Rob Terry On His Release From WWE Developmental, The Concept TNA/Impact Called "Too Scary"

Chris Van Vliet had former WWE and TNA wrestler Rob Terry on The Chris Van Vliet Show, where the two talked about "Generation Iron: Natty 4 Life", a documentary that Terry is featured in. They also talked about Terry's release from WWE developmental, and the hard time Terry and his wife were going through at the time.

"Yeah, so I was with WWE. I think it was like a year and a half," Terry recalled. "It was just one of those things. I don't know man. I thought I was doing so good. I remember there was one instance when my wife and I, I was on a Visa with them and my wife was staying here on a Visa, and we just thought, 'Okay, let's go back home, we'll get married because we planned that all along.'

"And then, you know, I cleared it with the office and everything else like that, and I came back and it was just a weird thing. I was there for two weeks and then, you know, they called me and like, 'Hey, sorry man, we got to cut you,' and I'm like, 'Man! He's kidding me?' you know what I mean? so that was like a really, really hard time for me."

Terry was on The Wrestling Inc. Daily where he talked about how he was not able to show much of his personality while in WWE developmental. Terry admits to Van Vliet that an actual reason was never given for his release.

"You know, that's the thing with WWE, especially when you're in development. You'll never really know the actual reason," Terry admitted. "I personally have a few conspiracies of what happened, but I mean you're never going to know the true real reason. They're never going to say it to you, you know what I mean?

"But yeah that was a really hard time for me man because I really loved what I was doing. I was super new, you know what I mean? I had so much more to learn and everything else, but yeah that was a bum time for me you know what I mean because I really didn't see it coming. No one really did, but you know then again, my wife Sarah, she said, 'Hey, you want to do this right?' and I was like, 'Yeah, absolutely.' She's like, 'Okay, let's go up to Orlando.' So, we went up to Orlando and we went to see Bubba Ray and D-Von Dudley, and they have the Team 3D Academy in Kissimmee, Florida."

Terry had told Wrestling Inc. a few years ago that he was friends with Maven who had told him to go to Team 3D Academy to train. He told Van Vliet a story about training he did at the at the academy and explained what kind of teacher Ray was.

"I started training there and I bust my a-s. I had to do that," Terry explained. "I bust my a-s every single day because the type of people they are, they want you to prove it to them that you want it. You know what I mean? That's pretty much what I did. I drove up there like three to four times a week and I trained. And a cool thing with that is that Bubba Ray Dudley, I mean I don't know if you know who he is.

"He's a very straight-up guy. You know what I mean. He's like 'hey', you know, we talked. I told him my story about being natural and everything else, and he's like, 'Okay, you said you won't let me down right?' I was like, 'Sir, I would never ever let you down' and he's like, 'I didn't think so.'"

Terry said that he had to gain Ray's trust especially with everything that was going on at the time in regards to drug abuse. He said that Ray had vouched for him to sign with TNA. That led to him being part of The British Invasion along with Doug Williams and Magnus (Nick Aldis).

"I mean, he didn't have to go to bat for me because, at that time, they had Wellness Policy in WWE, and so was Impact Wrestling," Terry noted. "Professional Wrestling as a whole was under a microscope for situations that happened prior in 2006, where we had Eddie Guerrero and then the Chris Benoit incident. Where, basically, I mean, whatever happened, happened. But everything media-wise was pinpointed on steroids and performance enhancing drugs.

"So, it was really important for Bubba Ray to really have his trust in me, and then he went to TNA and said, 'Hey, look, I got this guy. You're probably not going to believe it but he's a freak', and that's pretty much where that came in. Little did I know until after that, but he really went to bat for me and he told him everything about me, and that point was history. I was part of The British Invasion, so yeah."

Terry reflected on his time in TNA starting with The British Invasion. He also talked about working with Robbie E, who is now Robert Stone on WWE NXT.

