Konnor On If He Was Surprised By WWE Release, Not Having A Working Relationship With Vince McMahon

Before the end of 2019, Konnor and Viktor of The Ascension were released by WWE. The Ascension have been announced for future indie dates following release.

Now going by Big Kon, the man formally known as Konnor was on the Wednesday episode of The Wrestling Inc. Daily podcast in an interview with Wrestling Inc.'s Justin LaBar. He talked about whether or not they knew they were going to be released.

"We knew. I think the one thing that anybody knows about us is we're not big social media guys," Konnor said. "We don't go out there, and we don't blast our problems out anything like that. We try to keep everything under the umbrella. There had already been talks that were discussed as far as there wasn't really a purpose.

"We loved being there, but you can only sit around for so long before you start twiddling your thumbs kind of like, 'ok guys, what are we doing here?' And when you're kind of told so many things [where] nothing comes to fruition, you get that opportunity, it's kind of like, 'well, do you want to sit there for another three years or five years?' Not like it's a toxic relationship. It's just one of those things where there's no need to pay, and we knew we weren't going to re-sign. There was no intention of re-signing, and that's nothing against WWE. It was more along the effects of the situation and the circumstances as far as them not really having anything for us just keeping us around."

Konnor talked about how he did not want to just be in the wrestling business just for the money. He explained the bad message it would send to his son if he stayed in WWE just for financial reasons.

"One day I'm gonna have to look at my son and tell him really go for what you believe in," he explained. "How can you say something like that when all you're thinking about is the money, and that's not why I got into this business, and I'm pretty sure that's why I succeeded as far as I did. It was never really about the money, but I think for the last three years, it just started to become a numbers game. I hate saying that, but that was kind of the reality of it all."

LaBar asked Konnor about his contract status before his release. He talked about their contracts being close to expiring and the amount of time he and Viktor had been sitting at home due to creative not having anything for them to do outside of being enhancement talent.

"We only had two more months left. We literally had two months left. We had been sitting at home for almost nine months. They literally had taken us off the road. We literally just sat there through the last portion of our contract. It's just one of those things where it was nice to be honest with you," Konnor said. "There's some more backstory to why things went the way that they did. Basically, I had a discussion with one of the gentlemen that were there where they were talking about possibly making some things happen. My only question to them was why. There was really no point. There was nothing going on for us. We were clearly there to do one thing and that was to be 'enhancement talent', and that's just the reality of it. So you kind of just take a step back and [say], 'this isn't why I got into this business.'"

The Ascension received a big debut on the main roster, but their push soon slowed down. The Ascension had only made brief appearances in 2019, and Konnor said that there was never really a reason as to why they stopped being used.

"There was never really a reason. I spoke to a few people there that were 'the higher-ups'. I'll just never forget. I pulled one of the gentlemen aside speaking with them. He just looked straight into my eyes and face and told me, 'I don't know what to tell you. I've been pitching stuff for you guys.' I think when that happened, it started to be very deflating. That's not quite what you want to hear as a performer. You always want to do something. You always want to be involved," Konnor said. "I think once that started happening, which I couldn't even begin to tell you where all of it started, I have no idea why. It was just one of those things where what are you gonna do? It was what it was to be honest with you."

Konnor noted that he and Viktor never had a working relationship with Vince McMahon despite attempts to pitch ideas and set up meetings. He also talked about the Fashion Files with Breezango being the best time of his WWE career.

"We didn't really have much of a working relationship with him to be honest with you," Konnor admitted. "It wasn't a 'hey Vince, how you doing' type thing. We always said hello and stuff like that, but we would try to get meetings with him. You just never know around that place. Some guys would just knock on the door, but for the majority of the time, Vince was either busy with writers. It just seemed like, at the time, it was always something. We threw pitches out. Some of the greatest stuff that we did that we really enjoyed was the Fashion Files, and it was a lot of fun because you got to see a new side of us or at least a different side of us. I always knew we could be goofy at times, and that was a lot of fun," Konnor said. "I think they pulled the plug on that too because Vince wasn't quite buying it. I don't know. It's just one of those things where us personally, we didn't have a very close relationship with him. Some guys get that benefit, and some guys don't. We, unfortunately, were the ones that didn't get that one-on-one time."

Konnor's full interview with Wrestling Inc aired as part of Wednesday's episode of our podcast, The Wrestling Inc. Daily. Subscribe to get the latest episodes as soon as it's released Monday – Friday afternoon by clicking here.