Enzo Amore On If WWE Has Contacted Him Since His Release, Vince McMahon, If He Wants To Return
Former WWE superstar Enzo Amore was recently a guest on The Steve Austin Show. During his conversation with Stone Cold, Amore discussed the moment he decided to leave professional wrestling.
Amore, whose real name is Eric Arndt, was released by the WWE in January due to sexual assault allegations against him. In May, it was announced that no charges will be filed against Amore following the police investigation. Amore revealed it wasn't this situation that made him want to pursue a different career, but rather a moment of clarity during a hospital stint. Amore said in that moment he realized he wasn't long for the professional wrestling business.
"This could end today. This could end tomorrow. You just don't know," Amore said. "I asked myself, 'What are you going to do when you are going to finish wrestling? When this is over, do you want to be that corporate guy sucking dick and making rounds, saying hello to everybody and drinking coffee?' You can't put a cubicle on Enzo Amore. You can't put a cubicle around Eric Arndt. I am an entertainer by all means, and I am going to always take stages and will fall on my face with those stages without a care because I am not afraid to fail."
Amore also discussed what he did during the four months after he was released by the WWE. He stayed off social media for the entire time, except for posting a single cryptic message. Amore said he had to endure an ordeal of going back and forth with his lawyers and the police in an attempt to clear his name.
"The four months consisted of me emailing or calling or trying to communicate through my lawyers everyday and they would get back to me two weeks later. What happened was that when this girl made this tweet they realized that this girl did make this claim in October, but she was on her way to rehab and popping for drug tests we didn't take it seriously so we didn't investigate it. When my lawyers–now I am paying out the ying yang for the lawyers. I don't have money since I was fired. I'm paying these lawyers to try and get in touch with the police to see what is going on and the only thing that we get is that there is an investigation and my name was brought up," he explained. "Finally, through ridiculous communication, we had to threaten the police. We said that we were going to go to every social media outlet and that Enzo is going to start talking. I am going to start talking to the media because if someone did get raped here, you have let this sit here for five months and a tweet is the reason why you have to take action? That is absurd! Finally we had to pay tens of thousands of dollars for nothing just to conduct an investigation to prove my innocence. Not to charge me, not to perform an investigation to bring about charges, just so that I can say to the world that I am innocent. I had to pay for that to get done."
Amore said his reputation in WWE was overblown and he doesn't believe he would ever have made it as far as he did if he truly was a terrible person like he was portrayed to be. He said he had a great working relationship with Vince McMahon and he worked hard to be a superstar the company could believe in.
"You can look around in WWE, you can say whatever you want about me, but I can look around and say that there wasn't anyone around where you can say that you were sitting next to a piece of s–t. There wasn't anyone in that locker room that was not a good human to get to that point because you don't make it to WWE with that present day structure and the corporate world of Fortune 400 business to get a piece of s–t who gets more airtime on TV than any other individual," Amore said. "So, for a year and a half I was on 205 Live and Raw. I was on TV more than any other wrestler in the company, meaning, Vince McMahon was investing more time in me than any other superstar. Time is money which means he believed in me. I had a great relationship with Vince McMahon. You think about the guys that I worked along with, there was no s–tty humans, you just don't get there. You just don't make it. To look at my six-year run, whether they were fed up with my antics or whatever inaccurate assessments that were made, you have the ability to touch people's lives and I had that opportunity and I didn't take it lightly.
"Now, you look at the person who accuses me and look at their track record you ask yourself how is the police not doing anything right now? When you found out that I was innocent y'all found out a week or two later. Innocent in a sense that I didn't have to go to trial. You found out a week or two later. In the meantime, I have a mom, family, and a bank account that is winding down and losing patience, people and fans are losing patience, in the meantime I am doing the smartest thing I can do is be social media silent for four or five months because I knew that when I did speak up that it was going to be in an extreme matter."
Amore said he doesn't know if anyone from WWE reached out to him after his release because he blocked their number. He said he is nursing a slew of injuries and he has no interest of speaking to anyone from the company. He believes he put his all into the company during his run and he needs some time to recover.
"I couldn't tell you [if WWE has tried reaching out]. I blocked every number that had 203 in it. Straight up. I couldn't go back anyway. I have sciatica. I can't walk, bro. I can't do things physically that I once can do. Getting to the end there heading to WrestleMania, I was saying to myself that I wasn't sure that I could make it to WrestleMania, I wasn't even sure that I could make it to the Royal Rumble," he said. "I was so beat up but I kayfabed the s–t out of it. I don't want to go back anytime soon. I need my body to recover. I am not healthy right now physically. I can't touch my toes. I used to be able to. I was putting off so many things and burning the candle until the end. When I was a heel and had that title I was going hard. I was showing up to work. I had a few nights that I didn't have any nights of sleep, but you just couldn't see it on camera."
If you use any portion of the quotes in this article please credit The Steve Austin Show with a H/T to Wrestling Inc for the transcription.
Source: The Steve Austin Show
Peter Bahi contributed to this article.