When Forgotten Sons were removed from television, allegedly due to a tweet from Jaxson Ryker endorsing then-President Donald Trump, not many people would have predicted that the one Superstar from the faction still on WWE programming months later would have been Ryker himself. With both Steve Cutler, now Maclin, and Wesley Blake, now Westin Blake, being released from the company, I asked the latter how he looks back on the entire process of being removed from television.
Speaking with Inside The Ropes‘ Lead Writer Gary Cassidy, Westin Blake recalled the creative pitches he made to get back on television after he and Steve Cutler were taken off television, including wrestling as Bray Wyatt’s puppets brought to life, before revealing the initial disagreement with Jaxson Ryker about the tweet.
“When the whole Jaxson Ryker tweet happened, we were told like, ‘Hey, we’re not going to be using the Forgotten Sons anymore,’ … Looking back on it, it’s one of those things that everything happens for a reason. When that tweet happened, Steve and myself messaged him and asked him if he would take it down. At that time, he declined. He said, ‘No, I won’t take it down. I see nothing wrong with that tweet.’ And so we told him up front, just like, ‘Hey, well, we’re going to kind of put our own opinion out there and kind of separate ourselves a little bit from you,’ which he understood. I think when he sent out that tweet, he didn’t realise, I think, how big it was going to get and how it would stop momentum.”
Blake revealed the aftermath of what happened, with the plan seemingly to have he and Steve Cutler return to television to resume the nixed feud with then-SmackDown Tag Team Champions The New Day, before those plans changed and Cesaro and Shinsuke Nakamura replaced The Forgotten Sons as number one contenders.
“When that tweet happened, Steve and myself, we went into the Performance Center to talk with creative and they kind of let us know, like, ‘Hey, we’re going to let this blow for about two weeks and then we’ll kind of bring you back and y’all start going again with the New Day.’ So, you know, at that time, we didn’t think the tweet was going to cause that much damage. But then, of course, a week later, we were told that they’re going to go into a storyline with Cesaro and Shinsuke.”
Blake revealed that Jaxson Ryker apologised “repeatedly” for “halting their careers” before the former WWE Superstar humbly added that he and Steve Cutler were given an opportunity that just didn’t pan out.
“Once that happened, Ryker apologised to me and Steve repeatedly. He didn’t mean for our careers to get halted like that or anything, he didn’t want to have that negative effect on us. I think it’s just the way the company was going forward. I think they saw it and thought, ‘OK, well, we’ll split them up.’ Ryker can go to Raw. Steve and myself went to SmackDown. We were given an opportunity with with the Wolves and it just so happened that it didn’t pan out, I guess, the way they wanted it to be. So they just went a different direction with the company and then, of course, Ryker stayed on Raw with Elias and now he’s doing his thing with it.”
Meanwhile, Jaxson Ryker is engaged in a rivalry with Elias on WWE RAW, where he pinned Cedric Alexander on this week’s RAW in a tag team match while teaming with R-Truth.
Thank you to Westin Blake for taking the time out to speak to us! You can follow Westin on Twitter and Instagram. You can read the interview in full here.