Former member of The Ascension, Konnor spoke to The Wrestling Inc. Daily podcast and advised how Vince McMahon’s vision of the team differed from how they were presented in NXT.
Konnor explained:
“It’s been a while since I’ve been there, but when we were there, there was this disconnect with NXT and WWE at the time, and to this day, we don’t know.”
The former NXT Tag Team Champion advised that Vince McMahon’s vision for the squad was simply to insult legendary tag teams of the past. One line scripted for him was “Oh, what a joke!” mocking Hawk of The Legion of Doom’s, famous catchphrase, “Oh, what a rush!”
Konnor advised how he tried to get that line changed:
“Our writer came in for that day, and I said, ‘Hey listen man, can you see if you can change this, because I’m not really comfortable with talking about someone that passed,’ and they said, ‘Okay.’ And they walked out, and 10 minutes later, they came back and said, ‘He [McMahon] doesn’t want to change it.’ So now the question is, did they really? Because the thing is, a majority of writers don’t have the balls to really talk to that man.”
The 39-year-old explained how he and his partner, Viktor set out to apologise and explain the situation to the teams they had insulted on-screen, including The Legion of Doom and The Powers of Pain:
“Vik and I were so grateful to see Animal before his passing, rest his soul, and we were able to talk to him. And he knew. He got it. He understood. He knew that we didn’t want to do that, and it’s a very humbling experience when you have to sit there. Paul Ellering was the first one I talked to personally face-to-face about it. Mick Foley, I had to talk to about it as well. I explained the story a little bit to Mick Foley, and I personally went to a show that my wife was on. And I saw Barb and Warlord, and I talked to them personally and explained everything.
The Ascension were released from their WWE contracts on December 18, 2019. The team are currently known as The Awakening and compete on the independent scene.
You can listen to the full podcast here.
h/t to The Wrestling Inc. for transcript