Published: Sep 10, 2025 by Jamie Toolan | Last Updated: Sep 10, 2025 by Jamie Toolan
Jamie has been covering the world of wrestling for four years and currently holds the position of Assistant Editor of WrestleTalk.com. During his time working for WrestleTalk.com he has written and published over 4,000 news and feature articles covering events and happenings from WWE, AEW, TNA and a variety of international and independent wrestling promotions.
WWE
A pair of former WWE stars almost quit the company hours before making their main roster debut in 2018.
During Vince McMahon’s time in charge of WWE’s creative, it became a common occurrence for established NXT stars to receive drastic alterations to their presentation upon arriving on the main roster.
While stars such as Karrion Kross, Keith Lee and The War Raiders come to mind for many fans, another act who fell victim to a similar fate was former WWE NXT Tag Team Champions AOP (Akam & Rezar).
After a dominant spell on the black and gold brand between 2016 and 2018, AOP were called up to WWE Raw in April 2018, however, they did so without legendary manager Paul Ellering, who had been accompanying the duo throughout their run as a team before that point, a decision made by Vince McMahon.
Speaking with Metro, Rezar recalled he and Akam discussing potentially resigning from the company upon finding out that news on the day of their Raw debut:
“We were just called up. And the first day at the main roster, they were telling us, ‘You have to leave Paul Ellering.’
“And me and my tag team partner Akam, Sonny, he said, ‘Yo, let’s just give our resignation letter and just leave’. But Paul told us, ‘Try it out. I’ve helped you guys to get there, so much hard work, we can always get the band back together later.'”
Rezar said McMahon’s reasoning for the decision was due to the former WWE Chairman not wanting anyone older than him on WWE programming at the time:
“He didn’t like older people than him or people his age on the show. He wanted to be the only elderly person who would be in the spotlight at the time.”
AOP were later paired with Drake Maverick in September 2018, with Rezar stating that it “wasn’t the same” without Ellering, despite Maverick being a “creative genius”:
“Drake Maverick is a creative genius, man. He knows the wrestling business inside and out, [but] we were never happy on the main roster. We couldn’t do our thing, we felt like a piece was missing.”
In the same interview Rezar revealed that there were plans at one point for he and Akam to split up, with some in the company viewing Rezar as a potential solo star – click here for his full comments.
AOP were released by WWE in 2020 but would later re-sign with the company in 2023, joining fellow WWE alum Karrion Kross, Scarlett and Paul Ellering in The Final Testament faction, before being released again in February this year.
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