"It was a crazy ride for me. It was amazing," Terry said. "I love my time with a lot of the things. The British Invasion was awesome you. That was a really cool time. Then, we did the Robbie E thing and he's a very good brother of mine. When they first told me that we were going to do all that, I was like I'm not too sure where I fit into this because I'm not this guy. A lot like Robbie E, because he had his character down, but it turned out to be one of the coolest things, man, because we had such a chemistry.

"I know my role and obviously he knew his role, and we would just bounce a lot of ideas off each other. It just works so well and people give me a lot of flack these days. They're like, 'Man you've lost your accent, you've done this!' Well I credit that a lot to him because he would say bro in every other sentence, then I go home and I call my wife bro. I was like, 'Dude, you got to stop saying bro because I'm just calling everyone bro, even my wife!' but no, he's a really funny guy and we had such a great run."

Terry also reflected on his time with Team Immortal. He talked about how cool the experience was working with guys like Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair, who he idolized when he was a kid.

"Out of a lot of the things I did there, I really really feel like we could have got a lot more mileage out of that, you know what I mean," Terry said. "We could have done more, but you know again, it's the nature of what it is and it's professional wrestling, and you don't always have that call, so it is what it is.

"You know, I got to do a lot of cool stuff with Team Immortal, which is Hulk Hogan, and even with Ric Flair. Guys that, coming full circle, I used to idolize back in the day, and then I get the chance to work with these guys. So it was a really cool thing for me to be a part of that."

Terry later spent time in Japan with Wrestle-1. He was also later placed in The Menagerie with TNA. However, he talked about how that was a letdown for him because of the lack of control over the creative process of the stable.

"I got to do a bunch of stuff in between that, and then it came to The Menagerie," Terry stated. "So, that in a nutshell, it was very different for me because when we were kind of going into that, I was in Japan at that time. I was doing a lot of work in Japan and I was doing really well. I was well receptive over there, working with a lot of their major stars. So, for me, I was ready at that point to come back and just do a lot of damage. I was gearing up for that and, then again, like I said, you really have no control over a lot of things.

"You came back and then they were like, 'Hey! We're going to start this new thing and it's The Menagerie', and that was a bit of a letdown for me. It was a bit of disappointment because I was expecting something else and I was still ready to run with everything that they were given. But I felt that what I had was so limited, and even when they presented, okay, this is the idea that I had."

Terry said he offered an idea inspired by his love of horror movies. He said that he had an idea where he would be the next Boogeyman, but he said that he was told the idea for his mask design was too scary and later got watered down.

"Number one, I'm a huge horror movie fan," Terry admitted. "I love horror movies and everything else, so when they gave me the idea about this guy with a mask and, you know, was menacing and all this kind of stuff, I love that, okay? So, I have a few friends in the movie business and everything else and, the first thing I did is I hit this guy up, who's an awesome guy, and he made me this mask where he designed this mask. And this thing, I would be the next Boogeyman or whatever, not on TV.

"I don't know, man, but it was so menacing and I presented this to them and they were like, 'Ehhh, this is too scary' and I'm like, 'Come on!' this is what I want, you know, and they wanted something that was a little watered down."

Terry left TNA in 2015, and he cited the lack of ability to do his own thing. He did say he enjoyed his time working for the company and complimented the talented people that he got to work with. He also left the door open for a possible return if the opportunity arises.

"Anyway, we formed The Menagerie and it was a really good stable full of people, a lot of talent and everything else. But then again, it's just one of those things where we didn't have the opportunity," Terry explained. "And that was around the time when, you know, it came up for the contract negotiations. I really just wasn't loving what I was doing with the character, and I didn't have the ability to excel. And it was just that point where, you know, it just really wasn't worth staying there and just hanging around.

"I'd rather just try and do my own thing, and that's kind of where we parted ways on a mutual grounds. I'm not to say I'll never go back either, because again, I absolutely love my time. It's just with that character, you know, I just got a little burnt out because there was just no room to excel."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit The Chris Van Vliet Show with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

Mehdy Labriny contributed to this article.