“So once we saw how things were going, when the Hurt Business was broken up, and then Shelton, after 20 years, was unceremoniously released — just like, ‘okay, you’re done.‘ They didn’t offer him a job as a trainer, as a producer. Like, yo, Shelton is one of the all-time greats. He’s under-appreciated, and he doesn’t get the flowers he deserves. But legitimately, Shelton is great… So, having said that, they just released Shelton.
“So, me and Bobby were still under contract. At this point, I was with Omos, and Bobby was doing his thing with The Pride. And I made up my mind, my contract was coming up, me and Bobby had contracts at similar times, and I made up my mind that I don’t want to be here anymore.
“And if Triple H is in charge, then I definitely don’t want to be here. Because I don’t like Triple H. I don’t respect Triple H. I think he’s a coward and a liar. And there have been many situations where he was dealing with Bobby, where he didn’t have the balls to tell Bobby the truth, creatively about what he wanted to do.
”There are multiple times that I tried to talk to him. And he would always, ‘I’ll get with you in a little bit’. Or the few times that I got a chance to get him in his office alone, he would call somebody to come in — he didn’t want to be alone with me. I don’t respect that. Tell me. I’m a professional. Tell me how you feel. We’ll do business based on that. You ain’t got to like me. There’s lots of people throughout my career that I’ve worked with that I don’t like. But we’re making money, we’re doing business.”
So, having said that, when I saw the political horizon, I told Bobby, ‘Triple H ain’t for us. Triple H won’t even talk to you. You try to get — you’re a two-time WWE champion, one of the most decorated champions in wrestling… Triple H wouldn’t give Bobby one-on-one time. Bobby wanted to talk to Triple H about, ‘Hey, what’s my direction? What am I doing here?’ Triple H always had something to come up… Other people had all the access they wanted.
“So, I told Bobby when we were sitting in catering, ‘Dog, I’m not going to re-sign. Don’t re-sign. You and me, get Shelton, and let’s go to AEW. Let’s go.’ Bobby was like, ‘Man, I don’t know.’ Like they were paying Bobby bank. And you know, hey — Bobby was on that level that he could just show up and you get easy money.
“But Bobby’s not that kind of guy. So, after a few weeks, Bobby started to kind of see the environment for what it was, and he was like, ‘Yeah, P, you right. When our contracts run out, let’s stop re-signing. Let’s get with Shelton. And let’s take this show up across the street.’”