During Friday night’s Talk’N Shop Live shoot interview, Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson pulled no punches as they called out Paul Heyman for how he treated them while he was working as the executive director of Monday Night Raw. After signing lucrative new multi-year deals with the company (thanks to some negotiating by Triple H), the pair realigned with AJ Styles in the summer of 2019 as The OC. At first the pair thought Heyman had big plans for them as a dominant heel trio. But it wasn’t long before the situation soured.
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“It’s great to be a good charmer, but when you’re 100% full of bulls—,” Gallows said of Heyman (h/t Fightful for transcript). “We had this conversation in a rental car before we got on the phone with him. ‘All you ever read, all these guys that came before us, is that he’s a great charmer but the biggest bulls—er in the history of the business.’ We’re both going, ‘We hope he’s not bulls—ing us.’ We have these big contracts, we’re rolling with AJ, you gotta think positive. To the end, he’s putting us over and telling us how good we are and ‘we’re gonna put the straps on you a month down the line, but you deserve them now, but you’re gonna go to Saudi [Arabia] and be the best tag team in the world. If you ever have a problem with creative or if I ever lie to you, go on social media and f—ing bury me. F—ing put me under the dirt because I fucking deserve it! I want those guys in the locker room to know that I can’t f—ing be trusted!’ Guys in the locker room, he can’t f—ing be trusted and I just buried him.”
The pair played a role in the Boneyard Match at WrestleMania 36 between Styles and The Undertaker. But on April 15 the pair were two of the 30+ wrestlers released by the company. The pair started asking around and were told that Paul Heyman told Vince McMahon to put them on the list of released wrestlers. Heyman denied it when Styles approached him.
“AJ went to Paul and said, ‘Did you fire these guys or put the word in?’ Paul said, ‘No, you have my word that I didn’t do this. If I would have known, I would have gone to bat for them.’ AJ went back to the same guy, asked again, and then went to Vince,” Anderson said. “AJ goes to Vince and said, ‘Tell me the truth, is Paul the one that said fire these guys?’ Vince told AJ, ‘They weren’t on my list, but yes, it was a Heyman thing.’”
The two confirmed that Styles’ outrage over the situation was what led him to demand a move to the SmackDown roster. Heyman was fired from his role on June 11.
As for Gallows and Anderson, the pair announced on Friday that they had officially signed two-year deals with Impact Wrestling that granted them the freedom to work in New Japan as well. The two arrived in the final moments of Slammiversary on Saturday night.
