5 biggest WWE backstage secrets that Luke Harper revealed
Luke Harper announced during WWE’s two-night 2019 Superstar Shake-Up that he has requested his release from the company.
The 39-year-old burst onto the main-roster scene in the summer of 2013 as a member of the Wyatt Family alongside Bray Wyatt and Erick Rowan. The following year, he became a singles competitor and went on to win the Intercontinental Championship in November 2014.
Between 2015 and 2017, he reunited with Wyatt, while he also teamed with Braun Strowman and Randy Orton during their spells with the Wyatt Family, and he became a two-time SmackDown Tag Team champion (w/Wyatt & Orton x1, w/Rowan x1) following his move to the blue brand in the 2016 WWE Draft.
In recent months, Harper has been cleared to return to the ring after injury but WWE only used him once – a match against NXT’s Dominik Dijakovic in the Worlds Collide special at WrestleMania Axxess – before his appearance in the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania 35.
Although it took a long time for fans to hear what the man behind the Harper character, Jonathan Huber, is really like outside of the squared circle, he has given more interviews in the last couple of years which have presented an insight into some of the backstage goings-on in WWE.
In this article, let’s take a look at five WWE-related secrets that he has revealed.
#5 He and Erick Rowan hated each other
Luke Harper and Erick Rowan are former NXT and SmackDown Tag Team champions. From the outside, it has always looked like they get along just fine and they have great in-ring chemistry together as a tag team.
However, as Harper revealed on the E&C Pod of Awesomeness in 2018, the two men did not like each other when they were first put together as a tag team in the summer of 2012.
He said (quotes via Wrestle Zone):
“When we first started, me and Rowan hated each other. I don’t know what it was. We just didn’t get along. We were forced to room together. He’s taller than me. If you look at some of my old pictures, I clearly tried to put weight on and it didn’t work well.”
Eventually, they realized that their careers in WWE would improve if they got along better, so that’s exactly what they did.
“He’s a f*****g giant, and he snores. So…I didn’t sleep a lot. We just didn’t get along. But, there slowly came the realisation of, ‘Hey, man. We are stuck together. Are we gonna fight against it or are we just gonna do it?’ It took me a long time to realise that… but when I did, we made it work way better.”