"He wasn’t happy the way I left" - Former Intercontinental Champion reveals Vince McMahon's reaction to him leaving WWE

Ahmed Johnson was a major player in WWE when he signed with the Fed in the mid-90s. The former Intercontinental Champion had a number of memorable feuds during his WWE career and was also a member of the Nation of Domination. Johnson ended up leaving WWE in 1998 and later signed with WCW.

Speaking to Michael Morales Torres of Lucha Libre Online, Ahmed Johnson opened up about his relationship with Vince McMahon and Vince's reaction to him leaving the WWE:

"I had good experiences with him. But when I left, I don’t think he was too happy I was leaving in the way I left. He basically had a chip in his shoulder about me. He wasn’t happy the way I left the company."

Ahmed Johnson on signing with WCW and the difference backstage to WWE

In late 1999, Ahmed Johnson signed with WCW and revealed that it was former WWE writer Vince Russo who contacted him. At the time, Russo had left WWE and was head writer of WCW and was looking to to bring him in:

"I got approached by Vince Russo. Yeah, Vince Russo with Stevie Ray asked if I wanted to come in, give me a spot and I said yes."

Ahmed Johnson also discussed the difference between the backstage atmosphere in WCW to that of WWE. Johnson said that WWE had a lot of backstage cliques at the time and pushes were sometimes affected by this. In his opinion, this was not the case in WCW:

"There was a big difference between backstage on WWF and WCW. WCW was a whole lot smoother to myself (individuality) type of deal. On WWF you had a lot of cliques developing. You had to be in one of the cliques to get yourself going, and get a push. But in, WCW you didn’t had that. They had a bunch of guys minding their business. Which is cool with me."

During his brief WCW run, Ahmed Johnson was a part of the Harlem Heat 2000 faction along with Stevie Ray. Johnson was released by WCW in 2000.