"It wasn’t even my decision" - Former WWE star had heat for working closely with Vince McMahon
Former WWE Superstar Michael Tarver says he had heat during his time with the company for constantly working closely with Vince McMahon.
Tarver was a rookie in the first season of NXT and made his main roster debut in 2010 as a member of The Nexus invading WWE Monday Night RAW.
Speaking with Sassy Stephanie on her Talkin’ Sass podcast, Michael Tarver revealed that he used to work closely with McMahon on his promos, which some WWE stars weren't happy about.
"Vince [McMahon] and I were doing a lot of work backstage,’" said Tarver. "He was working with me one-on-one doing promos. Yeah, so another crazy story, you’ve [Sassy Stephanie] been there so you know how Vince, pre-show is always standing by the ring doing all of the control work and all of that clap work. Every Monday and Tuesday, Sundays for pay-per-views, he’s standing by the ring, checking all of the cameras and everything like that. Well, he started ditching that to do one-on-one work with me and pre-tapes and that was unheard of apparently.
"Yeah, it was kind of crazy because I remember they brought back — who was Umaga’s manager? What was his name? Armando Estrada was his name I think, and they brought him back and him and I were working together and Vince was doing promo work with him and I. No one was allowed — it was just Brawler, Brooklyn Brawler was the one that did pre-tapes and when he was there, he would work it and all of that but it was just me and Brawler, Armando Estrada and Vince and we were just for hours doing promos after promo after promo and I got so much heat for that. I was like, ‘It wasn’t even my decision,’ Tarver added."
Backstage politics and envy have ruined many careers in wrestling and prevented the creation of a lot of WWE stars.
Michael Tarver on Vince McMahon helping former WWE Champion Daniel Bryan with his promos
Michael Tarver and current WWE SmackDown star Daniel Bryan used to be members of The Nexus. Bryan, however, went on to have a more successful career in WWE while Tarver was released from the company.
During the interview, Michael Tarver added that Vince McMahon was focused on helping Daniel Bryan with his promos.
"So Vince [McMahon] would do the promos and promo classes and I remember he was like working so hard to get Bryan Danielson’s promos better," Tarver said. "That was just his pet project and he wasn’t really that good at talking. He’s amazing now. But he just wasn’t comfortable with it and Vince was just working hard, just calling Bryan up left and right."
Daniel Bryan went on to become a very good promo and a two-time WrestleMania main eventer.
Thanks to POST Wrestling for the transcription