Rick Boogs was one of the many wrestlers WWE let go this past week. The former collegiate wrestler made his in-ring debut for WWE at an NXT live event in 2017. While his time on the NXT brand didn’t result in much in-ring success outside of his air guitar skills, he’d still get the call-up to WWE’s main roster in 2021 to join forces with Shinsuke Nakamura. The pair would challenge for the SmackDown Tag Team Championships at WrestleMania 38, but Boogs suffered a torn quadriceps and patellar tendon injury that would keep him out of action for the next nine months.
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Upon his return, Boogs would briefly work alongside Elias but stopped appearing on WWE TV after WrestleMania 39. His last match would up being the Slim Jim Battle Royal at SummerSlam back in August. Boogs (real name Eric Bugenhagen) posted a new video to his YouTube page and briefly addressed his release, claiming there were backstage political machinations that tampered with his career.
“All right fellas, we’re back and let me tell you, it’s been an interesting time in my life, with my job in WWE being terminated due to a backstage political power play, at least that’s my opinion of it, but now’s not the time to talk about that. I will get into detail about that when the time is right…” Bugenhagen said (h/t WrestleTalk). Stay tuned for more updates.
One of the big hurdles Boogs initially had to overcome was having his name changed once he jumped to the main roster. He talked about overcoming that in an interview with GiveMeSport in late 2021.
“I was definitely happy for the most part, and then the only thing that was negative was you’re saying that Rick Boogs was gonna hold me back that name and I accept that as a challenge. Because I don’t think so. I think Rick Boogs is gonna, it’s gonna get way more over in a sense. I think I take that as, ‘Let’s see what we can do with this name [of] Rick Boogs.’ As of right now. I mean, let’s look at the entrance [with] Shinsuke. Right? I’m ‘Rick Boogs’ I’m saying like, what would we have done with Bugenhagen in that sense? ‘My name’s Eric Bu-gen-ha-gen!’ I mean maybe that could have worked but I think Rick Boogs works better in that sense,” Boogs said.
