A former WWE Superstar has discussed original plans for a faction and how the FOX Network intervened to prevent it from being broadcast.
During the pandemic era of WWE TV, the company would repeatedly throw out new ideas to try and keep interest in the product despite a live crowd not being in attendance. One of the more infamous ideas was the introduction of the faction Retribution, a group of masked wrestlers who attempted to disrupt the broadcast with chaotic actions. In a new interview, one of the former members has given an insight into the original plans for the group and how it was stopped by the network.
Former WWE Superstar Mace was eventually revealed to be a part of the group, being repackaged after being written off TV after being attacked by Brock Lesnar. Speaking with Steve Fall of Wrestling News.co, Mace confirmed that he was able to get into the group as his size would make the faction a lot more intimidating:
“The thought was and as I understood it, they weren’t sure where they were going. But the initial thought when they had the little guys — that’s actually how I ended up in Retribution was they had the little guys with the ski masks on making a mess. And then everybody bragged on it, because they were like, ‘Look at how small these guys are, Drew McIntyre would kill these guys.’
So the next week, they said, ‘Vince said get some bigger guys.’ So they actually got some Performance Center guys, and I managed to sneak my way in as an extra long enough to get unmasked, and actually get called up.”
After the group debuted, there were rumours and reports that Retribution was inspired by Antifa, the anti-fascist and anti-racist political movement in the United States. Later in the interview, Mace confirmed that the group were meant to be portrayed in a similar manner to Antifa but was told to stop by FOX, who broadcast SmackDown:
“But as I understand it, we were meant to be Antifa. When FOX, because it was on SmackDown, found out that there was an Antifa angle on Smackdown on their FOX program. They said, ‘Hey, stop.’ So confusion happened. They were like, how do we pivot this because they had already dedicated a decent amount of time to this angle. And then they gave us supervillain masks. And I’m like, Cool. Let’s lean into being — I really wanted to be like, like Power Rangers. Yeah, I wanted to be Puddies…we looked crazy, but like, I feel like there’s a vibe for that.”
Concluding his thoughts on the group, Mace admitted that Retribution never regained momentum after being forced to change by the network. Additionally, Mace is still curious how a love crowd would have reacted to the group as all of their work took place inside The ThunderDome:
“Yeah, but they just, it never really got back on track. Some people didn’t want to do it. And then they ended up — it kind of just lost steam, and they lost interest in it. And when they lose interest in it, you don’t win. And the only way things work is if you’re you know, if you have momentum, and we never had momentum at any point.
But it’s funny to hear that you (Steve) liked it because I get it all the time when I go out and I do things people are like, ‘Oh, we loved Retribution’ and it’s so interesting, because that entire period of my career was in the Thunderdome. So we had no live crowd.
I was never Retribution in front of an audience. So we had no idea how the audience was reacting to it. We’d obviously look on Twitter and Twitter’s you know, notoriously more negative. It would have been really fascinating to know how the audience would have reacted to the Retribution angle, just because that lets you pivot, you know, like, if they’re like, Oh, these guys are actually scary, then play into that.. Oh, these guys are kind of ironically goofy, play into that. But we’ll never know. It’s an alternate universe.”
Former WWE Star Mace Recalls Being Disciplined By Vince McMahon Live On Air
Prior to becoming a member of Retribution and later a Maximum Male Model, Mace would be known to fans as Dio Maddin and would briefly call the action on Raw. Despite the former WWE commentator having good chemistry with the other announcers, Maddin was told off by Vince McMahon for having too much fun.