Rick Boogs should have received special treatment in WWE, former superstar says (Exclusive)
Rick Boogs recently received his release from WWE after six years with the company. Newly crowned NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion EC3 believes his former NXT co-worker deserved more opportunities.
Boogs, real name Eric Bugenhagen, amassed a large audience on YouTube before joining the wrestling business. At the time of writing, the 35-year-old's comedy and fitness channel has 309,000 subscribers and 103 million views.
EC3 discussed the latest WWE releases on Sportskeeda's The Wrestling Outlaws show with Dr. Chris Featherstone and Vince Russo. He said WWE's creative team should have allowed Boogs to show off his personality more on television:
"If I'm creative and I'm writing for this show and I'm writing for Boogs, my segment's gonna say, 'So and so does this, and Rick Boogs does what he does. The end.' And you just let it go because it's probably gonna be better than any dumb s**t you'd think of," EC3 stated. [16:57 – 17:13]
Watch the video above to hear EC3 issue an NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship challenge to another recently released star, Dolph Ziggler.
EC3 is surprised by Rick Boogs' WWE release
In his last four months with the company, Rick Boogs' only televised WWE match ended in defeat in the Slim Jim Battle Royal at SummerSlam. Before that, he formed a short-lived alliance with Elias on RAW.
EC3 thinks Boogs has the potential to succeed somewhere else in the wrestling business:
"That surprises me because the dude's jacked, crazy charisma. I think he does stuff on YouTube where he's getting millions of views. His Instagram's very funny. He has a ton of personality. I haven't really watched much of his work. When I was on the way out, he started, but it seemed like he could get it. He can be something." [11:33 – 11:56]
Following his release, Boogs claimed Vince McMahon's removal from creative work "killed" his WWE career.
Please credit Sportskeeda's The Wrestling Outlaws and embed the video if you use quotes from this article.