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Michael Tarver reveals WWE had big plans for him as a manager.
The former WWE star was a big part of the infamous “Nexus” faction. Over time, their loss to John Cena at Summerslam 2010 has largely been viewed as a huge booking error, and the men in the group never recovered from it.
Tarver suffered an injury and was released in 2011, ending a short run with the WWE in a controversial fashion. This was before Michael Tarver was to become a manager in the WWE, despite still being in good in-ring shape.
Michael Tarver spoke with Developmentally Speaking. He revealed the WWE had plans for him to become a manager. He worked with Vince McMahon on his promos every week to get ready for that.
“I tried to go with it”
“There were some, uh, tentative plans. They wanted to try to make me a manager, and I hated that idea. I would talk to Dusty [Rhodes] about it all the time and ask him, like, ‘How does it make sense if I’m a manager and I’m bigger and more intimidating than who I’m managing? I can talk better, so if I’m big, intimidating, have the look, and I can talk, why not just put me in the ring? Put a belt on me, give me a push, do something with me.’ I can talk, but I came in the wrong package.’ But they tried the manager thing, so I tried to go with it.
“I did everything I could. I remember Vince McMahon would have private sessions with myself and Armando Estrada, who was Umaga’s manager when they were on SmackDown. It would be just the two of us. I don’t know if he was officially back yet, but they had an idea for both of us. One of us would be on one show, one on the other. Every Monday, for about two hours, Vince and I would be in the pre-tape room with the good old Brooklyn Brawler. He’d be filming pre-tapes. We’d just be practicing. Vince would give me different words, like, ‘Do this, give me a promo on this, give me a promo on that.’ He was just drilling me.”
Michael Tarver: Despite Having Big Plans, WWE Released Me
Michael Tarver continued. The former Nexus member revealed that people kept telling him that they had “big plans” for him as a manager in WWE.
However, it never came to fruition, and he was released soon after. He called the reason for his release “messed up”, but never gave any details.
I had people coming up to me, tapping me on the shoulder, saying they had huge plans for me. They’d tell me to get ready, that something big was about to happen. I was blown away, especially after being buried through the Nexus and all the hard work I did behind the scenes to show that I was as good as anyone they’ve ever had on the mic. I know it sounds crazy, but you had to be there. Then, for it all to just kind of fall apart… But yeah, I enjoyed the challenge, even though I didn’t want to be a manager. I just dove all in and said, ‘You know what, I’m going to do it,’ but it just never happened.”
“I know why they did it, but I’ve never spoken about it publicly. It was messed up. They just gave me the generic, ‘We don’t have anything for you.’ I’m like, ‘Well, you were just marveling about my promos a couple of weeks ago.’ They said, ‘We’re going to send you to Japan and Puerto Rico, bring you back,’ the same old spiel. Well, I went to Japan and Puerto Rico on my own, by myself, without their help, and I never went back. But yeah.”
In the past, Tarver said that John Cena had heat with him at one point and tried to bury him, but they ended up on good terms. Tarver has also praised names like Mark Henry and MVP for being mentors to him during his time in WWE.
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