Shane Thorne Recalls Pitch For Vince McMahon To Lead RETRIBUTION

WWE

Shane Haste (fka Shane Thorne and Slapjack) has recalled pitches for top WWE names, including Vince McMahon, to be unveiled as the leader of RETRIBUTION.

In August 2020, a group of vigilantes began to wreak havoc backstage at the WWE Performance Center. Months later, on the October 5 episode of Raw, it was revealed that Mustafa Ali had formed the RETRIBUTION faction.

On the Two Man Power Trip podcast, Haste noted that he wanted the stable to be tied to one of WWE’s ‘main characters’. Revealing that the group also pitched for the likes of Shane McMahon and Edge to lead them, Haste said:

My theory, I’ve never been told anything solid, but my theory was, we were running out of the PC at the time with a skeleton crew, none of the big stars were coming every week. We moved to the ThunderDome, all the big stars came back, and Vince had his stars to play with now. That’s what happened.

“When your TV show gets the main characters back, you’re going to use the main characters. We pitched ideas to have a lot of different people as the leader like Shane McMahon, Edge, or someone higher. We pitched for Vince to be the leader as well. We went as high as possible with who the leader would be.

“We wanted to be attached with one of the main characters. I guess, at the start, we were. We were doing stuff with Bray Wyatt and Hurt Business. The only direction we really got was after we did something.

“We got a lot of creative freedom in that, to an extent. ‘Be like this,’ then we’d do it, ‘sort of not like that.’ It was very trial and error and I think they got bored of it, honestly. Ali becoming the leader was not something we pitched, but it was a happy coincidence. It was great when we found that out. We were stoked about that, then the little storyline we had there with him turning his back, that was great and was a story. Then it wrapped up and finished again.”

Haste was released by WWE in November 2021, last wrestling on WWE TV in April 2021. The former Slapjack made a surprise appearance at the recent NJPW Rivals tapings, which you can read more about here.

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• Creative
• Retribution
• Vince McMahon
• wwe

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