Chris Hero: I Didn’t Consider Myself A Player-Coach In WWE

During his second run in NXT from 2016 to 2020, Chris Hero (Kassius Ohno in WWE) was referred to by some as a “player-coach.”

Hero would frequently wrestle on NXT and NXT UK while also helping out at the Performance Center as one of the coaches, shadowing Robbie Brookside. 

Speaking on Can Chris Hero Save Wrestling? Hero clarified that he was never a player-coach because he didn’t get the perks of a coach. 

“I don’t consider myself a player/coach. Someone said it, I don’t know if it was Dave [Meltzer]. When I think player/coach, I think Pete Rose. I would say that I was a talent that occasionally coached. I realize it’s semantics. I did not have a bump in my pay or benefit that a coach would have. I just considered myself one of the boys that was helpful because of my past as a coach,” he said. “Bloom shifted me in there, I ran a couple of classes. We didn’t know how long it was going to be. It went for a couple of months, to the point I was writing up reports on how talent was doing at practice.”

Hero said Johnny Moss had diaphragm issues and was encouraged not to fly. As a result of Moss being more limited, Matt Bloom asked him to work with recruits and shadow Brookside. 

Elsewhere during the podcast, Hero discussed his WWE release, which happened in April 2020 as part of company-wide cutbacks due to the COVID pandemic. You can find his full comments on his release by clicking here. 

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