The artist formerly known as Enzo Amore has revealed exactly what happened in the hours before he was fired by WWE after being accused of rape.
Amore, real name Eric Arndt, went into detail about the night he found out about the accusation when interviewed by Stone Cold Steve Austin for The Steve Austin Show Podcast.
The case against Arndt has since been dropped due to insufficient evidence.
But the allegations by an un-named woman, which Arndt has strongly denied, cost him his job and Real1 was keen to tell his side of the story to Austin.
Arndt also revealed that Vince McMahon was a big fan of his but Enzo had a huge argument with HHH during his time with the company.
Real1, who recently released a rap music video called ‘Phoenix’ aimed at his accuser, talked about how his last night with WWE was the Raw 25 special on January 22 2018.
Austin appeared on the same show and in fact, Enzo revealed on the podcast that Stone Cold was the first person he bumped into that night – and he was excited about working on the same TV show as his heroes Austin and Bubba Ray Dudley.
“It was another day at the office.
“Then I go to rehearsals with Goldust for my match…The Dudleys were going to come out and put me through a table…I’m going to lose my Cruiserweight Championship to Ted DiBiase in a poker game…it was the best day of my life.
“Then Nia (Jax was going to win) my title back for me. I had the longest (story) thread in the whole of Raw 25. They had to rewrite that whole f*****g show.”
Arndt explained in detail what happened when he met with Vince McMahon after the accusations broke.
“I go see Vince he’s the first person I go see, are you kidding me? Give me a break. So I go see Vince and he says, ‘we can’t send you out there tonight, we can’t put you on the show. This tweet, this is really bad.’ I didn’t say anything. I just stood there and I let Vince talk for a minute and I said, the first thing I said was, ‘you know and I know that I didn’t do this and I deserve better than this because I’m a good person’ and I walked out.
“You know I walked into Vince’s office, told him I was a good person and didn’t deserve this, I walked (into) the hallway. As I’m walking down the hallway at the Barclays Center he told me you know, ‘go home.’ I said to him I guess I’m on my way to DC, SmackDown is in DC. I’m like, ‘alright you sending me [to DC]?’ he goes, ‘go home and wait to hear from us and we’ll tell you if you need to come to SmackDown tomorrow.'”
“At that point I had no idea that I was suspended or being fired and the way it was kind of relayed to me it was like, ‘okay I guess I’m going to DC tomorrow, I’m playing by ear, waiting to hear.’ I walk down the hallway and I see Adam Hopkins and I see Adam and I’m like, ‘is there any further information? Have you guys gathered any further information?’ like on a legal tip. He says, blah blah blah and then he informs me that I’ve been suspended and the tweet already went out.
“I was just in the room with Vince. He told me I was sent home, told me maybe DC tomorrow, I didn’t hear I was suspended. Adam told me and I had just stepped out of Vince’s office. So when I heard that I grabbed Carrano immediately I saw him just by chance by something and I said, ‘I’m never gonna be able to forget this.’ I said ‘look at me right now I’m f*****g out of here and I’m not gonna forget this.’ I walked out with a lot of emotions, I turned my phone on airplane mode and I dipped out of Barclays Center and I know where I am I go from Brooklyn to my sister’s house in Deleware. I escape. I got in the car, I drove to Deleware, my sister’s house immediately from Raw and I recorded myself speaking the entire drive.”
Arndt has never released the footage of him speaking immediately after leaving Raw 25 and he told Austin he didn’t know what he was going to do with it.
He said Carrano called him the following day and told him he was being released.
“Six years…I put every bit of my soul in everything I was doing. To have it all taken away from you, is a reality check. This can all end so abruptly in this manner? I was MAD.”
Since leaving the company, Amore has reinvented himself as a rap artist and will return to wrestling on the indies.
He said he’d blocked every (WWE) number in his phone after he got released so he didn’t even know if the company had contacted him since the case was dropped.
Real1 also said he has sciatica problems so needs time for his body to recover before he can even consider going back.
Arndt, who was Cruiserweight Champion at the time of his release, also spoke about how Vince McMahon had big plans for him, but Triple H wasn’t so keen.
“I had plans to drop my music with WWE...an album or a single or two going towards WrestleMania.
“Vince got me tweeting Conor McGregor…he (wanted) me to be a big star in the company.
“I had a conversation with Hunter that I don’t think any other talent in the business has had. He ripped me a new one. He pulled me into his office and just went off. I will never repeat that conversation. The only person who knew about that conversation was Neville because he’s my best friend and I trust him.
“Mind you I (was) working with Vince on the music now…and I don’t think that (made) Hunter very happy. Because ultimately what Hunter probably feared happened…me getting in trouble the way I did was probably why Hunter, the whole time in NXT and on the main roster, didn’t want to give me a push, because why would he invest all this time in a guy he thinks is going to f*** it up?
“He said to me ‘ENZO…YOU’RE NOT GOING TO CHANGE THE F*****G WORLD!’ I said ‘DON’T YOU GET IT…I AM TRYING TO CHANGE THE F*****G WORLD!’ At this Triple H stood up and said ‘There’s no getting through to you’ and boiling hot mad, he walked me out of that room. The truth was, my boss Triple H and Vince or whoever it was, were looking at me and thinking this guy thinks he is going to change the world. But I’ve got news for you, those who are crazy enough to think they’re gonna change the world are the ones that f*****g do.
“Things that were going on back in the day…those principles of the locker room like Wrestler’s Court…I just let them know, I’m above it and not in it. I think I was the biggest radical that company had seen in so long. But Vince liked me.”
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