Ricky Saints (FKA Starks) has discussed why things didn’t work in AEW.
On February 12, the man formerly known as Ricky Starks made his shocking debut on WWE NXT just one day after it was revealed that he had departed All Elite Wrestling. Prior to his AEW exit the 34-year-old hadn’t been featured on TV in over eight months, and now the former World Tag Team Champion has talked about what went wrong for him in the company.
Appearing on Busted Open Radio, Ricky said that he couldn’t pinpoint the moment that things began to deteriorate for him in AEW, with there being multiple factors that may have contributed to his exit. He later confirmed that he asked to be released from the company, but clarified that he was never unwilling to do something during that time.
“I can’t tell you exactly what the moment was. You could say it was Punk leaving and things kinda fell apart. Absolutely, I probably agree with you on that, alright? Or you could say is that Ricky didn’t play the politics well enough. Alright, for sure…there’s so many things you can say. What I can say for myself is that when I got hurt in March, that was it, I never came back. And even then, I wasn’t hurt, it was a precaution thing where I got scared as I had a stinger. Then I was fine. After that, no, no dice, no communication. No nothing. And that is okay because…I ended up here. And it’s fine. Everything worked out. I don’t know explicitly where it went wrong, I can’t point to one thing. I can say it was a storm of things probably. Did I do something that may have tipped them off? Sure, asking for my release whenever you know, this past whatever, that could have been about it right? But never once was I not willing to do something, never once was I sabotaging anything”.
-Ricky Saints
He went on to say that some veterans in AEW had been interfering with his creative business.
“I will say this, there are some people who stuck their nose in my creative business that shouldn’t have happened. Veterans. And that’s it, I’ll leave it at that. And if they got a problem with me, they got my number. And text me about it. I think what it was is if it didn’t work for their creative, then someone had to get the boot. That’s how I see it. But I’m not trying to be negative in my thought process about it…if you want to step on me to get ahead in your illustrious career, everyone has an illustrious career. Everyone should have an illustrious career. That is perfectly fine. But at the same time, I’m not wet behind my ears.”
-Ricky Saints
Last night, after not mentioning his name on air for over a week, Starks’ new identity was revealed to be Ricky Saints, and his first match as a part of WWE NXT was set up. Next week, Saints will team with Je’von Evans to take on Wes Lee and Ethan Page.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on Ricky Saints’ NXT future as soon we hear more.
H/T to F4WOnline for the transcription.
