video, and they’re drinking whiskey so I pour a glass of whiskey for myself. I sip to it, watch the video. Had to rehash the past. I’m so sick of the past, [it’s all just dead.] But, whatever, yeah, it’s all coming back, blah blah blah blah, and I just got a little fed up. So, I took a bottle of whiskey, I said, ‘”You know, I like to break shit now ‘cause I’m an angry dude,”] and I threw it against the wall. Bam. My new logo popped up and I stared at the camera like a dead eyed badass. I said, “You have been warned.” Then, what my video editor missed is I spit. So, was that really me IMPACT Wrestling was portraying or was that a shoddy imitation. Spit on the opportunity.”

EC3 on if he has been cleared to wrestle:

“As physically cleared as I’ll ever be, I guess you could say. Yes. It’s actually a career marked by injuries. Herniated discs in my back. Four or five knee surgeries. Torn bicep. Tore my pec, just taped it back together. Lot of wear and tear from doing what we do, getting dropped on our heads and things. That was the hardest injury I’ve ever had to come back from.”

EC3 on coming back from his injury:

“It was… Yeah, a physical challenge is one thing, but a physical challenge with rehabbing the injury, you see progress on a day-to-day basis. You improve, even if it’s very slowly, there’s always improvement. But, with that, a lot of it was mental. It’s hard to improve when it’s just not coming back together. So, at this juncture, I’ve tested myself sparring. How do I feel physically? I mean, I look fucking great. I look fantastic. But, I’m also functioning highly, physically, like I’m moving real well now. But, I’d say that hasn’t been tested because the only way to be test it is to actually do it, and I haven’t been free enough to do it until 7/18/2020. So, that’s the very first thing I’m going to do. I could get my block knocked right off and never wrestle again or I’m good to go.”

EC3 on controlling his narrative now:

“It would be very easy to put a percentage on it, but I think that’s the old mentality. So, a lot of what I’m preaching now is controlling your narrative, fighting for myself, and becoming free. When you harp on the past, when you look to the past, when you use the past. Granted, there was this one time WWE fired me and I was so livid. I’m going to make myself into the biggest possible star I possibly can, in the shortest amount of time, and they’re going to call me abd come back. So, in addition to the injury I was not a happy person. Very sad. Constantly. I did not like day-to-days. The injury had a big part of that. The mental aspect. It was not easy. But, okay, so I got a raw deal. Who hasn’t? I could’ve done all this with it, but who cares? It’s the past. Fuck the past. Fuck nostalgia. There’s enough of that shit. I could use that as motivation to go forward and make myself an even bigger star, which I will do, or I could forget it and I could finally do something for myself. Which I have yet to do, not only in my career, but in my life.”

EC3 on CM Punk and Jon Moxley speaking out about their WWE runs:

“I would say, because I have such a high amount of respect and admiration for him as a performer and a person, that it would boost morale. Honestly, there was a victory within it because no matter who heard that, at least people who believed in me and why it was going so bad, at least it made sense. Because I am not the person to voice complaints loudly on the internet. I’m not one of the many people on the roster who bitch on social media, misspelled Instagram posts. That’s cool, if you want to do it. I never would do that. Because A) I think it’s a terrible look, and then B) I think you’re an idiot because do better. At least, for what aspect I can say, some people who know something what’s up and that’s the kindest words from a fucking guy I would love to have a knock-down bloodbath with some day. Rolling around in Taipei glass and chainsaws and whatever, or having a good standard wrestling match. But, a compliment for him. But, it doesn’t matter. It didn’t change anything. I would say those are two high level performers, at the highest level, and they weren’t handed anything. Those two guys earned it from the bottom to the top. But, I guess for the control your narrative aspect—I’m trying to see which way this word vomit is going to spew—I didn’t realize how miserable of a human being I was when I didn’t have control. I had no idea personally how bad I was inside having no outlet of creativity that I love, that I had no way to express this. I mean, there’s ways. I could have put videos on the internet, I’m still under contract. I could have knocked on office doors more to go nowhere with endless run-on about conversations, but I wasn’t at TV, so I couldn’t.”

EC3 on how he learned about his release:

“I didn’t realize how bad I was mentally until I was mid-yoga session. I had a phone call from Drake Maverick. I ignored it, and then the second after I ignored that call, I got a call from the WWE office and I’m like, “Oh, he got fired and so am I.” It made sense. I mean, something had to give with COVID. I was like, “Oh, yeah. Of course. I’m very easy to expel, I’m making good money and I don’t do anything. I have the conversation and I’m fairly close with who had to fire me. He was pretty bent out of shape. He’s probably having the worst day ever. Because he’s got to chop all these heads and it’s fine. It’s okay. Go ahead. Thank you. Because, in theory, I probably would have been, if there wasn’t a quarantine and pandemic, I would have not been the guy to post on social media and ask for my release. I would have been straight as a man and go to [best]. 100%. But, then there’s a pandemic, so I’m like, my parents’ business is probably going to go belly up because of them shutting down the economy, so maybe I need to stick it out a little bit longer. I hung up. I remember the first time I got fired. I was just like lost. I was at the gym and there was a little lap pool. But, this time I’m like, I finished yoga, went right back to it. It’s not like a workout where you can be intense. My mind was just calm. I was like, “I feel pretty good.” Then I go back to my phone. Word’s gotten out. But, this stupid astrology app I have had a notification pop up and it was, “You’re becoming the person you were always supposed to be.” When I read that, I was like, “Okay. We’ll see.” At the same time, this whole thing, I pitched it once in NXT, and never got a response. Then I got called up with a concussion, whoops!”