Rhino: WWE Tried To Double My Downside, I Countered By Asking Them To Double That
After four years back in WWE, Rhino left when his contract expired in July 2019. Rhino had been used sparingly on television and live events after losing a “loser would be fired from Raw” bout to Heath Slater in December 2018.
Despite his inactivity in the company, WWE wanted to keep Rhino around as AEW, IMPACT, and ROH looked to stock up on talent. WWE made Rhino a big offer to stay, but Rhino decided to walk away from the money.
“They doubled the downside,” Rhino told Chris Jericho on Talk Is Jericho. “I only have so many years left. Hopefully, I can get eight more years out of this and ten more years out of the gimmick table. They obviously want to keep people. When a company goes to a toy manufacturer or video game company or TV networks overseas and says, ‘We have this product, can you invest millions of dollars.’ They’re gonna say, ‘what guys do you have?’ A lot of them are ignorant to the talent that is coming up. They just want to know how many years they’ve been on TV. You need name value talent. That’s why it’s very important if you’re WWE to keep the talent.”
He continued, “I doubled what they doubled. Mark Carano goes, ‘Vince thought it was pretty aggressive.’ I go, ‘I learned it from him.’ And he popped.”
Rhino would join IMPACT Wrestling after his WWE contract expired, kicking off a feud with Michael Elgin. Rhino revealed to Jericho that he signed a two-year deal with IMPACT that also allows him to work Independent dates.
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