Ex-WWE Star Claims Pandemic Foiled Their 2020 Return

Maven holds the honor of the first Tough Enough winner back in the early 2000s and remained with the company for a few years before he was given the pink slip. Interestingly enough, he was set to return to WWE in 2020 but the pandemic killed his chances.

Maven was largely used as a midcard performer, but always managed to have great feuds with the likes of The Undertaker, Chris Jericho, Shelton Benjamin, and more. He was eventually released in 2005 and never came back to WWE after that.

While speaking on his YouTube channel, the former WWE Superstar revealed that he was ready to return to WWE back in 2020. Maven reached out to D-Von Dudley expressing his interest in coming back to the company, not as a wrestler but in a role like announcing or backstage interviews.

With D-Von’s help, Maven got a chance at the Performance Center, where he had a positive audition with Tom Phillips, calling old matches. After receiving a job offer, Maven was excited about the prospect of joining WWE as a commentator. However, his excitement was short-lived as he learned about the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, witnessing the shutdown of sports and entertainment.

“I reached out to D-Von and knowing D-Von still had a great relationship with the WWE, I reached out and I said ‘D-Von, I see a path forward I see an opportunity and I know I know I could work with the company.’ The company that I love the company that brought me into this business and I see my opportunity not as a wrestler, age wins but I see my opportunity with maybe announcing, maybe backstage interview segments.

Tom [Phillips] took me back into a room where they had several monitors set up. What they do with these monitors is they practice, they get themselves ready for live television and they get themselves ready by calling old matches. And that’s what we were going to do that day… He knew I was buddies with Matt Cardona so he actually pulled one of Matt’s and Brian’s old tag matches out just to help aid me with my comfort level. So we then spend the next few hours just calling different matches and he’s guiding me.

I happened to bump into Hunter and it was good catching up with Hunter. He and I probably talked for a good two to three minutes, caught up… We didn’t talk even talk to business. We talked family and just how we’ve been, just on a personal level so it was good catching up with him.

They say ‘Maven if you were given the opportunity to accept a job but we told you you had to move here and it would take you 6 to 12 months coming to this facility and just working by the monitors and just learning different matches is that’s something that you’re willing to do at this level and at this age? And I said ‘Absolutely! I’ll start packing tonight! Tell me when I’ll move here as soon as possible!’

I get to the hotel and then I see it. Flashing up on the TV screen and every hope that I had was dashed in a second and what did I see? Flashed up on the TV screen was ‘NBA to cancel their regular season.’

“March 11th 2020 the day that the entire world shut down… That job, it took second place because obviously, we started hearing about just what was going on obviously you heard about people getting sick and family members being lost my goal immediately turned into making it back to New York.

“Within a month the entire world was on lockdown. WWE programming would stop. Live Events, they would only do studio shows in that location. Studio shows that only required a few announcers. Announcers they already had.”

Maven was a part of the professional wrestling world as he was competing in the Figure Wrestling Federation. Triple H also previously spoke to Maven about his WWE return but nothing came of that. By the looks of it, it is unlikely Maven will be returning to WWE anytime soon.

What’s your view on this story? Do you feel bad the COVID-19 pandemic ruined Maven’s WWE return? Sound off in the comments section below!