Steve Maclin (aka Steve Cutler) was a recent guest on Tommy Dreamer’s House Of Hardcore podcast where he spoke about his WWE career. Cutler explained that he was grateful for his time in NXT with the Forgotten Sons and explained how he reacted when they learned the trio would be moving up to SmackDown.
Maclin then talked about how the group was pulled from television after Jaxson Ryker’s infamous tweets in support of President Donald Trump. Maclin explained how despite not posting anything himself, Ryker’s actions really affected the whole stable long-term. The group competed at Money In The Bank as their final match together, then Maclin and Wesley Blake continued to pitch ideas on how to separate themselves and get back on TV, to no avail.
“So we were going, like I said, the eight-month process of throwing ideas and they said, ‘you guys are coming back.’ And this is with Bruce Prichard at the time talking and he’s like ‘yeah, coming back, it’s you three, we’re just waiting for time.’ And okay cool. Like here we are. No matter what, we sent ideas in because I hated just sitting around collecting a paycheck. Does that sound stupid? Yes. But all we wanted to do was work because you’re paying us money,” he noted, “I want to do my job, so let me come work. And we just pitched tons of ideas.”
Maclin explained how one idea saw them playing an APA-style role, but then they were told that everything would be starting fresh.
“Blake and I wanted to just be the new APA where we could have had it set up in a certain way of having an APA door there. And at that time, during the era of the ThunderDome, they were bringing a lot more legends in just because of viewership at that time. Because people weren’t really kind of tuning in as much. And we’re like, ‘how can we make this work in our favor?’ Because this is what we wanted to do and still continue as a tag team. And just one day, we got told ‘hey, we’re starting fresh. New names, new look, new everything. Just you and Blake, no Ryker.’ We’re like oh, okay. And then they switched over to Amway, and this is around October timeframe of last year. So Blake and I, I’m like, ‘alright we need a face-to-face because I’m sick of emailing. Let’s just go to Amway.’ We got our COVID tests, we went over to Amway and we sat in front of Vince’s door. We had a packet made for creative, we wanted to just sit and talk. And then we just kind of hung out.
Maclin explained how they did eventually talk with Bruce Prichard and it was basically a way to get to know them better, but they ultimately got pitched the Knights Of The Lone Wolf gimmick.
“And we get the call saying, the week of SmackDown because they were still taping, of ‘hey, we need you guys to come in.’ We have two different looks, one is like this NBA suit with a hoodie look, and they sent us pictures of NBA players. I’m like ‘how is that gonna work?’ If the swag works like that but for me, I have a beard and hair, like I look disheveled, just an old vet. And same with Blake. And they’re just like, ‘no this is kind of what creative thinks works.’ We’re like, ‘okay cool.’ And then the other one was another look of, I don’t know if you play video games at all but like the “Hitman” series, where he’s got the nice right shirt and tie, he’s clean-cut kind of look and slacks and whatnot.
“So Blake wears the hoodie and the suit, I wear the tight polo, the tight slacks and a nice pair of shoes. And we come in and they said, ‘alright cool,’ we get pulled into the office, like this is what we’re gonna go with. And Vince is there and Prichard’s there, and Vince goes, ‘well Bruce, what do you like?’ And he goes, ‘I like that one.’ And of course, he points to Blake because we like the look at I was wearing. And he points to Blake, well sh-t. They said, ‘well we need you guys to have matching suits.’ We’re like, ‘well we don’t have that.’ They’re like, ‘what do you mean you don’t have that?’ Like we weren’t told to have matching suits. So here we are, 45 minutes before going live on TV, driving to Men’s Wearhouse to buy new suits.
Maclin said they were told WWE would pay for the suits, and they rushed back with the suits, straight off of the rack. Despite getting the attire, Vince McMahon still made them shave their beards off, which got some laughs from the locker room, including Cesaro, who joked about them getting the full treatment for a true gimmick change.
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