The former Authors of Pain reflect on departing WWE.
Akam and Rezar, as AOP, were on top of the tag team division in NXT and eventually would be placed in a main event program with Seth Rollins. Unfortunately, an injury derailed that angle and in 2020, they would be released.
Now, both men are talking to Renee Paquette on The Sessions podcast about why it was more important to them to stay home and protect their families during the pandemic and some of the things that WWE did that ruffled their feathers.
“The pandemic started, and at the time, like everyone was super, super uncertain about what was going on, because I was living in Canada in Vancouver at the time, so I was flying back and forth. Then the borders shut, right. So I couldn’t do that anymore. Gzim hadn’t been home in two years at the time,” said Akam. “He was worried about his own family because the whole world was getting shut down. People were getting sick left, right, and center, right? WWE had approached us with something different that they wanted us to do. and we were just like, ‘Hey, man, we just don’t feel comfortable doing it. At the time, that was the best decision for us. We decided to just stay with our families and stay home.”
Continuing on, Akam stated that he would rather not get into the details of what WWE wanted them to do but he was comfortable declining whatever the offer was.
“I’d rather not [go into details] it was something in the company, obviously. But at the time, if you remember, we were working with Seth, we’re working on top and we had this huge storyline. But at the time, Gzim had just gotten hurt. He tore his bicep. I think that was the last Raw before all the restrictions went in and then we went without a crowd, I believe and he’d just torn it. The whole time was coming back and just doing what we were doing before, and what had happened was he came back after four months and the script had completely changed and what they wanted us to do, at the time, we weren’t really comfortable doing. We’re family, man. I’m an only child. I like taking care of my parents. Gzim’s got a brother and sister but at the same time, he likes taking care of his parents, too. They’re getting older. So I just said, ‘You know what, this is good. I got to stay home and take care of my family. Gzim said, ‘That’s the best decision for me as well.’ Then after that, we didn’t even think about wrestling, you know, all the offers or whatnot, we sat back and we were just like, ’We’re just gonna let this pandemic end,’ and the pandemic never ended.”
The former Rezar added on to that saying that their hearts are still in wrestling but while they were with WWE, promises were made that were not kept and that was enough for them to part ways with the sports entertainment juggernaut.
“Our hearts are still in wrestling. Coming back in this way, we love it a lot. But of course, if everything would have gone well with WWE, we saw ourselves still wrestling for WWE, right? I came back after hurting my bicep. I rehabbed it in three and a half months, like in 14 weeks. it was a double incision, bicep repair. Usually, that’s eight months of rehab. I did it in three and a half months. I went back actually to the WWE office and I told them, ‘I’m ready to go again.’ They said no. I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ I’m just gonna say it here, we shook hands on something really big, and they want didn’t want to follow it up anymore after I got hurt and the pandemic started. So that’s also one of the reasons why me and Sunny said, ‘Hey, we’re gonna go home,’ right? We decided to get on we’re gonna go home and do our things, man. Because we’re people that if you make a promise, and you shake hands, you have to act on it, or you have to fucking cover promises. Once we feel like somebody doesn’t do that, we cut you off right away. That’s how we are,” he proclaimed.
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